2025 Preview: Potential Batter wOBA Surgers & Decliners — A Review

In early February, I compared 2024 actual wOBA to xwOBA to identify players who might be in for a wOBA surge or decline in 2025, based on the gap between to the two metrics. Let’s now review these lists to find out how the players actually performed. Did the potential surgers actually surge and did the decliners actually suffer declines?

Well that’s not a great start! Four of the six players that played actually suffered a decline in wOBA, while two enjoyed increases, one of which definitely qualified as a surge.

What is xwOBA missing with Juan Soto?! If we ignore the short 2020 season, he has underperformed in six of seven seasons now, which can’t just be a fluke. He just posted his second highest full season xwOBA, but his second lowest wOBA. A BABIP that finished second lowest of his career looks mostly to blame. A low LD% looks like one of the few flaws in this skill set, but he really should be posting consistent .400+ wOBA marks every single year. The plate discipline rates and Statcast power metrics are both marvelous, you can’t really get much better than this.

So much for Patrick Bailey’s 2024 strikeout rate improvement. He couldn’t sustain it, so his strikeout rate spiked back up to a new career worst. A sudden penchant for fly balls could have been a boon for his power, but he posted just a 4.9% HR/FB rate, so totally failed to take advantage. Amazingly, it didn’t crush his BABIP.

Christopher Morel was one of two wOBA increasers, though I wouldn’t really call the jump a “surge”. His BABIP fully rebounded from last year’s disaster, but his strikeout rate skyrocketed to a career worst, while his power only marginally rebounded.

It was a solid career J.D. Martinez!

It looked like Michael Harris II was en route to a rebound season after a torrid July and August, but he finished poorly, ensuring his wOBA ended sub-.300 for the first time. He still delivered fantast value though going 20/20 for the first time, so he’s not going to be as cheap as his wOBA suggests he should. He’ll almost certainly need to at least somewhat rebound to ensure he remains a regular.

Maikel Garcia was the only name on the list who enjoyed a real wOBA surge, as this was a true breakout. He cut his strikeout rate down to a career best 12.6%, which is elite, while hitting a higher rate of fly balls and for more power. He even posted a career best walk rate. It was improvements all around for the 25-year-old. This appears to be quite real, though it’s anyone’s guess if he’ll be able to repeat the low strikeout rate.

It was a forgettable year for Michael Toglia, who enjoyed a breakout 2024 that xwOBA thought should have been even better. His already high strikeout rate surged even higher to a crazy high 39.2%, which makes it nearly impossible to be productive. His power also declined, as his 2024 Barrel% was just too high to repeat. I doubt he gets another chance for regular at-bats, as even in 2024, he only posted a 98 wRC+, which is underwhelming for a first baseman.

This list ended up much better, with four of the six players suffering a wOBA decline. Perhaps the lesson here is to just project declines for everyone and you’ll probably be right more than 50% of the time!

I thought for sure that Daulton Varsho’s power would be hampered by his offseason shoulder surgery. Nope! Instead, he posted an insane .310 ISO and career high 21.3% HR/FB rate. All his Statcast power metrics were at career highs too. How on Earth did that happen?! He only ended up playing half a season, so it’s possible his power would have tailed off over a larger sample. If the steals are gone, then he’s now a home run only contributor since even in this breakout year, he batted just .238.

Wow, this was not the collapse anyone expected from Connor Wong, though it came in less than half the PAs he recorded in 2024. His .340+ BABIP cratered to just .250, while his power was nowhere to be found. After swatting 13 home runs in 2024, he failed to knock a single dinger this year.

Ezequiel Tovar missed time to injury, but when on the field, his offense declined back to his 2023 level after drastic improvement in 2024. That happened even though his walk rate jumped to a career best, albeit still too low and his strikeout rate improved to a career low. It was just a matter of a decline in BABIP, even though he posted a superb 27.8% LD% and a big drop in power. What’s so bizarre is that his maxEV set a new career high, his Barrel% inched up, and his xwOBA was by far a career best. So this should have been a strong follow-up. It means he might make the potential surger list for next year and become a nice cheap rebound candidate.

In six of nine full seasons, José Ramírez has outperformed his xwOBA. Perhaps he’s doing something not captured. He outperformed again this year, but by a smaller degree than he has in the past. The skills here remain as consistent as ever, though his maxEV fell precipitously. What you might not realize about Ramírez is that he doesn’t actually own above average raw power. Instead, his power output comes solely from his low strikeout rate and high FB%. It results in a ton of fly balls, and about a league average percentage of those leave the ballpark. Even if he were to lose a bit of power and his HR/FB rate dropped, he would still be a good bet for 20+ home runs, as long as his strikeout rate and FB% remain stable. And of course, if he keeps stealing bases like he has, there’s serious downside protection.

If you thought Ramírez was a relatively consistent xwOBA outperformer, check out Trea Turner! He has outperformed every single season except for one, and that underperformance was only by .004 points! The steals returned, and that’s what fantasy owners cheered, despite his lowest career HR/FB rate. In fact, this was his highest steal total since 2018. Will there come a point where he’s no longer able to outperform his xwOBA so dramatically? We shall find out.

Hey look, Jose Altuve’s wOBA did actually decline, but he still managed to outperform his xwOBA as usual. You thought Turner was a master at outperforming his xwOBA? Altuve has done so every single full year of his career that Statcast has calculated! It’s worth noting that his xwOBA this year was his lowest since the short 2020 season and his lowest over a full season since 2015, the first year we have data for. He became a fly ball guy this year, which hampered his BABIP, but led to a jump in home runs. Are the steals down for good? At age 35, he might not return to double digits and any drop in FB% back to his normal level could bring his homer total back into the teens. He was apparently playing through a foot injury, so maybe that affected his willingness to run. He seems a bit riskier next year.