Players · M · CF · 2026 regular season
Jackson Merrill
- Age
- 23
- B/T
- L/R
- Height
- 6' 2"
- Weight
- 195 lb
- Number
- #3
- Born
- April 19, 2003 in Baltimore, MD, United States
- MLB debut
- March 20, 2024
- Drafted
- 2021, round 1
- High school
- Severna Park
- Salary, 2026
- $2.11M
Compare with…vs Brice Turangvs Fernando Tatis Jr.vs Michael Harris II
- dbWAR
- 11.3 Regular season, 3 season(s)
- PA
- 664
- AVG
- .254
- OBP
- .303
- SLG
- .440
- wRC+
- 106 100 = avg
Jackson Merrill is a center fielder for the San Diego Padres. In 2026 he hit 26 home runs and knocked in 87 RBIs, notching 156 hits across 664 plate appearances in 157 games. His batting average was .254, 4.3% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .303 clip and slugged .440, for an OPS of .743, 3.4% higher than the league mark of .719 — 5th of 17 on his team, and 149th of 465 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 90.7 mph off the bat, hit 48.8% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 10.9% of them and made contact on 72.4% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 106 wRC+ puts his offence 6% above average. That comes to 3.6 dbWAR — +1.7 runs with the bat, +1.5 for the ballpark, +3.0 on the bases, +2.5 on double plays, +4.9 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 regular season.
How the WAR is built
Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +34.1 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.
WAR by season
Batting Regular season
Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.
Separate from the regular season
Postseason Postseason
Wild Card through World Series. These games are counted on their own: none of them are in the regular-season tables, career totals, league context, leaderboards or dbWAR on this page.
Postseason batting
| Season | Team | Round | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 Post | SD | Postseason total · through Oct 7 | 6 | 25 | 24 | 2 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 2 | .292 | .320 | .292 | .612 |
| Wild Card | 2 | 8 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | .571 | .625 | .571 | 1.196 | ||
| NLDS | 4 | 17 | 17 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 1 | .176 | .176 | .176 | .353 | ||
| 2025 Post | SD | Wild Card | 3 | 12 | 9 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | .333 | .364 | .889 | 1.253 |
| 2024 Post | SD | Postseason total | 7 | 27 | 24 | 4 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 0 | .250 | .333 | .500 | .833 |
| Wild Card | 2 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .429 | .429 | .857 | 1.286 | ||
| NLDS | 5 | 20 | 17 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 0 | .176 | .300 | .353 | .653 | ||
| Career | Postseason total · 3 Octobers | 16 | 64 | 57 | 8 | 16 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 5 | 16 | 2 | .281 | .333 | .474 | .807 |
Box-score and rate statistics only. wOBA, wRC+, FIP and dbWAR are measured against a full league season, and a postseason is a few teams playing each other for a month, so they are not computed for October.
Platoon splits
How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.
| Split | PA | AB | H | HR | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | K% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| vs LHP | 183 | 175 | 49 | 6 | 6 | 48 | .280 | .302 | .440 | .322 | 26.2% |
| vs RHP | 481 | 438 | 107 | 20 | 35 | 112 | .244 | .303 | .441 | .322 | 23.3% |
Spray chart
Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.
Loading 460 batted balls…
Contact quality
How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 459 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.
- Barrel rate
- 10.9% 50 barrels
- Exit velocity
- 90.7 mph average
- Max exit velo
- 112.7 mph, hardest hit
- Hard hit
- 48.8% 95 mph or better
- Sweet spot
- 40.5% 8–32° launch
- Launch angle
- 14.2° average
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.
Situational hitting
How Jackson Merrill hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.
| Situation | PA | AB | H | HR | RBI | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All situations | 664 | — | — | — | — | — | — | .254 | .303 | .440 | .322 |
| Bases empty | 367 | 345 | 80 | 16 | 16 | 22 | 89 | .232 | .278 | .414 | .301 |
| Runner on first | 147 | 139 | 34 | 7 | 18 | 6 | 38 | .245 | .281 | .453 | .317 |
| Runners on | 297 | 268 | 76 | 10 | 71 | 19 | 71 | .284 | .334 | .474 | .347 |
| RISP | 150 | 129 | 42 | 3 | 53 | 13 | 33 | .326 | .388 | .496 | .378 |
Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.
Compare Jackson Merrill with…
Side by side with up to three others.
Or read one already written — Jackson Merrill against:
- Brice Turang2026 NLDS
- Fernando Tatis Jr.2026 San Diego Padres
- Michael Harris II2026 center fielders
- Julio Rodríguezsimilar 2026 seasons
- Jake Bauers2026 NLDS
- Ty France2026 San Diego Padres
- Mike Trout2026 center fielders
- Jonny DeLucasimilar 2026 seasons
- Jackson Chourio2026 NLDS
- Andy Pages2026 center fielders
- Zack Gelofsimilar 2026 seasons
- William Contreras2026 NLDS
Similar players
Nearest 2026 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.
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.