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, we will see wild swings in production, and the tendency is to overreact.

What if a player performs as poorly as Jakob Marsee (.185/.305/.262) to start the year? Bench him or drop him to the waiver wire? I can’t endorse dropping him in 12-team leagues. Munetaka Murakami has 14 home runs but a 33% strikeout rate, and no other extra-base hits. He also sports a .258 batting average on balls in play (BABIP). Can that pace continue? He’s now universally rostered.

The decisions will get tougher as the season goes on. 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 relative to their recent performance each week to help fantasy managers view each player properly. Digging beneath the surface stats, we will examine some hitting and pitching metrics to determine whether a given player is overperforming or underperforming expectations.

With the first six weeks of the Major League Baseball season behind us and still at least 120 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 May 4th.

Players Due for Positive Regression

Brent Rooker (OF – ATH)

If Brent Rooker wants to make it four straight seasons with at least 30 home runs and 70 RBI, he has a lot of work to do from now until the end of September. Injuries have taken a couple of weeks of games away from him.

Those nagging problems, plus some terribly bad luck, have also made his performance crater at the start of the season. But the signs are clear that Rooker is just around the corner from returning to normal offensively.

Rooker is currently hitting just .162/.234/.294 with three home runs and 12 RBI. But those numbers are pulled down by a BABIP of just .190 on the season. If Rooker had enough plate appearances to qualify, that number would be one of the top-10 worst marks in the league.

The league average this year is about .292, so Rooker is more than 100 points away from even being average in that category. For his career, Rooker is at .314. That will start turning around as health improves.

Jose Ramirez (3B – CLE)

Is it possible that a player with six home runs, 20 runs and 13 steals with a .338 on-base percentage (OBP) could be even better? I think it is, and Jose Ramriez could see his already-great numbers go to the moon in the weeks to come.

Already the top third base option every fantasy baseball season, Ramirez has proven time and time again that we can expect a high average to go along with 30 home runs and 30 steals. His rate stats have lagged behind this season (.218/.338/.414), but there is reason to believe it won’t be that way much longer.

First, at .217, Ramirez has one of the 25 lowest BABIP marks on the season. It’s even more striking when you consider that he has a higher walk rate (15.3%) than strikeout rate (13.4%) and has a wRC+ that is almost 10% above league average.

In terms of expected batting average, expected slugging and expected wOBA, Ramirez has one of the widest gaps among all three and his actual statistics, according to Statcast. His expected batting average as of May 5th is .272. Imagine the player we have now, but with a batting average 55 points higher. Ramirez would be in the running for best offensive player of the season.

Players Due for Negative Regression

Daniel Schneemann (2B, OF – CLE)

On the other side of the coin for the Cleveland Guardians is Daniel Schneemann. He has been outstanding to start the year, hitting .284/.351/.500 with four home runs, 12 runs and 14 RBI. He is playing only sparingly against left-handers, but has been an important cog in the Cleveland offense through the first six weeks.

Schneemann’s versatility has proven invaluable, and his hitting is better than anyone expected. However, the hitting is what might start to decline in the days ahead.

Schneemann’s BABIP through 100 plate appearances sits at .389, the ninth-highest number in the league. And that stands in stark contrast to his 30.9% strikeout rate and a walk rate below 10%. Schneemann’s hard-hit rate and barrel rate are both slightly worse than in 2025, meaning his expected batting average is 20 points lower than where it currently stands.

Considering Schneemann was likely a waiver wire pickup in most leagues, see what you can get for him on the trade market before things take an unfortunate turn.

Jordan Walker (OF – STL)

As one of the world’s last remaining Jordan Walker fans before the 2026 season began, I am overwhelmingly excited to see his amazing start to this fantasy baseball season.

Walker is slashing .308/.377/.585 with 10 home runs, 28 Runs, 27 RBI and six steals. Among fantasy player raters, Walker is a top-12 hitter this season. It’s been a meteoric rise after two very disappointing campaigns.

The only problem is that this meteor has a real chance of crashing back down to earth in the near future. As with anything this good, we have to ask ourselves if it is sustainable. I think it might not be.

Walker has one of the 12-highest BABIP numbers in the league among qualified hitters at .385. For his career, he is only at .318, so a reasonable assumption is that he will regress to that level over the next four months. His expected batting average, expected slugging and xwOBA are all about 10 points lower than his actual metrics, so that fits the narrative as well.

Walker has done an amazing job elevating his hard-hit rate and launch angle this season. But with a 30% strikeout rate through almost six weeks, he isn’t getting enough bat on the ball for this to last.