Finding regression candidates is getting more and more important as the fantasy baseball season nears its final month. Is a player’s performance through four months simply who they are this year? Or, have they been extremely lucky or unlucky for four months? Things can change quickly in fantasy baseball. Just ask a player like Jackson Merrill, who is the third-best fantasy hitter over the last week but had just a .690 OPS in July.
Last week, this column correctly predicted a positive regression for Spencer Arrighetti (a win and career-high 13 strikeouts against Boston) and a negative regression for Xander Bogaerts (the 122nd-ranked fantasy baseball hitter over the last seven days with a .241/.313/.276 line). However, Jesus Sanchez continued to struggle, with a .211 batting average and more than a 39% strikeout rate.
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This series highlights players due for positive or negative regression compared to their recent performance each week to assist fantasy managers in viewing each one properly. 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.
With the MLB trade deadline now in the past and the fantasy playoffs around the corner, 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 Regression Candidates
(Stats up to date through August 12th)
Players Due for Positive Regression
As Fernando Tatis Jr. gets closer to returning, it is worth looking at his numbers. Despite having a strong season before his late-June injury (.279/.354/.468 with 14 home runs), there is an opportunity for much more as the season winds down. Tatis has missed more than 30 games due to injury this year, which certainly hasn’t helped him, but if Tatis is healthy (and reports are he will be back soon), he could be in line for a massive finish.
Despite the best strikeout rate and walk rate of his career, Tatis’ power in the first half of the season lagged behind his prior seasons (42 home runs in 2021, 25 in 2023). His hard-hit rate is up over last year, and the same is true for his barrel rate. The problem this year pre-injury has been bad luck on his fly balls, something that could easily be corrected when he returns.
For his career, Tatis has a 24.5% home run per fly ball rate. This year, that is down to just 16.5%, the lowest of his career. It means that despite his .468 slugging percentage, his expected slugging percentage (xSLG) says it should be closer to .553 (the second-biggest gap in the league). The health is a tricky thing, but if Tatis is not playing hurt and has the full range of swing back, there could be a power surge coming for the fantasy playoffs.
On May 18, George Springer did not find himself in the leadoff spot for the first time in a long time. A leadoff man since 2015, Springer was dropped to sixth in the order by Toronto. This was a direct result of Springer hitting .198/.270/.287 with just three home runs through the middle of May. That move must have lit a fire under him because he has hit much better since then and was able to regain his leadoff role around one month later.
Most career leadoff Home Runs, MLB history
Rickey Henderson 81
George Springer 59
Alfonso Soriano 54
Craig Biggio 53#TOTHECORE pic.twitter.com/nzb7uikwbG– Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) August 9, 2024
Since last June, Springer has been hitting .270/.336/.504 with eight home runs and five stolen bases. He has raised his batting average by 20 points in that span. Some of the underlying data shows there still may be more improvement to come for Springer during the last six weeks of the season.
Springer has the 11th-largest discrepancy between his batting average (.222) and his expected batting average (.255), according to Statcast. Among hitters with at least 400 plate appearances, Springer trails only Christopher Morel and Maikel Garcia in that category. The gap has been closing since his surge over the last eight weeks, but there is still much more room for growth for the veteran outfielder. Expect some more power as well with a .414. xSLG compared to his .369 number right now.
Players Due for Negative Regression
After many struggles in 2023 and the first half of 2024, Jake McCarthy may have just had the best two-week stretch of his career. In the last 14 days. McCarthy is hitting .444/.468/.778 with three home runs, three steals and 15 RBI. He has the third-highest wOBA of any hitter in baseball during that time. But it’s masking a major problem likely to send McCarthy back to earth soon.
Jake McCarthy clears the bases with a triple!
He has 7 RBI in his last two games ???? pic.twitter.com/KnR4GMoenH
– MLB (@MLB) August 11, 2024
The production is driven primarily by a .500 batting average on balls in play (BABIP), the fourth-highest in the league. He is only walking in 2.1% of his plate appearances in the last two weeks, meaning his on-base percentage (OBP) is solely relying on an unsustainable number. McCarthy can sustain a high BABIP (his career is .338) because of his speed, but .500 is ludicrous.
For 2024, the BABIP league average is just .290. McCarthy will certainly exist above that number, but even a player with the fastest speed score in the Major Leagues can’t maintain a .500 BABIP. McCarthy’s resurgence as a fantasy asset has been tremendous to watch (.306 average, six homers, 17 steals). But temper expectations on what McCarthy can give over the last six weeks of 2024.
The sad, disappointing saga of the Oakland Athletics franchise is coming to an end soon, but there have been some bright spots on their roster this year. Brent Rooker is a legitimate fantasy MVP candidate and Mason Miller has been a solid source of saves and strikeouts. Lawrence Butler ruled baseball for about a week, and then there is Zack Gelof. The player we all thought would be the best Oakland option in 2024. It took a while, but he is finally crushing at the plate. The problem is that it may all come to a stop before the season ends.
Gelof is on fire right now with a .294/.368/.529 slash line in his last 10 games. That includes a pair of home runs and a pair of steals but also includes some stats that should raise major red flags. First is his strikeout rate. Gelof is striking out 37% of the time in those games, and it’s over 35% for the season. That’s the primary reason why his batting average and OBP have plummeted in his overall numbers.
Zack Gelof’s heating up you love to see it ????pic.twitter.com/SN6leVy13T
– The Rickey Henderson of Blogs (@RickeyBlog) August 11, 2024
Second, his BABIP is .444, or 170 points higher than his full-season number. Gelof, of course, isn’t as bad as his season-long numbers or as good as his last two weeks. His actual production is somewhere in the middle, and the safest bet is to predict he will wind up there for the balance of 2024.
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