Ryan Kirksey | Wed, Apr 22nd 2026, 7:12am EDT

4 Fantasy Baseball Regression Candidates (2026)

The beginning of the fantasy baseball season is a relatively easy time to spot outliers and candidates for 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.

What if a player performs as poorly as Cal Raleigh (.161/.248/.290) to start the year? Bench him or drop him to the waiver wire? Surely not. Jordan Walker has eight home runs but a 31% strikeout rate and a .375 batting average on balls in play (BABIP). Can that pace continue? He’s now universally rostered.

The decisions will get tougher and tougher as the season goes along. For now, a few weeks of games are the only sample size we have to go by.

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.

With the first four weeks of the Major League Baseball season behind us and still at least 135 games to go for every team, there will be a lot of positive and negative regression moving forward. Let’s take a look at some of the weekend’s largest outliers and see what their futures might look like.

Stats up to date through April 20th.

Players Due for Positive Regression

Manny Machado (3B – SDP)

Manny Machado has had a history of starting slow in a number of his 14 seasons. But he always turns it around. Machado has not had a batting average lower than .275 or a slugging rate below .450 since 2019. So the fact that he has started his first 21 games with a .186/.330/.300 slash line is nothing really to worry about. Machado is still only 33 years old and has plenty of track record to prove his ratios, and his power (two home runs) will come back this season.

Machado’s BABIP is one of the lowest in the league at .212. For his career, he is above the Major League average at .298 and has never been below .265 for a season. With that perspective, you have to assume that with such a low number over his first four months, his last five will have to be at or above his career .298 average the rest of the way. With that better fortune on batted balls, the power and run production should also return. With an 18% walk rate and a 20% strikeout rate, it’s clear Machado is seeing the ball fine at the plate. Better days are certainly ahead.

Josh Naylor (1B – SEA)

Not many players in baseball have been more unlucky than Josh Naylor over the first four weeks. His batting average on balls in play is a comical .191 (league average is around .290), which has led to a .174 overall batting average. The reason why this is certain to turn around is that Naylor is one of the most disciplined hitters in the Majors. Even during this four-week slump, he is striking out only 16% of the time, and he has an 8.5% walk rate.

What this means is that most of Naylor’s plate appearances have resulted in a ball in play or a walk. He just can’t seem to find the holes on the field to get his hits down. Somehow, he still has two home runs and eight RBI in this span of time, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that this is one of the coldest streaks a player has seen in 2026. Do not fear if you roster Naylor. It will assuredly turn around again soon. He may not get another 20/30 season like in 2025 (he only has one steal), but this is something that has to turn around.

Players Due for Negative Regression

Andy Pages (OF – LAD)

The start to Andy Pages’ 2026 season has been nothing short of spectacular. He is hitting .370/.417/.605 to go along with five homers and 21 RBI already (tied for the MLB lead). And while it might just be simple enough to say “No one hits .370 anymore” to predict regression is coming, there are plenty of other signs that show Pages is a good hitter, but certainly not Barry Bonds, which is what he has looked like for four weeks.

Pages’ BABIP is currently .455, the second-highest mark among qualified hitters in all of Major League Baseball. He has a 25% strikeout rate, but only a 6.7% walk rate. His xwOBA (.375) is a full 70 points below his actual wOBA (.446). This is the clearest sign of good luck and good fortune that a batter has had in 2026. Being a part of a potent lineup with strong plate skills will certainly help Pages this year, but if you can sell high on this performance, I would definitely flip him for a top-30 player.

Seth Lugo (SP – KCR)

On Monday night, Seth Lugo shut down the Baltimore Orioles for just one hit and zero runs with seven strikeouts over seven innings. He got a no-decision because of a blown save in the ninth, but it was his fifth straight start with at least five innings pitched and no more than two earned runs. He has been phenomenal this season with an ERA under 1.50 and a WHIP under 1.00. But these numbers scream mirage to me.

Projection systems are definitely bearish on Lugo for the rest of the season. Multiple models for 2026 put Lugo with an ERA in the low-to-mid 4.00s with a little bit less than a strikeout per inning across a full-season workload. Those projection systems (like the ones that heavily account for xERA and FIP) are saying he has been lucky not to allow a home run this season. It certainly is true, and you have to wonder about a pitcher who is 36, with a low strikeout rate, and who has yet to allow a home run despite not much change in fly balls allowed.

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