Hitter xwOBA Underperformers & Overperformers – Jun 30, 2025

It’s been nearly two months since I last reviewed the hitter xwOBA underperformers and overperformers. So let’s check back in as we head into the second half of the season. These lists are good starting points for buy low and sell high names, so let’s dive in and determine whether each does indeed fit into those buckets.

Even after a massive June that saw Juan Soto posting a crazy .501 wOBA with an absurd .414 ISO and 11 dingers, he is still significantly underperforming his xwOBA. And yes, it’s true he has underperformed every season since 2021, so it’s possible, and probably likely, that he’s doing or not doing something that xwOBA isn’t capturing, thereby overrating him. But this is still the largest gap between actual and expected, so that gap should certainly narrow. Unfortunately, his huge June means that it’s going to be impossible to pry him away from his owners at any sort of a discounted price compared to draft day cost. Since his HR/FB rate is now back in line with his history, owners could look forward to a rebound in BABIP to bring up his batting average.

Bryan Reynolds continues to underperform his xwOBA, as he simply hasn’t been able to go on an extended hot streak to narrow the gap. He has been consistently meh or worse all season, with monthly wOBA marks of .282, .321, and .308. Since he’s been playing right field since mid-April, you have to assume he’s healthy, so it’s a wonder he hasn’t turned his season around yet. He doesn’t seem that far off though as his BABIP is at a career low, but not dramatically below his career average, while his HR/FB rate is in the same spot. All he really needs is a hot two weeks and his season line should look much closer to expectations. Of course, xwOBA actually thinks he’s deserving of the second best offensive output of his career, so perhaps a huge second half is imminent. I’m an owner in my shallow mixed league so all I could do is keep him in my lineup and cross my fingers, but if I wasn’t an owner, I probably wouldn’t seek him out as a trade target as the upside here just isn’t high enough.

After a fantasy breakout last year, Brenton Doyle has reverted right back to his 2023 performance level, despite maintaining is vastly improved strikeout rate. It’s all come down to a plummeting BABIP and disappearing power output. The latter is shocking given career bests across the Statcast metrics, including HardHit%, maxEV, and Barrel%. He looks like an obvious trade target, especially with a six game homestand coming up. Since he also steals bases, he’s still providing value somewhere.

Michael Conforto seemed like a pretty great target after signing with the Dodgers this offseason, as he moved from the second worst home run park for lefties in baseball to the fifth best. That’s quite the change. Instead, his power has gone M.I.A., as he sports career lows in both HR/FB rate and ISO, while his BABIP ranks second lowest in baseball among qualified batters. Talk about a disappointment! Statcast, though, thinks he’s suffered grand misfortune, and with all his skill metrics remaining stable, it’s hard to argue with the calculation. However, he has gone the opposite way with his flies at a career high clip, which isn’t typically good for either HR/FB rate or ISO, and his Hard% on fly balls is at a career low. So neither of those are positive signs that a rebound is imminent. I guess the question is why is he suddenly going the opposite way so often and what happened to his fly ball power? He has lost 0.7 MPH of bat speed, so that might play a role, but that decline doesn’t seem dramatic enough to explain the changes in his fly balls. Perhaps a trade target in deeper leagues, but who knows.

I’m curious if Nolan Jones would have remained this bad had he stayed in Colorado. Sure, he literally was this bad during an injury-marred half season last year with the Rockies, but he has improved his strikeout rate and FB% this year, while his Barrel% has partially rebounded. It’s bizarre because the skills look great here, but he simply can’t buy results. The power is just totally gone, even though all his Statcast metrics are well above the league average. Looking into his fly balls, we find that he rarely pulls them, instead going to center or the opposite way. That’s a good way to reduce your power results, though usually that’s good for BABIP. Furthermore, his Hard% on fly balls first plummeted last year, and it’s only marginally rebounded this season. Instead, his Med% has remained elevated compared to his first two seasons. I have no idea what has happened here, but some team and some hitting coach has the exist to get him back on track, because the underlying skills here are quite good.

Ben Rice’s Statcast metrics are elite, so perhaps he’s deserving of higher than a .248 ISO. But it has come with a .252 BABIP, which Statcast might think should be far higher. The problem here if Rice’s results don’t converge toward his xwOBA is his playing time. The Yankees once again have an embarrassment of riches as they try to rotate six hitters between four slots. Luckily for his owners, Rice has been earning starts at catcher to try to keep his bat in the lineup, but that might stop if he hits a slump. He’s going to be frustrating to own, but the skills are strong and should lead to continued results.

Mike Trout owns a .341 career BABIP, despite his extreme fly ball ways, which is rare. This year, his batted ball profile almost perfectly matches his career, but his BABIP sits at just .270. His power looks as strong as ever, with the second highest HardHit% of his career and a higher than average Barrel%. The steals are clearly gone though (and have been since 2020), so a batting average rebound would really help offset the loss in value from one of the standard five categories. He’s a scary name to target in trade given the injury potential, so perhaps make a stronger effort in OBP leagues where his value gets a huge boost thanks to his elevated walk rate.

Corey Seager kind of looks to be having a normal year, as his HR/FB rate is just above his career average, and his walk rate is at its highest since his small sample 2015 debut. However, his strikeout rate has crept up to its highest since 2017, and his BABIP is at the second lowest mark of his career. His home runs are also being capped by a drop in FB% to its lowest since 2021. It’s a lot of little things here and there that make it difficult to project a rebound, even if Statcast thinks he’s deserving of one. Has his disappointing start been enough to reduce his cost in trade?

My gosh Luis Rengifo has been a massive disappointment this year. Not only has the drop in power last year carried over, but his batting average has plummeted, and oh…he’s swiped just two bases so far after stealing 24 last year. Guess last season was the fluke! Statcast’s xwOBA is singing a happier tune though and if his batting average luck improved, that means more stolen base opportunities. But something is still not right here because he’s attempted seven steals, but has been caught on five of them already. His Sprint Speed and HP to 1B marks are identical to last year, so it doesn’t appear that he’s actually lost any speed. He’s just not running as often and when he does, he’s not doing it successfully. It’s tough to know if anything will change in the second half, so he’s only a potential target in AL-Only leagues.

Jacob Wilson has been a fantasy revelation this year and not only as a one-category batting average booster. He’s also on pace to flirt with the 20-homer plateau and even steal double digit bases. Oh, and he’s hitting .340. But Statcast’s xwOBA ain’t buying it at all. While the formula still thinks he should be hitting for a strong average (though not quite .300), it totally doubts his power, with an xSLG nearly .100 lower than his actual mark. That’s massive! Among qualified hitters, his 2.4% Barrel% is seventh worst, while he and TJ Friedl (ranked ninth worst in Barrel%) are the only two names in the bottom 15 Barrel% with a double digit HR/FB rate. Part of that is because he’s been a big pulled fly ball guy, so that has helped him maximize what limited power he possesses. If he continues to pull his flies at such a rate, perhaps his power output won’t regress as dramatically as xwOBA suggests. He also probably won’t keep hitting .340, but the skills look good here. Just be aware that he’s not far off from being Luis Arraez and you see what happens when a batting average only guy loses his BABIP.

Speak of the devil, the guy I just mentioned above, TJ Friedl, is the second biggest xwOBA performer and I didn’t even realize it when I mentioned him! For the second year in a row, he’s managed to post a near league average HR/FB rate with a miniscule Barrel%. Well duh, he plays his home games in the league’s best park for left-handed homers! Not so fast…his HR/FB rate is just 2.8% at home this year, versus 15.9% on the road! That’s pretty crazy. He has also posted just a .304 wOBA at home, compared to a .400 mark away. Similar to Wilson, Friedly has also been a big fly ball pull guy, so he is definitely outperforming his xwOBA partly for that reason since the metric doesn’t account for horizontal angle. It’s the Isaac Paredes path to success, but sometimes it doesn’t work and then you get his 2024 season.

Alex Bregman was having a renaissance season during his first year with the Red Sox, but a trip to the IL has delayed his good fortune reversing. For one, his BABIP stands at a career high .331. Well that makes sense because Fenway Park sports the sixth highest hits park factor for right-handers in baseball. That’s great and should boost Bregman’s typically lower than league average mark. Except that is not what has happened. Like Friedl, Bregman has actually been oddly better on the road. His BABIP at home was just .289, versus an inflated .377 mark in away parks. Even his HR/FB rate was more than double on the road than at home! What’s interesting is that his Barrel% sits at a career high and the first time it’s in double digits, but that’s obviously accounted for in xwOBA and it’s still not enough to avoid being one of the biggest overperformers. With his worst strikeout rate since his 2016 and regression looming, he would normally make an ideal sell high. Unfortunately, it’ll be tough to get anywhere close to perceived value right now while he’s on the IL.

Welcome back Javier Báez! Kinda. Even if he has overperformed, his .307 xwOBA is actually his highest since 2021! He’s done it with his highest BABIP since that same year despite a consistently low LD%, and somewhat of a rebound in HR/FB rate, despite a near identical HardHit% to last year and a lower Barrel%. Hmmmmmm. He used to supplement the power with stolen bases, but with just one steal this year, that power needs to be for real to be worth playing. It doesn’t seem like it is and he has already become a part-timer, so it’s probably not worth trying to sell high given the likely underwhelming return.

Man, this doesn’t bode well for the Tigers given that Zach McKinstry is the second Tigers hitter on this overperformer list. Most of the overperformance here is on the power side, which is surprising given a below average 8.6% HR/FB rate and middling .170 ISO. His Statcast metrics don’t scream that he’s overperforming, but if his xSLG suggests he is, then perhaps it’s true. It’s not a pulled fly ball thing either, as he is consistently below league average and has been stable in that department the past three seasons, including this year. He obviously doesn’t have much trade value, but with a .363 BABIP, he’s highly unlikely to come close to delivering the same kind of value over the rest of the season that he has during the first half.

Wow, how does Ernie Clement end up on this list when he sports just a .112 ISO?! It’s mostly a batting average thing, as Statcast isn’t buying the .332 BABIP. That’s surprising given the 25.3% LD%, but if he doesn’t deserve that BABIP with that LD%, imagine what’s going to happen to his batting average when and if he can’t maintain the inflated LD% to begin with! He doesn’t hit home runs, or at least hasn’t at the same pace as last year, and doesn’t steal bases. So he’s really been a Luis Arraez clone. That’s fine and dandy in deep leagues, but without being able to count on those counting stats, he’s not someone I’d care to roster.

For a guy on pace for like 60+ homers, you had to figure Cal Raleigh must be benefiting from some good fortune. Indeed, Statcast thinks so. But, with an xwOBA of .397, this has clearly been a massive breakout, even if he isn’t deserving of as high an actual mark as he has posted. The majority of the xwOBA overperformance is from his power. His HR/FB rate has surged from the high teens to 27.6%, which ranks fifth highest among qualified hitters, while his ISO has exploded, easily leading all of baseball…including Aaron Judge. He has always been a pulled fly ball guy, but he’s gotten a bit better this year, which has likely helped. But that alone definitely doesn’t explain the power outburst. Instead, it’s the combination of a career low strikeout rate and a spike in Barrel%, which ranks fifth highest in baseball.

Surprisingly, his HardHit% and maxEV are close to last season, so he has simply hit his flies optimally more frequently. Will he continue to do that? Who knows, but even if he continues at his current pace, Statcast thinks his results should regress a bit. What’s even crazier is the nine steals, meaning he actually has an outside shot to go 60-20, which is just insanity, especially for a catcher!

Hey, we got two catchers in a row here, as Carlos Narváez has been a pleasant surprise for the Red Sox. It’s mostly a BABIP thing here as he sports a .349 mark despite a batted ball distribution a bit less BABIP friendly than league average marks. Combine that with below average speed and you would expect a significantly lower mark as Statcast suggests. So he’s unlikely to continuing contributing in batting average, but the power looks real. and he gets a major boost in OBP leagues thanks to his double digit walk rate.

You knew Byron Buxton would finally stay healthy and have his best fantasy season yet after you all gave up drafting him, right?! Statcast thinks he’s been a bit lucky on both the batting average and power front. Despite a heavy fly ball tendency and low LD%, he has posted an above average BABIP, which doesn’t seem sustainable. Remember, his BABIP has bounced around throughout his career, so it’s not like he has consistently posted a high mark suggesting he has some sort of “hitting ’em where they ain’t” skill. The power looks somewhat sustainable, as his HardHit% sits at a career high and while his maxEV is actually at its lowest since 2020, his Barrel% is the third highest of his career sitting in the mid-teens. That he has been running again and has already stolen the second highest number of bases of his career is obviously a great sign. He might be a sell high for a risk averse owner as that injury risk will always loom. But I don’t see a big crash as long as he remains healthy.