4 Fantasy Baseball Regression Candidates (2026)

After more than two 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 Jakob Marsee (.194/.319/.299) 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. James Wood has 16 home runs but a 29% strikeout rate. He also sports a .353 batting average on balls in play (BABIP). Can that pace continue, or will he regress?

The decisions will get tougher as the season goes on. For now, 10 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 10 weeks of the Major League Baseball season behind us and still about 100 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 June 2nd.

Players Due for Positive Regression

Bo Bichette (SS – NYM)

Fantasy managers who drafted Bo Bichette are likely getting very frustrated with his sluggish surface stats. Like many of the Mets, it has been an abysmal season for large parts of 2026. But the underlying metrics scream a buy-low opportunity.

The absolute biggest driver of Bichette’s early-season struggles has been his very low .241 BABIP. For a player with a career BABIP well north of .330 who consistently sprays line drives across the field, this is a real statistical misfortune in 2026, rather than some kind of skills decline or poor discipline. He is hitting the ball hard like in previous seasons (45.5% hard-hit rate).

Supporting this impending bounce-back is Bichette’s remarkably steady plate discipline. While his luck on batted balls has vanished, his walk rate has held firm at over 7%, preventing his on-base percentage (OBP) from completely cratering and proving he isn’t pressing at the plate.

Bichette is also down to just a 16% strikeout rate, which is the second-best mark of his career. When a hitter maintains his vision and approach while suffering from batted-ball luck, positive regression is likely to happen. Trade for him now before a hot streak pushes his value up.

Ezequiel Tovar (SS – COL)

Ezequiel Tovar‘s role in Colorado was supposed to make him a fantasy darling, especially after his 26 homers and six steals in 2024. However, his early 2026 output has been incredibly underwhelming. Why is that? A relatively low (for Tovar) .287 BABIP that goes against what we know about hitters playing half their games at Coors Field.

Tovar boasts a high line-drive rate, an excellent groundball-to-flyball ratio and he very rarely pops balls up. This is a batted-ball profile that should work in Denver. Despite posting a hard-hit rate identical to his career average, his luck hasn’t aligned with the quality of his contact.

Tovar’s expected statistics say this could all change very soon, especially with a summer at Coors Field. His expected batting average, expected slugging rate and expected wOBA are all well above his actual production for 2026.

Once that hard contact starts turning into doubles and home runs, Tovar’s combination of a hard-hit rate and a corrected BABIP will make him a massive fantasy asset for the second half of the season.

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 .293/.341/.538 to go along with 13 homers and a league-leading 50 RBI.

While it might just be simple enough to say “everyone who starts out this fast will see a slump” to predict that regression is coming, there are plenty of other signs that show Pages is a good hitter. However, he is certainly not one of the most elite hitters in the Majors, as he has looked for nine-plus weeks.

Pages’ BABIP is currently .312, well above his career mark through his three seasons in the Majors. He has an 18% strikeout rate (which is great) but only a 6.5% walk rate. His xwOBA, xSLG and xBA are all well below what his actual numbers are for 2026.

This is the clearest sign of good luck and good fortune that a batter has had in the first two months of the year. Being a part of a potent lineup with strong plate skills certainly helps, but if you can sell high on this performance, I would definitely flip him for a top-30 player. Pages will record 100 RBI just by being in this lineup, but he is an asset worth putting on the trade block.

Brandon Nimmo (OF – TEX)

Brandon Nimmo‘s strong start in the first two months of the 2026 season has captured some fantasy attention, but beneath the surface, his profile is built on numbers that might collapse.

Nimmo has been riding a massive wave of fortune fueled by a BABIP of .305 that is above the league average and out of line with his 21% strikeout rate. Because he isn’t a premium speed threat who can beat out infield singles or steal many bases, Nimmo’s BABIP is a direct indicator of trends that usually correct themselves over time.

The most alarming part of Nimmo’s early-season profile is his strikeout rate. He is swinging and missing on pitches he normally hits, which is significantly lowering his floor. Usually, Nimmo caps his strikeout downside with an elite walk rate, but his walks have remained stagnant in the single digits (only around 8% in 2026), making him rely on his unstable hit luck.

Once Nimmo’s BABIP regresses to the mean, that elevated strikeout rate will drag his batting average down to some point around his career number of .260, making him a sell-high candidate before the slump begins.