4 Fantasy Baseball Regression Candidates (2025)

Even after two full months of the Major League Baseball and fantasy baseball seasons, it’s important to look for players who could experience positive and negative regression. With so few games and plate appearances for each player through eight weeks, we will see wild swings away from normal production, and the tendency is to overreact. Sometimes we think a player is what he has been after eight weeks, but that is far from the truth.

Regression often comes at players quickly. When we see a player on an extreme hot or cold streak, things are likely to course correct. That’s what we will try to predict here, with some advice on how to handle these moments.

Fantasy Baseball Regression Candidates

This series highlights players due for positive or negative regression compared to their recent performance each week to assist fantasy managers in viewing each one properly. Digging underneath the surface stats, we will examine some hitting and pitching metrics to determine if a given player is overperforming or underperforming what should be expected.

Last week, this piece correctly predicted negative regression for Kody Clemens (.136/.296/.273 with one homer over the last week) and negative regression for Riley Greene (.091/.130/.364 with a 35% strikeout rate in the past seven days). Regression, whether positive or negative, doesn’t always occur quickly, but the signs are often clear.

With the first 10 weeks of the Major League Baseball season behind us and still about 100 games to go for almost every team, there will be a lot of positive and negative regression moving forward. Let’s take a look at some of the past week’s largest outliers and see what their futures might look like.

(Stats up to date through June 2nd)

Players Due for Positive Regression

Cody Bellinger (OF – NYY)

Once Juan Soto left for the other side of New York City, the Yankees pounced on Cody Bellinger and brought him into their outfield. Ironically, Bellinger has been as good or slightly better than Juan Soto at the plate through the first two months of the season, hitting .253/.330/.443 with eight home runs and five runs batted in. But the past week or so has been brutal for Bellinger. He is hitting .067/.263/.067 with zero home runs and no RBI. But this looks fluky and is likely to move back in the right direction soon.

In the last week, Bellinger has had a batting average on balls in play (BABIP) of .071, or more than .200 points below the league average. For his career, Bellinger has a .284 BABIP, so it won’t stay this low for long. In addition, Bellinger is walking 16% of the time and striking out in just 5% of his plate appearances in that period. He is seeing the ball well, but is just unlucky with the balls hit in play.

Look for Bellinger to rebound very soon from this slump.

Bobby Witt Jr. (SS – KC)

Bobby Witt Jr. had been shooting up the fantasy hitting ranks over the last few weeks before a cold spell kicked in recently. On the season, one of fantasy baseball’s top producers has a strong .283/.341/.481 line with six home runs and 20 stolen bases, but the last week has brought that down. In his last six games, Witt is hitting just .167/.200/.444 with one home run and one total run. He has been sucked into the general ineptitude of the Kansas City Royals offense that made the Jac Caglianone call-up necessary.

But, like Bellinger, this appears to be a problem that can be resolved with some better luck from balls in play. He has a .133 BABIP in the last week, one of the 20 worst numbers in all of baseball. But Witt has been too good for this to continue. His hard-hit rate is 48%, his barrel rate is 12% and his expected batting average is a strong .302.

Players Due for Negative Regression

Lawrence Butler (OF – ATH)

In terms of who has the most out-of-whack BABIP in the league right now, Lawrence Butler surely takes the prize. He has been on a hot streak of late, hitting .417/.548/.750 with two home runs and a steal in his last 31 plate appearances. But that comes with an absurd .667 BABIP, the second-highest in baseball during the last seven days. He is also walking at a 22% clip, which is amazing, but is striking out over 32% of the time, which is way too high.

For his career, Butler has a very strong .301 BABIP, which is a number you might expect from someone with his speed. But .667 is simply unsustainable, and when it comes down, it will start bringing down the batting average and all the strong counting stats that have come with it over the last week and a half. Butler still has the tools to be a fantasy star for the rest of the season, but he should balance out around a top-50 hitter, as opposed to the top-five hitter he has been over the last week.

Ernie Clement (2B, 3B – TOR)

Ernie Clement has probably been the hottest hitter on the planet in the last week and a half. In his last six games, Clement is hitting .500 with an .885 slugging percentage, including two home runs and six RBI. He is striking out only 11% of the time in that span and has helped lead the Toronto Blue Jays to a 6-4 record over the last 10 days and a second-place spot in the division. He has been bumped up from the seventh or eighth spot in the order to sixth for five straight games.

However, his hot streak for Clement is built on very shaky ground right now, and the foundation might crumble underneath his feet at any time. In this hot streak, Clement has a .524 BABIP and has walked exactly zero times. That kind of batted-ball luck combined with a lack of patience at the plate is not a recipe for long-term success.

A lot of fantasy baseball managers acquired Clement this weekend in hopes that he can keep up this pace, but they aren’t going to get the stats already accumulated, and I worry this can’t be maintained long-term.