With the MLB trade deadline just one week away, we are about to see several players move teams, many spots open up for different players and a number of players get extended looks that may not have had playing time in the first half. After the trade deadline is complete and roles shift, it’s always tempting to look at the players with expanded roles in hopes they can help our fantasy baseball teams. Some will maintain positive performances, while others will assuredly regress.
Each week in this article, players due for some positive or negative regression compared to their recent performance will be highlighted to assist fantasy managers in how to properly view each one. Digging underneath the surface stats, we will examine some hitting and pitching metrics to try to determine if a given player is overperforming or underperforming what should be expected.
The goal here is to identify players who are due for hot streaks and cold streaks and acquire them before the value rises or sell high before the crash. Below are four players worth considering.
- Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire Assistant
- Fantasy Baseball Trade Tools
- Weekly Fantasy Baseball Content
- MLB Prop Bet Cheat Sheet
Fantasy Baseball Regression Candidates
(Stats up to date through July 21, 2024)
Players Due for Positive Regression
What a disaster of a first half for Corbin Carroll, who was a consensus first-round pick in fantasy baseball drafts this past spring. If not for his 19 steals and 61 runs in 96 games, he would be borderline droppable. His .211/.299/.339 slash line has cratered since last year and he has just six home runs after launching 25 into the Arizona desert last season. Many believe — although Carroll has denied it — that he is still suffering from lingering shoulder problems suffered last year and earlier in his career. While that explained things early on, it might be that there is also a large portion of bad luck keeping Carroll down lately.
Consider his performance over the last 15 days and what possibility there might be to turn things around. Despite hitting just .222 in the last two weeks, Carroll has a .324 on-base percentage (OBP) and a crazy .593 slugging percentage. That’s because he has three homers and a double during that span, plus he is stealing bases at a high clip again (he has four in the last two weeks). He is walking almost 12% of the time and has an ISO ratio of .370. However, he can’t get the batting average to rise because he has an uncharacteristic .150 batting average on balls in play (BABIP).
Corbin Carroll over his last 5 games:
3 HR
10 RBI
6 Runs
3 SBpic.twitter.com/v6Ngn0pSfp– Kirk Snyder (@dynastyinfo411) July 21, 2024
Put in context, that is one of the 22 lowest rates in the league in that span and is 147 points lower than his career average. It’s weighing down his seasonal BABIP (.246), but a player with Carroll’s contact ability and speed can’t stay that low forever. The power and speed are slowly returning for Carroll, and the hits are about to come next.
Somehow, one of the best hitters at getting on base over the last month is hitting just .188 in July. Despite walking almost 20% of the time over the last two weeks (10th-best in MLB), Schwarber is having trouble getting the hits to land like they were for him in June. His .174 BABIP is the 28th-lowest among all hitters in the last few weeks and is the primary reason for him only hitting two home runs over that time frame.
That unlucky streak hasn’t stopped him from getting on base nor has it sapped his power. There are just eight players this month who have at least a 20% walk rate and have walked at least as many times as they struck out. Schwarber is one of those players as he retains one of the best batting eyes in the game today. His .219 ISO is under his career average (.259) but is the same as someone like Yordan Alvarez in the same period. Once his .174 BABIP from this month gets back up his career average of .262, Schwarber is likely to go on another power barrage similar to what we saw in early June.
Players Due for Negative Regression
Let’s talk about things that are not sustainable for a moment. One thing that is not sustainable is a .579 BABIP. That, however, is what Willy Adames has produced over the last three weeks. A .394/.444/.727 slash line is not sustainable unless you are Barry Bonds and it is 2004. But, again, this is what Adames has produced. Even more confounding is the fact Adames is putting up these massive numbers with a massively high 33.3% strikeout rate.
Willy Adames is on fire ????
A solo shot tonight brings him up to 10 RBI in his last 9 games!
And entering play today Adames was slashing .394/.444/.727 since July 8!
– Just Fantasy Baseball (@JustFantasyBB) July 23, 2024
Essentially, Adames is not making contact in a third of his plate appearances but is getting a hit 58% of the time he does make contact. Those two things just don’t compute. If we play the game of ‘One of These Things is Not Like the Other’, you can have a high average, high on-base percentage and above-average BABIP, but one of the 20 worst strikeout rates in the league generally does not accompany those numbers.
The funny thing is, however, at 22.5%, Adames has his lowest strikeout rate this season than any of his other six years. Overall, it’s led to a pretty normal campaign for him where he is hitting .248/.332/.430. That tells me these monstrous numbers over the last few weeks are a fluke and he is likely to settle back into his seasonal numbers soon, especially if he can’t stop striking out.
We have passed the point of the season where most starting pitchers are well past 100 innings pitched. If they have stayed healthy and productive, as someone like Tyler Anderson has, they might be approaching 120 innings (Anderson has 118). Knowing this, actual pitcher numbers and expected numbers are starting to come closer and closer together for most. Unless, that is, your name is Tyler Anderson and you continue to defy pitching logic as you have all season.
Tyler Anderson had 18 whiffs in his outing … pic.twitter.com/Zn5fajssWj
– Ryan Divish (@RyanDivish) July 23, 2024
Anderson has a 2.91 ERA on the season. But all other pitching estimators show he should be performing much worse. He has an expected ERA (xERA) of 4.41. He has a FIP of 4.59 and an xFIP of 5.02. How does he continue to keep the ERA for the year under 3.00? There sure is a whole lot of luck, and it might be about to change.
(Of course, as I write this, Anderson has gone 5.2 innings allowing one run and striking out eight. It’s alright, I’m still holding strong in my belief.)
Anderson’s left-on-base percentage of 83% this year is 10 percentage points above the league average. Just that kind of luck prevents a lot of earned runs in a season. But he also has a .228 BABIP in his 118 innings. That’s far and away the lowest of his career (.283 career average). Plus, he is doing all this while only giving up 36% ground balls on the year.
Somehow the balls that cause the most damage (fly balls and line drives) make up 64% of his batted ball events, but he manages to keep his ERA as one of the best in the league. Unless this is going to be one of the luckiest pitcher seasons of all time, there’s no way it will continue for two more months.
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