Players · E · 3B · 2026 regular season

Christian Encarnacion-Strand

Baltimore Orioles American League East3B

Age: 27
B/T: R/R
Height: 6' 1"
Weight: 224 lb
Number: #32

Born: December 1, 1999 in Walnut Creek, CA, United States
MLB debut: July 17, 2023
Drafted: 2019, round 34
College: Oklahoma State

Compare with…vs Randal Grichuk vs Justin Foscue vs Leo Bernal

dbWAR: 1.1
PA: 213
AVG: .277
OBP: .325
SLG: .513
wRC+: 132

Christian Encarnacion-Strand is a third baseman for the Baltimore Orioles. In 2026 he hit 11 home runs and knocked in 39 RBIs, notching 54 hits across 213 plate appearances in 58 games. His batting average was .277, 13.5% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .325 clip and slugged .513, for an OPS of .838, 16.6% higher than the league mark of .719 — the second best on his team, and 33rd of 465 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 89.2 mph off the bat, hit 37.8% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 10.5% of them and made contact on 71.4% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 132 wRC+ puts his offence 32% above average. That comes to 1.4 dbWAR — +7.0 runs with the bat, +0.4 for the ballpark, -0.5 on the bases, -1.1 on double plays, +0.7 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.

League context

Percentile among qualified batters, 2026 regular season.

wRC+132

wOBA.358

ISO.236

BB%5.2%

WAR1.4

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +13.1 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

Batting Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only.


2026	BAL	58	213	54	11	39	1	11	55	.277	.325	.513	.236	.328	5.2%	25.8%	.358	+7.0	132	1.4
2025	CIN	36	137	27	6	19	0	3	32	.208	.234	.377	.169	.223	2.2%	23.4%	.261	-6.1	62	-0.4
2024	CIN	29	123	22	2	16	0	4	35	.190	.220	.293	.103	.247	3.3%	28.5%	.224	-8.9	36	-0.8
2023	CIN	63	241	60	13	37	2	14	69	.270	.328	.477	.207	.336	5.8%	28.6%	.347	+5.4	119	0.9

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Season

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2026. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHP	79	69	20	7	8	24	.290	.372	.638	.424	30.4%
vs RHP	134	126	34	4	3	31	.270	.299	.444	.320	23.1%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 142 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 143 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate: 10.5%
Exit velocity: 89.2
Max exit velo: 111.8
Hard hit: 37.8%
Sweet spot: 37.8%
Launch angle: 18.4°

Barrel rate10.5%

Exit velocity89.2 mph

Hard hit rate37.8%

Contact rate71.4%

A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2026.

Below averageLeague averageAbove average

Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .243.

Situational hitting

How Christian Encarnacion-Strand hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.

Split by

By who is on base when he comes up. The season line is repeated as the baseline.
Situation	PA	AB	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA
All situations	213	—	—	—	—	—	—	.277	.325	.513	.358
Bases empty	117	110	31	7	7	6	35	.282	.325	.536	.369
Runner on first	40	37	9	4	9	2	10	.243	.282	.622	.378
Runners on	96	85	23	4	32	5	20	.271	.326	.482	.344
RISP	56	48	14	0	23	3	10	.292	.357	.375	.321

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.

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Similar players

Nearest 2026 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Justin FoscueTEX

wRC+: 129
HR: 11
AVG: .271
WAR: 1.5

Leo BernalSTL

wRC+: 128
HR: 5
AVG: .284
WAR: 0.7

Jac CaglianoneKC

wRC+: 124
HR: 23
AVG: .289
WAR: 3.4

Randal GrichukCWS

wRC+: 138
HR: 15
AVG: .287
WAR: 1.8

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.