Players · C · SS · 2026
Kaelen Culpepper
- Age
- 24
- B/T
- R/R
- Height
- 5' 10"
- Weight
- 185 lb
- Number
- #12
- Born
- December 29, 2002 in Memphis, TN, United States
- MLB debut
- August 7, 2026
- Drafted
- 2024, round 1
- College
- Kansas State
- High school
- St. Benedict at Auburndale
- dbWAR
- .6 1 season(s)
- PA
- 120
- AVG
- .275
- OBP
- .333
- SLG
- .404
- wRC+
- 108 100 = avg
Kaelen Culpepper is a shortstop for the Minnesota Twins. So far in 2026 he has hit 3 home runs and knocked in 11 RBIs, notching 30 hits across 120 plate appearances in 31 games. His batting average is .275, 12.8% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .333 clip and slugged .404, for an OPS of .737, 2.6% higher than the league mark of .719 — 6th of 14 on his team, and 160th of 462 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 87.2 mph off the bat, hit 31.0% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 3.6% of them and made contact on 74.8% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 108 wRC+ puts his offence 8% above average. That comes to 0.6 dbWAR — +0.9 runs with the bat, +0.1 for the ballpark, +0.0 on the bases, -0.5 on double plays, +1.8 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.
How the WAR is built
Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +6.1 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.
Batting
Standard and advanced, by season.
| Trend | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | MIN | 31 | 120 | 30 | 3 | 11 | 1 | 6 | 25 | .275 | .333 | .404 | .128 | .329 | 5.0% | 20.8% | .328 | +0.9 | 108 | 0.6 | — |
Platoon splits
How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.
| Split | PA | AB | H | HR | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | K% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| vs LHP | 46 | 42 | 12 | 1 | 1 | 11 | .286 | .326 | .429 | .330 | 23.9% |
| vs RHP | 74 | 67 | 18 | 2 | 5 | 14 | .269 | .338 | .388 | .327 | 18.9% |
Spray chart
Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.
Loading 83 batted balls…
Contact quality
How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 84 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.
- Barrel rate
- 3.6% 3 barrels
- Exit velocity
- 87.2 mph average
- Max exit velo
- 108.4 mph, hardest hit
- Hard hit
- 31.0% 95 mph or better
- Sweet spot
- 36.9% 8–32° launch
- Launch angle
- 15.0° 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 Kaelen Culpepper 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 | 120 | — | — | — | — | — | — | .275 | .333 | .404 | .328 |
| Bases empty | 73 | 68 | 20 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 18 | .294 | .342 | .471 | .356 |
| Runner on first · thin | 24 | 21 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 2 | .333 | .417 | .429 | .381 |
| Runners on | 47 | 41 | 10 | 0 | 8 | 3 | 7 | .244 | .319 | .293 | .284 |
| RISP · thin | 23 | 20 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 5 | .150 | .217 | .150 | .182 |
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.
Head to head
Put Kaelen Culpepper beside up to three others.
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.