Even after more than three 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, 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 up to this point, 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.
Even after more than three 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, 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 up to this point, 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 time this piece was published, we correctly predicted positive regression for Ben Rice (.333/.400/.444 in his last week of play) and negative regression for Spencer Steer (.217/.280/.348 with one home run in his last seven games). Regression, whether positive or negative, doesn’t always occur quickly, but the signs are often clear.
With the first 15 weeks of the Major League Baseball season behind us and about 70 games still 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 July 14th)
Player Due for Positive Regression
Junior Caminero put up an amazing showing in the Home Run Derby, and hopefully it leads to big things ahead. He has had some wild swings to his season so far in 2025. In March and April, he was merely average, hitting .257 with a .469 slugging rate and 12 extra-base hits. In May, his average spiked up to .276 with a .561 slugging rate and 14 extra-base hits.
When June came, just at the time everyone thought bats would explode with power in the outdoors at Florida’s George M. Steinbrenner Field, Caminero went cold for a while. That continued for a long period in July as well. Over the last two weeks, Caminero is hitting just 212/.218/.423 with a 33% strikeout rate and a 1% walk rate.
Hope is far from lost here, as we saw on Monday night, and I think some more months like May are likely to occur. First, Caminero’s batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is a woeful .242 over the last two weeks. He still has a .212 ISO and hit three bombs over the last 13 games. He is a player I want on my roster for the stretch run, but the only problem is everyone else will too after his home run barrage on Monday.
Players Due for Negative Regression
Jeremy Pena has been one of the best fantasy baseball stories of the 2025 season, and it took a hit by pitch that cracked a rib to slow him down this season. Inserted into the leadoff spot for Houston after so many injuries, Pena is now hitting .322 with 11 home runs, 15 stolen bases and 48 runs. He is striking out a career-low 15.7% of the time, and the 27-year-old is running straight into his prime with a dominant season. But there were signs that some of that progress was starting to regress before his injury. Now batting with a painful rib problem, we may not see the same Jeremy Pena we saw in the first half when he comes back next week.
Pena not only has a high .360 BABIP for the season, but he has now stopped walking and draws a free pass in just 5.7% of his plate appearances. I do expect the power to go up somewhat in the months ahead as Pena had just two home runs in the last 30 days, but the average and runs are likely to suffer. Pena has been somewhat unlucky with his fly balls not turning into home runs. His batting average is likely to settle in around .290 for the rest of the season. Still great, just not as dominant as we saw for much of the first half.
Brandon Lowe is one of the best fantasy baseball stories this year, and it took an oblique injury late in the first half to put a damper on his elite production. At 30 years old, Lowe is having a career year with a .272/.324/.487 line with 19 home runs and 50 RBI. He is just a hair away from being on pace for a 35-homer, 100-RBI season as a second baseman. And while many metrics support this breakout (hard-hit rate, barrel rate, exit velocity, etc.), coming back from an oblique injury to this level of production will be a tall order.
Lowe has a BABIP of .375 over the last 30 days, which means at least some of his production was driven by luck. The power was there with six home runs in 20 games, but so is the strikeout rate (23%). Lowe is on a hot streak that is hard for any player to sustain, much less one that will be impacted by an injury that impacts swing velocity. Once the underlying metrics normalize, he should settle back into his very good, but not elite, numbers. He is still a very valuable fantasy asset this year, but don’t expect a second half like he had in the first as he works his way back from injury.
Austin Riley had a very disappointing campaign in 2024. He missed 50 games due to injury. He dropped 25 points in batting average compared to 2023. His home runs plummeted from 37 the year before to just 19 last year. It’s been wonderful to see a turnaround in 2025, but there are some warning signs.
Riley is hitting .274/.324/.441 with 14 home runs and 48 RBI. But that comes with a .356 BABIP and a 28% strikeout rate. His walk rate is just 6% and he has a career-low .166 ISO. Riley is having a better year than in 2024 despite a lower hard-hit rate and a lower average exit velocity. His expected batting average is about 10 points lower than his actual average, and his flyball rate hasn’t changed from 2024.
Riley is one of several Braves players having a strong offensive season, but sadly, it hasn’t translated into much success for the team. There are players on this team I do want to buy for the second half, like Sean Murphy and Ronald Acuna Jr., but Riley could see some slight negative regression over the last 70 games.
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