DataBaseball
2026
JJ Wetherholt headshot

2B · 2026

JJ Wetherholt

Age
24
B/T
L/R
Height
5' 9"
Weight
190 lb
Number
#26
Born
September 10, 2002 in Baltimore, MD, USA
MLB debut
March 26, 2026
Drafted
2024, round 1
College
West Virginia
Salary, 2026
$780,000
dbWAR
2.7
1 season(s)
PA
507
AVG
.249
OBP
.353
SLG
.387
wRC+
115
100 = avg

JJ Wetherholt is a second baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals. In 2026 he hit 16 home runs and knocked in 45 RBIs, notching 108 hits across 507 plate appearances in 111 games. His batting average was .249, 2.1% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .353 clip and slugged .387, for an OPS of .740, 2.9% higher than the league mark of .719 — 4th of 14 on his team, and 148th of 417 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 89.6 mph off the bat, hit 44.5% of balls in play at 95 mph or better and made contact on 80.0% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 115 wRC+ puts his offence 15% above average. That comes to 2.7 dbWAR — +6.8 runs with the bat, +1.1 on the bases, +2.2 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+115
wOBA.334
ISO.138
BB%11.2%
WAR2.7

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These four terms sum to +27.0 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR.

Batting+6.8Baserunning+1.1Position+2.2Replacement+16.9
BattingBaserunningPositionReplacement

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 LHP1811573851928.242.331.369.31715.5%
vs RHP32627770113849.253.365.397.34415.0%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 359 batted balls…

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2026.

.222.080.188.158.33327 AB.35137 AB.31619 AB.22631 AB.39356 AB.21932 AB.20539 AB.14861 AB.31029 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.

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
20261115071081645125777.249.353.387.138.26811.2%15.2%.334+6.81152.7

Head to head

Put JJ Wetherholt beside up to three others.

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JJ Wetherholt

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.