Even after almost four 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 almost four 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 week in this piece, we correctly predicted positive regression for Junior Caminero (.293/.310/.610 with four home runs and eight RBI in his last two weeks of play). Regression, whether positive or negative, doesn’t always occur quickly, but the signs are often clear.
With the first 16 weeks of the Major League Baseball season behind us and about 60 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 21st)
Player Due for Positive Regression
It hasn’t been the best of career starts for Jac Caglianone. Through a large sample of 38 games, he is hitting .149/.211/.291 with a 21% strikeout rate and 49% ground ball rate. Every one of those numbers is concerning, as is the fact that he has not been able to break out of this slump for an extended period of time since coming up from AAA.
However, looking at some recent performances and examining his under-the-hood numbers, Caglianone might be closer to breaking out than it may appear on the surface. Those who have had patience with Caglianone or who can now pick him up on your league’s waiver wire could be handsomely rewarded soon.
On the season, Caglianone’s batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is just .154. That number was at .343 in his two levels in the Minors this season. In the last two weeks, the number is even worse at .095, but signs of progress are there. Home runs to do not count towards BABIP, so the three home runs he has in his last eight games aren’t attributed.
In addition, Caglianone has cut his strikeout rate to 18% and pushed up his walk rate to over 9% in that span. Increased power combined with better plate discipline is the recipe we want to see for things to turn around for this talented rookie. Caglianone is too talented to hit like this forever. But the wait might be shorter than you think.
After a stellar breakout season as a rookie in 2024, injuries and slow starts have defined Jackson Merrill’s season throughout the first 100 games. He is hitting .259/.324/.404 with just seven home runs in 67 games.
This is a stark contrast to the .292/.326/.500 line with 24 homers and 16 steals last season, and Merrill investors are still looking for that big breakout to the 2025 season. They have been disappointed in the last two weeks, though, as Merrill has hit just .172/.294/.379 in that span, and he’s driven in only four runs.
However, there are a lot of positive signs to Merrill’s profile that can give us some fantasy hope for the future. First, his low .125 BABIP in the last nine games is one of the 10 worst marks in the league. While he has been having bad luck with batted balls, he is still hitting the ball well.
Merrill has two home runs, a .207 ISO and a higher walk rate (11.6%) than strikeout rate (8.6%). Merrill’s 12.1% barrel rate this season is better than in 2024. His expected slugging rate (.496) is more than 90 points higher than his actual slugging rate (.404).
Something is going to change soon for Merrill, and the signs point to him being more consistent and having more power. He just needs to stay healthy to do it.
Players Due for Negative Regression
While he hasn’t hit any home runs to accompany it, there may be no hotter hitter on the planet right now than J.T. Realmuto. Over his last 30 plate appearances heading into Tuesday night, Realmuto is hitting .448/.448/.586 with a .138 ISO. No walks, you say? Why walk when you are getting a hit in almost 45% of your at-bats over the last two weeks? Everything seems to be going right for Realmuto (he even has a couple of steals), but some striking warning signs in this profile scream to stay away from buying into this type of production continuing.
No player in baseball has a higher BABIP over the last two weeks than Realmuto. His .619 BABIP is an unbelievably high number, especially when you consider there have been no home runs, so every ball he has hit in play counts towards that ratio. As you can tell, he has drawn zero walks and has a 28% strikeout rate. That kind of free swinging, combined with low power, is not something that can sustain a high-average fantasy profile for much longer. If someone is looking to buy a catcher, I would certainly sell high on Realmuto if you can. His power has disappeared, and there is not much left after the luck runs out.
Outfielder Mickey Moniak has been a nice fantasy story this season. At 27 years old, he is already on his third team after being traded away from Philadelphia and the Angels. In Colorado this season, he is hitting .271/.320/.534 with 14 home runs and five steals in 83 games.
He has cut his strikeout rate to a career-low, and his walk rate is up from each of the last two seasons. Colorado and Coors Field can certainly do that for you if you’re an average hitter, but there are also some inflated numbers here that look too good to be true.
Much of that power we have seen came before July. Moniak has just one home run in his last two weeks of games and has only four RBI to go along with it. In that time, he also had a .500 BABIP and four strikeouts for every walk. His .385 average and .577 slugging rate are being supported by a flimsy combination of batted-ball luck and fly balls that are finding their way in for hits.
Right now, within a stretch of home games, Moniak might be able to get away with a lot more of that, but the luck is bound to change as he gets on the road. Don’t buy into just the season-long numbers, but look more at what Moniak has done for us lately.
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