May has seen its fair share of breakouts and flame-outs, with castaways like Mark Reynolds and Yonder Alonso mashing and seemingly reliable studs like Anthony Rizzo and Carlos Gonzalez floundering.

But any given player can seem like a surging stud or an outright dud if you cut his sample down enough. The key for shrewd owners is to hone in on small samples that mask larger underlying trends, capitalizing on the innate recency bias that is perhaps the number one market inefficiency in the fantasy game.

Here are five hitters whose recent performance, whether it be surprisingly excellent or discouragingly sub-par, might be hiding some larger trends that show evidence of imminent regression.

View your league’s top available players with My Playbook

Cody Bellinger (1B/OF – LAD)

For those of you who’ve enjoyed the sweet swing and even sweeter results from the young Dodgers goliath Cody Bellinger, the thought of cashing out is probably the furthest thing from your mind.

It might be a wise move, though, given the LA phenom’s underlying numbers. The mega-ceiling prospect has indeed been a top-8 hitter in terms of isolated slugging (ISO) over the past two weeks, with a slick .313 batting average over that span to boot. But he’s also shown some trigger-happy tendencies, with a near-15-percent swinging strike rate that’s 18th-worst in baseball over that span.

This isn’t the reddest of flags, seeing as he shares space on the whiff-rate leaderboard with the likes of Miguel Sano, Justin Upton, and the aforementioned Mark Reynolds, all hitters who have thus far been able to overcome their swing-and-miss shortcomings with strong power numbers.

But bear in mind that no one in that crew is seeing as many fastballs as Bellinger; indeed, about 3/4 of the pitches that Bellinger has encountered in his short major league stint have been fastballs or change-ups. It’s clear that pitchers are eager to challenge Bellinger, who is, for now, challenging them back in turn. But once the book on Bellinger fills out, with pitchers noticing his above-average chase rate and below-average contact rate in the zone, you can bet they’ll start fleshing out their approach, perhaps bombarding him with more than the measly seven-percent slider rate that he’s seen thus far.

Bellinger certainly has the tools to adjust, but how long that adjustment takes and what sort of toll it might take on his numbers could make him a less stable fantasy asset than you might gather from the current rapturous hype.

Trea Turner (2B/SS/OF – WSH)

Is it ludicrous to entertain the possibility that one could add a minor piece to Cody Bellinger so as to land Trea Turner? You’d be effectively trading last year’s boy wonder for the newer, shinier model.

The prospect might not be as far out as you think given the modest 2017 results for Turner, who’s yet to turn on the jets after hitting the shelf with an early-season leg injury. Perhaps the young speedster is still a little lame, given his modest six steals through 110-plus plate appearances, a mere shadow of the 33 bags that Turner swiped in 324 PAs last year.

That 27-percent strikeout rate might have something to do with the subdued production–you can’t steal first base, as they say. Still, the sample remains especially small for Turner given his injury reprieve, and it’s not as if his 10.9-percent swinging strike rate shows any serious downturn from the virtually identical rate that he posted last year.

Turner’s other plate discipline metrics are a bit of a mixed bag. Yes, he’s reaching much less than last year, which will be a major coup for his batting average ceiling if he can sustain the trend long term. Then again, he’s also swinging at fewer pitches in the zone and making below-average contact when he does.

But it’s not like patience is the worst trait for a hitter to be showing as he regains his footing after a few weeks on the shelf. With Turner still spraying the ball to all fields and minimizing weak contact, I like his chances to build on that low (by his standards) .333 BABIP and hit closer to .300 the rest of the way. I didn’t want to pay the Draft-Day freight on Turner this year, but if I can get any sort of short-sighted discount, I’d be tickled pink.

Addison Russell (SS – CHC)

You might be seeing Russell outright cut in some of your shallower leagues, with the young infielder barely scratching out a .100 BA over his past 50 or so plate appearances, only to spend three straight days this week on the bench with a shoulder ailment.

Impulsively casting aside the talented young Cub might soothe short-term frustrations, but it could prove to be a long-term blunder. Batting-average-league settings might make be casting an unkind pallor over Russell’s recent play, with his 11-percent walk rate over the past month representing a small but notable growth on his 8.6-percent career rate.

Still, the 23.5% hard-hit rate over that span is indeed concerning. If you’d like to get even more concerned, you can trim the sample to the past two weeks for a more pronounced crater, with his hard contact all the way down to 18.5 percent.

But while we’re splitting hairs, let’s notice that 70-plus-percent medium-contact rate over the past two weeks. Indeed, it’s not as if Russell is sheepishly dribbling his outs. He doesn’t appear to be lost at the plate either, with overall swinging-strike and chase rates down, while overall contact rates are slightly up.

I’d be all over Russell if he was cut in my league, no matter the depth, and I’d be eager to trade for him at a discount. Some positive regression seems like a strong bet here.

Khris Davis (OF/DH – OAK)

You’d have to assume that most Khris Davis owners understand the kind of swing-heavy, slump-prone hitter he is, and thus might not be inclined to panic when he hits one of his by-now famous lulls.

It doesn’t hurt to try, though. Davis has always been a Jekyll-and-Hyde, and so far May has been all Hyde:

Keep in kind that Davis went through a near-identical stretch over the first two-plus weeks of last season, striking out at a 40-percent clip, mustering a barely-there ISO, and generally causing nightmarish buyer’s remorse across fantasy leagues. But as we know now, anyone who dropped him or sold ultra low regretted that decision in short order.

Owners would be wise to avoid the same sort of knee-jerk appraisal with this notoriously hot-and-cold slugger. Davis still sports a mammoth 47.6-percent hard-hit rate on the young season, and his reach rate and swinging strike rate are both noticeably down, even amidst this weeks-long slump. If I can get any slump-frustration discount on this slugger, boy am I happy to oblige.

Eric Hosmer (1B – KC)

As young would-be stars like Davis and Russell flounder through May, another once-promising youngster has been flourishing, namely Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer.

Hosmer’s Draft Day stock cratered this year, with disappointment fatigue leaving him to wallow on the outskirts of standard-league starter relevance. Lo and behold, Hosmer has been a top four first baseman per the FantasyPros Player Rater over the past two weeks, thanks in large part to a white-hot .423 batting average, with 18 combined runs scored and RBI chipped in for good measure.

But you don’t have to dig too deep to see that Hosmer’s torrid May is buoyed by a rather suspect .488 BABIP. Meanwhile, Hosmer’s full-season metrics don’t exactly display evidence of a major change in skills or approach. His hard-hit rate is down, while his already-worrisome grounder-per-fly rate is up.

There is admittedly some promise in Hosmer’s plate discipline metrics on the young season, so perhaps that notable dip in strikeout rate isn’t a mirage. But unless can adjust his pound-the-dirt approach, his current .299 average seems like a pretty firm ceiling. There doesn’t seem to be a post-hype breakout in the offing here, so now might be time to see if your league has any Hosmer truthers who still want to believe.

Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher | SoundCloud | Google Play | TuneIn | RSS

Tom Whalen is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Tom, check out his archive or follow him @tomcwhalen.