DataBaseball
2026
Liam Hicks headshot

Players · H · C · 2026

Liam Hicks

Age
27
B/T
L/R
Height
5' 9"
Weight
185 lb
Number
#34
Born
June 2, 1999 in Toronto, ON, Canada
MLB debut
March 28, 2025
Drafted
2021, round 9
College
Arkansas State
dbWAR
4.9
2 season(s)
PA
544
AVG
.281
OBP
.366
SLG
.431
wRC+
128
100 = avg

Liam Hicks is a catcher for the Miami Marlins. So far in 2026 he has hit 18 home runs and knocked in 82 RBIs, notching 132 hits across 544 plate appearances in 140 games. His batting average is .281, 15.4% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .366 clip and slugged .431, for an OPS of .797, 10.9% higher than the league mark of .719 — the second best on his team, and 80th of 462 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 84.2 mph off the bat, hit 27.0% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 3.6% of them and made contact on 88.6% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 128 wRC+ puts his offence 28% above average. That comes to 3.5 dbWAR — +15.6 runs with the bat, +0.8 for the ballpark, -0.3 on the bases, +0.8 on double plays, +0.0 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.

wRC+128
wOBA.353
ISO.149
BB%10.3%
WAR3.5

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +33.7 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting+15.6Ballpark+0.8Baserunning-0.3Double plays+0.8Position+0.0Replacement+16.8
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

3.51.80.02526

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026MIA/TB140544132188235655.281.366.431.149.28310.3%10.1%.353+15.61283.5
2025MIA1193908264524356.247.346.346.099.27811.0%14.4%.317+0.41051.4

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

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.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP1141001911017.190.274.230.24114.9%
vs RHP430369113174638.306.391.485.3838.8%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 421 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 419 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
3.6%
15 barrels
Exit velocity
84.2
mph average
Max exit velo
108.9
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
27.0%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
31.1%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
14.3°
average
Barrel rate3.6%
Exit velocity84.2 mph
Hard hit rate27.0%
Contact rate88.6%

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.

.297.278.208.154.18438 AB.25547 AB.20824 AB.32749 AB.41268 AB.38121 AB.24337 AB.30243 AB.28614 AB
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 Liam Hicks 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.
SituationPAABHHRRBIBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBA
All situations544——————.281.366.431.353
Bases empty29725863663129.244.343.333.314
Runner on first1079633715912.344.411.625.445
Runners on2472116912762526.327.394.550.401
RISP140115365611614.313.381.487.366

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

Head to head

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Similar players

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

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.