Ryan Kirksey | Wed, Aug 5th 2026, 7:12am EDT

4 Fantasy Baseball Regression Candidates (2026)

After about four and a half months of the fantasy baseball season, we have enough data to spot outliers and candidates for positive and negative regression. With the trade deadline and All-Star Break behind us, we will see wild swings in production, and the tendency is to overreact.

What if a player performs as poorly as Jose Ramirez (.233/.331/.388) at this point in the year but has a .242 batting average on balls in play (BABIP)? Bench him or drop him to the waiver wire? I can’t endorse dropping him in 12-team leagues. What if he is just unlucky in the batting average department so far? Colson Montgomery has 25 home runs and five stolen bases, but also sports a 33% strikeout rate and just an 8% walk rate. Can that pace continue, or will he regress?

The decisions will get tougher as the season goes on. For now, 19 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 19 weeks of the Major League Baseball season behind us and still about 50 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 August 3rd.)

Players Due for Positive Regression

Corbin Carroll (OF – ARI)

Corbin Carroll has been one of the biggest fantasy disappointments of the past month. He is hitting just .163/.284/.326 in July, with 15 hits, two homers, six RBI, and 27 strikeouts. That is a particularly ugly follow-up to a June in which he hit .243 but had an .811 OPS and an .867 OPS in May. The good news for fantasy managers is that Carroll’s July slump doesn’t appear to reflect a complete collapse in his ability.

But there is good news! He continued to draw walks last month, and his combination of speed and power gives him multiple paths to fantasy production even when the batting average isn’t cooperating. The BABIP of .203 was one of the lowest in the league.

There are also reasons to expect the bat to rebound. Carroll’s 2026 Statcast profile shows 16 home runs against 18.3 expected home runs, meaning his power output has actually lagged what his batted-ball quality suggests. He also looks good in several areas, including an 89th-percentile sweet-spot rate and 88th-percentile hard-hit rate, while his 97th-percentile sprint speed gives him continued stolen-base upside. A .163 average over a month is too low for a hitter with Carroll’s combination of contact, speed, and track record, making him one of the better positive-regression bets for the rest of the season.

William Contreras (C – MIL)

William Contreras is another hitter whose recent results have badly represented his underlying skills. He hit just .186/.245/.291 with one home run in July, collecting only 16 hits in 86 at-bats. That came after three consecutive months in which he hit exactly .288, including a .302 average in both May and June. The July collapse is especially striking because Contreras’ overall track record suggests he is usually much closer to the hitter who produced a .281 average and .831 OPS in 2024 than the one who managed a .535 OPS last month.

The Statcast data makes Contreras a positive regression candidate. His 2026 expected batting average is .264, expected slugging percentage is .435, and expected wOBA is .330, compared with actual marks of .268, .390, and .316, respectively. His 89.7 mph average exit velocity, 42.8% hard-hit rate, and 7.3% barrel rate aren’t elite compared to some of his previous seasons, but they are nowhere near bad enough to justify the .189 batting average he posted in July. Contreras isn’t hitting the ball quite as hard as he did during his best seasons, but the quality of contact still points toward substantially better results than what he received in July. August should be better.

Players Due for Negative Regression

Jeremy Pena (SS – HOU)

Jeremy Pena has been one of the hottest hitters in baseball since returning from the injured list on July 10th, but his production the rest of the month looks extremely difficult to sustain. He hit .381/.412/.698 with six homers and 13 RBI in just 63 at-bats during July. That is a massive jump from the already elite .319/.392/.473 line he posted in June. His recent stretch has been even more extreme, with Pena riding a lengthy hitting streak and putting together several multi-hit games. In July, his BABIP was a crazy-high .409 compared to .297 from March to May.

The underneath-the-hood numbers suggest a correction is coming. Pena’s 2026 expected batting average is still great at .302, and his expected slugging percentage is .453, compared with an actual .319 average and .504 slugging percentage. His 5.8% barrel rate is also below the MLB average of 7.6% (27th percentile), making his recent home-run streak particularly difficult to maintain. Pena is a very good fantasy player because of his combination of batting average, speed, and improving power. However, the .381 July average and .767 slugging percentage are almost certainly unsustainable. Expect him to be great, just not otherworldly, the rest of the season.

Jackson Holliday (2B – BAL)

Speaking of unbelievably hot months of July, Jackson Holliday’s month was almost the exact opposite of the player he had been for much of the first half. Holliday’s July split month shows him hitting .368/.500/.421, including 19 hits and 16 walks against just 10 strikeouts. That batting average represents a dramatic change after Holliday hit just .179 in June. His recent production is encouraging for his long-term outlook, especially since he is just 22 years old, but it also creates an opportunity for fantasy managers to sell high if they believe the July numbers are going to come back toward his normal level.

The underlying numbers provide some reason for skepticism. Holliday’s 2026 Statcast profile produces only a .239 expected batting average and .370 expected slugging percentage, compared with a much higher actual production during his recent hot streak in July and early August. His average exit velocity is just 87.7 mph, while his barrel rate is a mediocre 7.7%. He has also struck out in 25.3% of his plate appearances this season. There is still plenty of room for Holliday to grow in his career, but this month shouldn’t be the representative sample.

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