In Search of Some Luck: Part 2

Having now identified the three hitters who may have suffered the most bad luck so far this season, while still holding real fantasy value and possibly being available in your leagues, it’s time to dig into why.

Through the process of elimination in the In Search of Some Luck piece, we were able to land on three names, which we will break down in this piece. Trent Grisham, JJ Bleday, and Max Muncy.

These three names provide a wide scope of ways a hitter can underperform their expected output, giving not only three potential additions to your fantasy roster, but a wider methodology to consider when looking at why some hitters don’t perform to their expected offensive output.

Trent Grisham – New York Yankees

When running through the various permutations of finding the unluckiest hitters, Grisham had a case for the strongest profile of any hitter in the league. His slash line of .232/.341/.406, as you would expect, does not point to a great statistical season so far in 2026.

Having always had strong plate discipline, Grisham has taken that to a new level this year and paired it with some interesting mechanical changes that have shifted his approach. He has rarely chased throughout his career, and now has the league’s lowest chase rate while sitting in the 93rd percentile for walk rate. What has shifted is his whiff percent, down from 22 percent in 2025 to 16 percent, putting him in the 89th percentile. This is an important change when considering the low BABIP he is running this year, which makes him a prime unlucky hitter candidate.

He is squaring the ball up almost 40 percent of the time, putting him in the top 2 percent in the majors, meaning more of his swings are turning into contact, and more of that contact is well struck rather than mishit. This has improved year over year, indicating it is not just a one-season blip. Blasts per contact has also climbed steadily, 17.4% in 2024, 18.3% in 2025, 20.6% in 2026, again a career best, showing the quality of contact isn’t just more frequent but also producing more of his best possible outcomes.

What’s interesting is that his attack angle itself has dropped every year, from 18 degrees in 2023 to 13 degrees now in 2026, paired with Squared Up Contact and Blasts percent both climbing each year steadily. Together, these suggest a mechanically flatter, more contact-oriented swing, a lower attack angle paired with better contact quality.

He has been putting himself in a better position to generate a higher volume of positive outcomes, but as we have seen, his BABIP has not yet caught up to his xwOBA so far in 2026. He is yet to see the results of his new approach.

Across his 121 plate appearances that ended in a field out this season, Grisham has averaged a 90.1 mph exit velocity with an 18-degree launch angle and an xBA of .230, including 11 barrels and a 43 percent Hard Hit rate on those balls. Statcast’s own model expects roughly 28 of those batted balls to have gone for hits. Instead, he has zero, and his hardest hit ball of the year was a 111.6 mph blast off Trey Gibson that resulted in an out.

Entering the 10-day IL, Trent Grisham is not an immediate buy, and it will be worth monitoring the extent of his hamstring injury. His rolling xwOBA has actually been trending in the right direction over his most recent stretch, climbing from around league average up toward .380, the most encouraging recent form signal of anyone covered in this piece. If the hamstring issue is minor and he returns at full strength, the underlying numbers suggest his luck may finally be catching up to his skill. If given the all-clear by Aaron Boone, he could be a very solid pickup across all fantasy formats.

JJ Bleday – Cincinnati Reds

Despite coming through the elimination process, as one of the ‘unluckiest’ hitters in the league. JJ Bleday is having a career year so far in Cincinnati. Previously, his only above-average offensive season was in 2024 when he posted a very respectable 120 wRC+, but he has so far blown that out of the water currently on a 145 wRC+, and is only one homerun behind the 14 he hit through the entirety of 2025, and so far his OPS is .918.

He has been flagged in this exercise as being unlucky due to the large differential gap between his BABIP and xwOBA. From a fantasy perspective, he also seems undervalued by consensus ownership, which still sits around 50%.

Throughout his career, his BABIP has ranged from .216 to .279, never close to the perceived average of around .300. This year is no different, as he sits in the middle of that range at .258. As I outlined in the previous piece on how power hitters such as Yordan Alvarez will naturally have suppressed BABIPs due to the amount of fly balls they hit, Bleday falls into this category. Bleday has always had a Fly-Ball rate close to 50%, and this season, he is 14th of the 204 hitters with at least 200 plate appearances at 48.9%. What is different is that this season, more of these flyballs are leaving the yard. From 13% in 2025, his previous best, his HR/FB ratio is now at 19.4% in 2026. This metric actually shows an encouraging sign for his overall development, as it has increased every year of his career up until this point. Bleday’s hard percent has also climbed every year, from 26.6 up to 35.8 in 2026, a career best, and as a result, his ISO is at .299, also a career best, well above any previous season, and 6th overall for hitters with at least 200 plate appearances, above the likes of Judge and Soto.

The explanation for this power surge appears to be mechanical. Interestingly, his stance angle has opened from 11 degrees in both 2024 and 2025 to 29 degrees in 2026, by far the most open of his career.

This, paired with an average bat speed that has jumped to 74.1 mph from 71.7 the previous two years, and a fast swing rate, the percentage of swings 75 mph or higher has more than doubled, from 14.8 to 16.5 percent in the prior two years, up to 39.9 percent now.

Bleday isn’t unlucky in the clean way Grisham is. His BABIP has always run low regardless of season, and that’s mostly structural, given his fly-ball-heavy approach. What’s different in 2026 is a deliberate swing change, a much more open stance generating real bat speed and fast swing gains, which has unlocked a new power level. The largest gap in the pool is real, but it’s better understood as a power breakout, and still warrants serious fantasy attention.

Max Muncy – LA Dodgers

It seems to be said every year, but Max Muncy still appears to be in his absolute prime. Again, he is enjoying another strong statistical season that, at first glance, does not fit the unlucky narrative. Despite a wRC+ of 146, an xwOBA in the 94th percentile, and a barrel rate in the 95th percentile, he is still posting a negative 0.123 gap between his BABIP and xwOBA.

Muncy’s 2026 slash line, .265/.369/.513, with an .882 OPS, is his best of the last three seasons across nearly every category. What is fascinating about his numbers so far in 2026 is that he is hitting more ground balls relative to fly balls than in recent years. Yet his HR/FB ratio has also increased, so when he does hit the ball in the air, more of those are going for homers.

This shift toward more ground-ball contact has come alongside real BABIP volatility this season, which can be seen in his rolling wOBA chart. His 15-game rolling wOBA, the actual outcome-based number, has been volatile, dipping as low as .270 before climbing back to .450 to .470 in the most recent stretch, with his BABIP also dipping to .172.

The wider gaps between the BABIP line and the wOBA line after around game 40 point to a meaningful dip in his actual production, up until the lines start to converge again around game 58. It is also worth noting the season actually opened on a hot stretch, too, around games 20 to 35, where both BABIP and wOBA were running well above his norm at the same time, a reminder that the swings can go both directions.

But what is a good indicator for Muncy’s offensive value is that, despite some ups and downs, his rolling xwOBA from the start of the season has actually been remarkably stable all season, holding around .380 to .400 the entire year with no real decline, comfortably above league average throughout. The recent surge in actual production, climbing from the low .270s back above .450 in his last several games, suggests results may finally be catching up to the skill level his xwOBA has shown all year.

Some recent struggles were BABIP-driven rather than a real decline, which led to a larger gap between actual and expected output. As he has started to turn some of that luck around, a turn in form now appears to be underway. This is the sign of a very stable profile that provides huge value in fantasy, and despite a strong start to the season, even Muncy has fallen victim to some bad luck through a 20-game stretch. Still at 75% ownership in consensus leagues, now is the time to act if he happens to be available, as already we are seeing the results start to converge with his expected output.