DataBaseball
2026
Jordan Walker headshot

Players · W · RF · 2026

Jordan Walker

Age
24
B/T
R/R
Height
6' 6"
Weight
250 lb
Number
#18
Born
May 22, 2002 in Stone Mountain, GA, United States
MLB debut
March 30, 2023
Drafted
2020, round 1
High school
Decatur
dbWAR
4.1
4 season(s)
PA
659
AVG
.273
OBP
.331
SLG
.473
wRC+
126
100 = avg

Jordan Walker is a right fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. So far in 2026 he has hit 29 home runs and knocked in 101 RBIs, notching 164 hits across 659 plate appearances in 156 games. His batting average is .273, 11.9% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .331 clip and slugged .473, for an OPS of .803, 11.8% higher than the league mark of .719 — the second best on his team, and 66th of 462 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 92.7 mph off the bat, hit 49.9% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 12.5% of them and made contact on 67.7% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 126 wRC+ puts his offence 26% above average. That comes to 3.5 dbWAR — +16.7 runs with the bat, +1.5 for the ballpark, +1.2 on the bases, -0.4 on double plays, -5.9 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+126
wOBA.349
ISO.200
BB%7.6%
WAR3.5

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +33.5 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting+16.7Ballpark+1.5Baserunning+1.2Double plays-0.4Position-5.9Replacement+20.4
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

3.51.3-0.823242526

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026STL156659164291012150172.273.331.473.200.3347.6%26.1%.349+16.71263.5
2025STL108396786411029126.215.278.306.091.3107.3%31.8%.263-17.365-0.8
2024STL501783352011050.201.253.366.165.2525.6%28.1%.269-6.370-0.3
2023STL1174651161651737104.276.342.445.169.3318.0%22.4%.343+8.91131.7

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 LHP1731534492040.288.370.516.38523.1%
vs RHP4864481202030132.268.317.458.33727.2%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 432 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 433 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
12.5%
54 barrels
Exit velocity
92.7
mph average
Max exit velo
117.2
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
49.9%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
33.5%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
11.7°
average
Barrel rate12.5%
Exit velocity92.7 mph
Hard hit rate49.9%
Contact rate67.7%

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.

.250.167.125.153.35728 AB.42928 AB.26730 AB.40045 AB.34464 AB.25064 AB.25639 AB.33369 AB.23759 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 Jordan Walker 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 situations659——————.273.331.473.349
Bases empty3463158911113085.283.347.441.349
Runner on first12712328614341.228.252.415.284
Runners on3132867518902087.262.313.507.350
RISP1861634712761746.288.355.577.394

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

Head to head

Put Jordan Walker beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Jordan Walker

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.