Tatis Jr. Ranks 36th in MLB in 2026 WAR, Not Top 10
By Baseball-Reference's bWAR, Fernando Tatis Jr. sits 36th among qualified hitters in 2026 at 3.81 WAR, with at least 35 players rating ahead of him.
Published: · Figures as of September 14, 2026
Asked: Are there 10 players in MLB better than Fernando Tatis Jr?
Yes — at least 35 players rate ahead of him in Wins Above Replacement, not just 10
By Baseball-Reference's bWAR — the whole-player value measure, fielding and position included — Tatis sits 36th of 323 qualified hitters in the 2026 season at 3.81 WAR. Ten players clear him by nearly double or more before you even get out of the top ten, and another 25 sit between them and him.
Who's ahead of him (top of the list):
| Rank | Player | Team | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pete Crow-Armstrong | CHC | 9.02 |
| 2 | Brice Turang | MIL | 6.66 |
| 3 | Bobby Witt Jr. | KC | 6.34 |
| 4 | Kevin McGonigle | DET | 6.25 |
| 5 | Wilyer Abreu | BOS | 5.95 |
| 6 | Yordan Alvarez | HOU | 5.82 |
| 7 | Otto Lopez | MIA | 5.69 |
| 8 | Andy Pages | LAD | 5.59 |
| 9 | Ceddanne Rafaela | BOS | 5.41 |
| 10 | Junior Caminero | TB | 5.36 |
| 36 | Fernando Tatis Jr. | SD | 3.81 |
| Player | WAR (WAR) |
|---|---|
| Crow-Armstrong | 9.02 |
| Turang | 6.66 |
| Witt Jr. | 6.34 |
| McGonigle | 6.25 |
| Abreu | 5.95 |
| Alvarez | 5.82 |
| Lopez | 5.69 |
| Pages | 5.59 |
| Rafaela | 5.41 |
| Caminero | 5.36 |
| Tatis (36th) | 3.81 |
That's still a solid season — 21 homers, 34 steals, 73 RBI over 146 games at 3.81 WAR is clearly above replacement-level production — just not top-10-in-the-league territory this year, on a metric that folds in defense and baserunning rather than raw offensive counting stats.
One thing worth flagging on the "is this his real level" question: our process model reads his most recent stretch (through September 12) as running about two standard deviations below his own established level on balls in play — a .265 window BABIP against a .329 weighted two-year baseline — and reads the gap as balls-in-play luck running against him rather than a talent decline, so the expected drift is upward, not downward. Our separate forward-production model puts the near-term forecast at essentially flat (-0.45 per 100 plate appearances, inside the "stable" band), so neither model is calling for a real surge that would close this WAR gap before the season ends.
Confidence: High on the ranking itself (an exact, whole-season stat across the full qualified league); Low-to-Medium on any read of where his production trends from here, since that rests on a model reading with moderate confidence (0.73) rather than a settled number.