DataBaseball
2026
Leo Bernal headshot

Players · B · C · 2026 regular season

Leo Bernal

Age
22
B/T
S/R
Height
6' 0"
Weight
245 lb
Number
#13
Born
February 13, 2004 in Panama City, Panama
MLB debut
September 1, 2026

Compare with…vs Ty Francevs James McCannvs Jac Caglianone

dbWAR
.7
Regular season, 1 season(s)
PA
102
AVG
.284
OBP
.333
SLG
.474
wRC+
128
100 = avg

Leo Bernal is a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. In 2026 he hit 5 home runs and knocked in 21 RBIs, notching 27 hits across 102 plate appearances in 24 games. His batting average was .284, 16.5% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .333 clip and slugged .474, for an OPS of .807, 12.2% higher than the league mark of .719 — the second best on his team, and 66th of 465 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 92.6 mph off the bat, hit 55.7% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 8.6% of them and made contact on 73.8% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 128 wRC+ puts his offence 28% above average. That comes to 0.7 dbWAR — +2.8 runs with the bat, +0.2 for the ballpark, -0.6 on the bases, -0.1 on double plays, +1.3 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+128
wOBA.352
ISO.189
BB%6.9%
WAR.7

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +6.9 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting+2.8Ballpark+0.2Baserunning-0.6Double plays-0.1Position+1.3Replacement+3.2
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

Batting Regular season

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

Trend
2026STL24102275210725.284.333.474.189.3386.9%24.5%.352+2.81280.7—

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 LHP302870210.250.300.286.26933.3%
vs RHP7267205515.299.347.552.38720.8%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 70 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 70 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
8.6%
6 barrels
Exit velocity
92.6
mph average
Max exit velo
109.8
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
55.7%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
42.9%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
16.1°
average
Barrel rate8.6%
Exit velocity92.6 mph
Hard hit rate55.7%
Contact rate73.8%

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.

——.231—.2508 AB.60010 AB—6 AB.27311 AB.3339 AB—4 AB.07114 AB.3339 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 Leo Bernal 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 situations102——————.284.333.474.352
Bases empty64591111521.186.250.271.239
Runner on first · thin141251221.417.500.750.529
Runners on38361642024.444.474.806.543
RISP · thin24241131803.458.458.833.551

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Rows under 25 plate appearances are marked thin — at that size a rate moves several dozen points on one hit. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.

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Leo Bernal

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.