Regression candidates can be broken into a few categories these days. For hitters, we don’t strictly think about “BABIP regression” anymore, but instead, consider the entire batted ball profile. How likely is this player to continue their current flyball/groundball/liner mix? What is the mix of pulled fly balls? What is the quality of contact like on flyballs? How about exit velocity on grounders and its influence on BABIP?

For pitchers, we can look at pitch mix, changes in swinging strike rates, and improvements in launch angles allowed on various pitches. Do we believe a pitcher will continue to suppress home runs with a given offering? Has his command changed? Is his strand rate likely to regress or does he allow too many base runners and home runs to have that to be true?

Let’s take a look at three hitters that pundits have tabbed for positive regression the rest of the season. One I agree with, one maybe, and one I disagree with.

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Paul Goldschmidt (1B – ARI) has really been struggling this year. He’s got a bunch of problems, but mainly with putting the ball into play. His strikeout problems have been noticeable since June of 2017, and he’s shown no sign of curbing whatever issue started causing it. He has been known to post strikeout rates ~24% for half a season, but he usually pairs that with a stretch near 20%. After striking out nearly 25% of the time in the second half of 2017, he’s doubled down and is striking out in over 31% of his at-bats in the first half of 2018. That’s problem number one. If he had put 10% more balls in play, in line with his career average, with a BABIP of ~.330, he’d be hitting ~.240 with this alone.

Problem number two looks to be chalked up to luck. He’s pulled the ball on the ground 55% of the time to open the 2018 season and is hitting it just as hard as ever, but he has a .000 BABIP on those batted balls. Building upon his ~.240 average with a career average strikeout rate and giving him normal luck on these batted balls, Goldy would be hitting .270.

Problem number three for Goldschmidt is that he’s pulling the ball in the air only 20% of the time this year. His 21/47/32% pull/center/oppo flyball splits hold back his SLG and ISO as well as his HR/FB ratio. Last year Goldschmidt was on the extremely favorable end of his HR/FB ratio, posting a career-high 24.8% mark. One of my concerns with him coming into this season was that the humidor combined with more average luck on flyballs was going to limit him to something much closer to 24 home runs and ~.280 average.

What I saw prior to the season, and would tell anyone who would listen, is that in 2015 and 2017, Goldschmidt homered on 70% of the pulled fly balls he hit at home while homering on only 43% of these balls on the road. This is what drove his HR/FB excursions. Meanwhile, in years like 2016 (and I’ll presume 2014, there’s no Statcast data for me to study) he homered on merely 40% of these balls at home and only 25% on the road.

All of these things combined are why you see what you see with Goldschmidt in 2018. Remember that he’s not a .300 hitter with the humidor in place – that’s not a given anymore, it will take luck. But if you need a batting average and/or on-base percentage boost for the rest of the season, there’s almost no way Goldschmidt won’t hit .300/.375 for the remainder of the season. Just don’t plan on getting 25-30 HRs with it, he’ll likely get around 15-20. Remember, Goldschmidt doesn’t hit that many flyballs (~32%) so he relies on elite contact and previously his favorable home park conditions to run his HR totals up.

Matt Carpenter (3B – STL) is running the same ISO as usual (.215+) but his batting average has been low to start the year despite holding a ~.274 BABIP since the start of the 2017 season. So what’s going on with Carpenter and why has his BABIP been so low since the start of 2017?

The answer to the latter is pop-ups. The answer to the former is he’s not able to hit the ball on the ground through the shift. He’s only hit 3% of his groundballs since 2016 to the opposite field. The only reason he’s upped that to 23% this year is that he’s bunting against the shift. You’d bunt too if you couldn’t hit the ball hard enough on the ground to get it through the shift. He’s currently sporting a clean .000 BABIP on his 10 groundballs to the pull and center fields.

In general, Carpenter’s batted ball profile from 2015-2016 was much more conducive to success. He’s going to have to take all the bunt base hits against the shift, limit his K% back to his 18.5% career average, and/or limit his pop-ups to have a chance at a batting average above .240 the rest of the season. He seems to be set on either trying to pull home runs in the air over the shift or bunt to the free zone. He’s not a player I’d be looking to acquire or hoping for a bounce-back from.

Marcell Ozuna (OF – STL) hasn’t homered as much as he did during his breakout last year. I don’t even need a chart for you on Ozuna. He’s still pulling the ball 40% of the time in the air, which was the change he made last year, but he’s only putting 29% of his balls-in-play in the air. It’s no secret I’ve never been a fan of Ozuna. He only hits about 19% of his balls at line drive launch angles, which limits the upside on his average, and he’s mainly a pull-field power guy on fly balls (of which he doesn’t hit many). He’s probably pressing with his new team as his GB% has spiked to a career-high 51% and he’s not barreling up the absurd amount of his ideal launch angle balls (24-32°) like he did last year. There’s almost certainly some rebound in his .260/.301/.337 triple slash, but I wouldn’t expect anything near what he accomplished last year. You should have listened to me when I told you the man you wanted was Nick Castellanos.

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Jim Melichar is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Jim, check out his archive and follow him @JimMelichar7.