4 Fantasy Baseball Regression Candidates (2026)

After three months of the fantasy baseball season, we have enough data to spot outliers and candidates for positive and negative regression. With half a season of 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 Dansby Swanson (.183/.292/.325) to start the year? Bench him or drop him to the waiver wire? I can’t endorse dropping him yet in 10- or 12-team leagues. What if he is just unlucky? Nick Kurtz has 19 home runs but a 30% strikeout rate. He also sports a .397 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, 13 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, helping fantasy managers view each player accurately. 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 13 weeks of the Major League Baseball season behind us and still about 80-85 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 week’s largest outliers and see what their futures might look like.

Stats up to date through June 23rd.

Players Due for Positive Regression

Michael Busch (1B – CHC)

Michael Busch has been one of the most frustrating fantasy baseball players to roster. After a full breakout with 34 home runs in 2025, he only has eight halfway through the season, to go along with a .247 average and an abysmal .396 slugging rate.

But if you look a little bit closer at Busch’s production, there are signs that a turnaround might be coming at any time. In fact, the lack of home runs and power is about the only thing Busch is struggling with right now.

Busch’s approach has improved compared to earlier in his career. His strikeout rate has continued moving in the right direction, sitting around 22% in 2026 after striking out nearly 29% of the time in 2024. His walk rate has also improved, reaching 15.4%, a six-percentage-point increase from last season.

What we are mainly seeing is a truly fluky drop in his home-run-to-fly-ball rate. Last season, Busch was at 20.9% in this predictive metric. In 2026, it is only 9.9%. That’s an outlier number that is sure to regress in the windy Chicago days this summer.

Steven Kwan (OF – CLE)

Even at just 28 years old, Steven Kwan has had some slow starts to seasons before. He always turns it around, but something else is going on this season. Kwan has not had a batting average below .268 or an on-base percentage (OBP) below .330 in his entire career.

The fact that Kwan has started his first 71 games with a .206/.321/.251 slash line is nothing really to worry about. Kwan is still young, has impeccable plate discipline and a strong track record to back his ratios. His on-base ability will return this season.

Kwan’s BABIP is one of the lowest in the league at .229. For his career, he is slightly above the Major League average at .294 and has never been below .283 for a season. With that perspective, you have to assume that with such a low number over his first three months, his last three will have to be at or above his career .294 average the rest of the way.

With that better fortune on batted balls, the on-base ability, runs and steals should also return. With a career-high 13.4% walk rate and a very low 10% strikeout rate, it’s clear Kwan is seeing the ball fine at the plate. Better days are certainly ahead.

Players Due for Negative Regression

Garrett Mitchell (OF – MIL)

The Brewers have the two highest individual BABIP producers in the league through MLB’s first 90 days. Garrett Mitchell (.392) and Brice Turang (.332) have both been so incredibly lucky this year, and Mitchell is getting on base on more than 39% of the balls he puts in play this season.

While both will see regression come quickly, it might hit Mitchell harder. He is slightly older and slower, but he has also lost some of the bat speed and plate discipline that defined the last few seasons of his career.

What’s concerning for Mitchell is that when he is not putting the ball in play, he has a 26% strikeout rate, more than three percentage points above last season. His exit velocity and hard-hit rate are all down from last season, which put his expected numbers much lower than his actual .263 average and 456 slugging rate.

Mitchell’s actual wOBA is .362, but his expected wOBA is just .356. That gap is going to start looking really bad when or if Mitchell’s BABIP and strikeout rate cause the regression to hit soon.

Jac Caglianone (1B – KCR)

If you are a power-hitting first baseman with just 12 home runs, shouldn’t you be in line for positive regression and not negative regression? Well, the discouraging fact about Jac Caglianone is that he ranks 50th in home runs this season despite some exceptional luck and success in all other aspects of his hitting.

Caglianone is hitting .270/.344/.472 this season, but has the 11th-highest BABIP in the league at .355. He is more than 90 points higher than his career average (.265). Caglianone has the same BABIP as some of the league’s fastest players, like James Wood and Elly De La Cruz.

Caglianone also strikes out over 29% of the time, and his contact rate has dropped by over four percentage points since 2025. If you were hoping for a home run surge from Caglianone soon, that could still come, but the numbers suggest his average and OBP should drop soon.