With the fantasy baseball season almost over and the fantasy playoffs beginning for many leagues, it’s a good time to look back on the whole season to see who overperformed and who underperformed. Throughout the course of the past 22 weeks, we have seen some unbelievable, out-of-nowhere offensive performances, and some players who didn’t live up to preseason expectations. Regression will come for a lot of these players, meaning they will likely revert to career norms over enough plate appearances or innings.
Players who underperform or overperform are hard to predict. There is no magical formula for guessing who is going to hit a lot of their line drives right at people, or who will get a strike zone squeezed all season. But what some under-the-hood numbers can do for us is help us understand that, given enough outcomes in the future, we can see what performances should look like. Let’s look at four players who are likely to have their results be wildly different in 2026.
With the fantasy baseball season almost over and the fantasy playoffs beginning for many leagues, it’s a good time to look back on the whole season to see who overperformed and who underperformed. Throughout the course of the past 22 weeks, we have seen some unbelievable, out-of-nowhere offensive performances, and some players who didn’t live up to preseason expectations. Regression will come for a lot of these players, meaning they will likely revert to career norms over enough plate appearances or innings.
Players who underperform or overperform are hard to predict. There is no magical formula for guessing who is going to hit a lot of their line drives right at people, or who will get a strike zone squeezed all season. But what some under-the-hood numbers can do for us is help us understand that, given enough outcomes in the future, we can see what performances should look like. Let’s look at four players who are likely to have their results be wildly different in 2026.
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.
This piece has had success throughout the year in identifying which players might regress positively or negatively. And as we think about moving into 2026, we can use the entire large data set of the 2025 season to make predictions. Small samples are often not enough to show regression, but in baseball, things can change quickly. Over the course of multiple seasons, these things tend to even out. Regression, whether positive or negative, doesn’t always occur quickly, but the signs are often clear.
(Stats up to date through September 1st.)
Player Due for Positive Regression
Ozzie Albies hit his 14th home run on Tuesday night, but at this point in the season, all that really does is serve up another reminder of how disappointing his 2025 season has been. At 14 home runs and 12 steals, those numbers look nice on the surface, but when you consider he has four seasons of 25 home runs and 13 steals, fantasy managers have been looking for more the past two seasons. But if you’re a fantasy manager who is holding on to signs of hope for Albies in future seasons, or deciding whether or not to keep him in a keeper or dynasty league, there are several things you can point to that show he might turn it around in his age-29 season next year.
His batting average on balls in play (BABIP) for 2025 is just .260. The league average is around .290 this season, and Albies’ number is one of the 17 worst among all qualified Major League batters. Albies has raised his line drive rate this year compared to 2024, and his fly ball rate stayed the same — around 43%. He has gotten very unlucky with his home run per fly ball rate at just 6.6%, and his walk rate is the highest since his rookie season in 2017. This is a batting profile that can turn around, even after two disappointing seasons. A player this talented with multiple seasons of a .280 average and a .500 slugging rate is too talented to just fall off the face of the earth in his 20s. I’ll be buying the dip next year.
In just his first full MLB season, Ben Rice has made quite an impression with 22 home runs, a .482 slugging rate and a 10% walk rate. He has led off for the New York Yankees several times and is now catching games for them as well when needed. He will be one of the best fantasy catchers in 2026, but his numbers tell us there might even be another level he could reach when he is 27 years old next year. On the season, Rice is hitting .242/.335/.482 with that 10% walk rate and he is striking out only 20% of the time. It’s fueled by a staggering 55% hard-hit rate and a 16% barrel rate.
On the negative side, Rice’s BABIP is absolutely obscene. His .261 BABIP is one of the 18 lowest numbers among all qualified hitters in baseball. Almost all of his Minor League seasons are above .280, so I would consider that his baseline for 2026. Rice’s expected batting average is .293, or a full 50 points above what he is hitting this year. His expected slugging rate is more than 90 points over his real number, so the data and batted-ball ability show that this is a profile that could really improve. Rice should have a full-time role next season and will have eligibility at first base and catcher. He should be a primary target as one of the most under-the-radar bats in the game.
Players Due for Negative Regression
Over the last 30 days, the one player in all of baseball who has the highest slugging rate is not Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Cal Raleigh or even Juan Soto (who is on fire right now). The player with the highest slugging rate (.708) is second baseman Brice Turang. Yes, the same second baseman who hit seven home runs in 155 games in 2024. His power has been off the charts, and he has 11 home runs in the last month. That has helped guide him to a season where he is hitting .289/.356/.442 with 17 home runs, 86 runs and 22 steals.
Turang is a great player, but if anyone goes into 2026 buying 20 home runs again, they are likely to be disappointed. This is a player who has great speed but is hitting almost 47% of his batted balls on the ground this year. His home run per fly ball rate has more than doubled from 6% last year to 14.9% this year. All of that, plus a BABIP (.352) that is 45 points above his career average, should give us real pause. He is a top-10 second baseman in 2026, but draft him for the steals and the runs, and not necessarily for a .290 average and 20 home runs.
Over the long weekend, Jeremy Pena reached 14 home runs and 20 stolen bases in his 109th game. He had 15 home runs and 20 stolen bases in 157 games in 2024, and he raised his batting average from .266 last season to .307 so far in 2025. It’s been an incredible season for the 27-year-old Jeremy Pena, sidelined only by a rib injury from a hit by pitch that caused him to miss several weeks. His slugging rate is the highest it’s ever been, his strikeout rate is the lowest and his barrel rate is about 50% higher than it was in 2024. All of these signs are good, but there are some cracks showing that could lead to a downswing in 2026.
The first thing that stands out is the BABIP, which is at .346 this year. He has a career .316 number in that category, so this is quite the outlier season. According to Statcast, his expected batting average is just .285, and his expected slugging rate is 20 points lower than his actual number. The gains in strikeout rate and barrel rate are legitimate, but Pena has not improved his line-drive rate this year, and hits almost 48% of his balls in play on the ground. That number is too high for any player to ever get too far over the 20 home run mark.
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