Ryan Kirksey | Wed, May 20th 2026, 7:07am EDT

4 Fantasy Baseball Regression Candidates (2026)

After a couple of months of the fantasy baseball season, it becomes relatively easy 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 Manny Machado (.180/.278/.323) to start the year? Bench him or drop him to the waiver wire? I can’t endorse dropping him in 10- or 12-team leagues. Munetaka Murakami has 17 home runs but a 34% strikeout rate. He also sports a .277 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 eight weeks of the Major League Baseball season behind us and still at least 110 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 18th.

Players Due for Positive Regression

Fernando Tatis Jr. (OF – SDP)

Fernando Tatis Jr. should be the poster boy for positive regression over the rest of the 2026 season. How soon that might start is really anyone’s guess.

Through the first two months of the season, Tatis has given fantasy managers a disappointing .233/.306/.271 line with absolutely zero home runs. That slugging rate (below .275) is like a punch in the face from a player for fantasy managers who have seen him hit 20+ home runs many times.

Tatis’ 92.1 miles per hour (MPH) average exit velocity and 57% hard-hit rate are very strong, and he is still showing a walk rate of about 10%. That clearly shows more discipline at the plate, but it hasn’t translated into much power.

Much of his weak production has come from poor luck on balls in play (a .313 BABIP but 0.0% HR/FB rate) and a 52% groundball rate that is unlikely to stay this high based on his career norms. Based on his Statcast numbers, Tatis’ slugging rate should be around .400, so it’s only a matter of time before he gets going with the power.

Vinnie Pasquantino (1B – KCR)

Vinnie Pasquantino has carried an extremely low .220 BABIP this season despite still making quality contact at a solid rate. A BABIP that low (bottom-12 in the league) is difficult to sustain for a hitter with his profile, especially one who historically controls the strike zone well and consistently posts hard contact.

Pasquantino’s expected batting average (.227) and expected slugging rate (.377) are both noticeably better than his actual numbers, and should move up over the balance of 2026.

Pasquantino still owns a 9% barrel rate in 2026, which is just slightly lower than the breakout power level he showed in 2025 when he hit 32 home runs.

Even though his surface stats have disappointed, hitters with strong barrel rates usually do not continue producing subpar slugging rates for an entire season. Pasquantino’s hard-hit data and launch-angle profile suggest more extra-base hits should come as the sample grows in the months ahead.

Players Due for Negative Regression

Colson Montgomery (SS – CWS)

One of the biggest reasons Colson Montgomery looks like a great fantasy power source (13 home runs) is his elite barrel rate. His barrel rate in 2025 was 14.5%. In 2026, it’s up to 15.5%, a top -25 rate. Montgomery’s 13 home runs and 31 RBI are among the best at the shortstop position.

But Montgomery’s new swing has led to a very high whiff rate (16.8%) and high strikeout rate (30%). Both of those could mean worse performances are ahead. In many ways, Montgomery has become a sort of model of the modern power hitter.

The White Sox slugger strikes out a lot, has a good barrel rate, has a great launch angle and swing speed, and some good old-fashioned pure strength that can get the ball out in any park. But with a high strikeout rate and ultra-high 24% home run per fly ball rate, Montgomery might regress soon.

Jordan Walker (OF – STL)

Jordan Walker is finally breaking out and is slashing .301/.371/.584 with 13 home runs, 34 Runs, 34 RBI and seven steals. Among fantasy player raters, Walker has been a top-12 hitter this season.

It’s been a fast 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 .358. 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 and expected slugging rate are both significantly 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 27% strikeout rate through eight weeks, he isn’t getting enough bat on the ball for this to last.

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