DataBaseball
2026
Brice Matthews headshot

Players · M · CF · 2026

Brice Matthews

Age
24
B/T
R/R
Height
5' 10"
Weight
190 lb
Number
#0
Born
March 16, 2002 in Houston, TX, United States
MLB debut
July 11, 2025
Drafted
2023, round 1
College
Nebraska
High school
Atascocita
dbWAR
-.2
2 season(s)
PA
233
AVG
.201
OBP
.255
SLG
.332
wRC+
62
100 = avg

Brice Matthews is a center fielder for the Houston Astros. So far in 2026 he has hit 7 home runs and knocked in 22 RBIs, notching 43 hits across 233 plate appearances in 75 games. His batting average is .201, 17.6% lower than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .255 clip and slugged .332, for an OPS of .587, 18.3% lower than the league mark of .719 — the second worst on his team, and 408th of 462 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 83.3 mph off the bat, hit 36.6% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 7.0% of them and made contact on 64.2% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 62 wRC+ puts his offence 38% below average. That comes to -0.3 dbWAR — -10.9 runs with the bat, +0.3 for the ballpark, -1.1 on the bases, +0.9 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.

wRC+62
wOBA.262
ISO.131
BB%6.9%
WAR-.3

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to -2.9 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting-10.9Ballpark+0.3Baserunning-1.1Double plays+0.9Position+0.7Replacement+7.2
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

0.1-0.1-0.32526

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026HOU752334372241674.201.255.332.131.2696.9%31.8%.262-10.962-0.3
2025HOU13477491220.167.222.452.286.1674.3%42.6%.286-1.1800.1

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 LHP8682164428.195.233.378.26532.6%
vs RHP1471322731246.205.269.303.26031.3%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 143 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 142 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
7.0%
10 barrels
Exit velocity
83.3
mph average
Max exit velo
111.1
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
36.6%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
31.0%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
9.9°
average
Barrel rate7.0%
Exit velocity83.3 mph
Hard hit rate36.6%
Contact rate64.2%

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.

.182.100.000.091.1258 AB.21414 AB.00011 AB.21119 AB.25036 AB.00020 AB.63611 AB.45522 AB.20020 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 Brice Matthews 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 situations233——————.201.255.332.262
Bases empty13712624441045.190.250.325.258
Runner on first4242712011.167.167.262.184
Runners on968819318629.216.263.341.268
RISP544612216618.261.340.413.334

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

Head to head

Put Brice Matthews beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Brice Matthews

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.