In Search of Some Luck

Moving on from looking at players who potentially might run out of luck in the previous piece, we now look to the other end of the chart, and some hitters who may be due some good fortune.

While identifying the hitters I thought had potential regression was easy, with plenty of highly-rostered bats in the top region of the chart with interesting data as to why they were outperforming their xwOBA in terms of BABIP, finding who to highlight at the other end was more challenging.

For those who don’t know, BABIP only accounts for balls in play, as the name suggests, which means home runs are not accounted for. That’s why we see the likes of Juan Soto, Yordan Alvarez, Junior Caminero, and Munetaka Murakami, all power bats well below the reference line.

This creates a bit of a muddied pool of players, all with low BABIP numbers and varying xwOBA. A well hit HR will boost xwOBA, but it doesn’t factor into BABIP. So, for this piece, it seemed more interesting to arrive at three players through an elimination process, so we can see which bats have been unlucky so far this season and, more importantly, which can provide fantasy value across different formats. This will be the process piece; the full final player breakdowns will follow in part three.

Starting from every hitter rostered in 30 percent or more of leagues, as we did in the last piece, we can begin narrowing that pool down through a series of cutoffs.

Round 1

A gap of negative 0.060 or greater between their BABIP and xwOBA.

So obviously, we need a threshold for underperforming or unlucky players in terms of the relationship between their BABIP and xwOBA, or expected offensive value. The reasoning for why their xwOBA is underperforming their BABIP will obviously vary from here. But as a jumping-off point, I set this differential threshold to cut the field in about half while still providing an interesting cut-off where we could find some real options later.

The pool of hitters went from 136 to 55, with the names below surviving to the next round.

Aaron Judge, Adley Rutschman, Alec Burleson, Brandon Lowe, Brandon Nimmo, Brent Rooker, Bryce Harper, Cal Raleigh, Chase DeLauter, Cody Bellinger, Colson Montgomery, Corey Seager, Dansby Swanson, Dillon Dingler, Drake Baldwin, Freddie Freeman, Gabriel Moreno, George Springer, Geraldo Perdomo, Isaac Paredes, Iván Herrera, JJ Bleday, JJ Wetherholt, Jackson Merrill, James Wood, José Ramírez, Juan Soto, Julio Rodríguez, Junior Caminero, Ketel Marte, Kyle Schwarber, Liam Hicks, Manny Machado, Marcus Semien, Matt McLain, Matt Olson, Max Muncy, Miguel Vargas, Mike Trout, Munetaka Murakami, Nico Hoerner, Pete Alonso, Ronald Acuña Jr., Sal Stewart, Salvador Perez, Shea Langeliers, Shohei Ohtani, Spencer Steer, Steven Kwan, Trent Grisham, Tyler Soderstrom, Vinnie Pasquantino, Will Smith, Xander Bogaerts, Yordan Alvarez.

Round 2

Removing 80 percent or higher ownership.

As previously mentioned, we have a lot of the league’s best hitters in this group, not because they are unlucky, but because they hit for so much power that their BABIP is naturally depressed. I thought about using HR/FB% as the solution for this, but I settled on a much simpler stat: ownership percentage according to consensus leagues. That way, I wasn’t punishing lower-owned hitters with an elevated HR/FB percent, while still achieving the same goal of eliminating the upper-echelon of hitters like Judge, Alvarez, and Soto. For fantasy purposes of trying to get ahead of the curve on lower-owned players, this gives us a good selection of currently undervalued hitters.

With this 80 percent or lower threshold, the pool was cut from 55 hitters to 19 remaining.

Brandon Nimmo, Brent Rooker, Chase DeLauter, Colson Montgomery, Corey Seager, Dansby Swanson, Gabriel Moreno, George Springer, Isaac Paredes, JJ Bleday, Marcus Semien, Matt McLain, Max Muncy, Salvador Perez, Spencer Steer, Steven Kwan, Trent Grisham, Vinnie Pasquantino, Xander Bogaerts.

Round 3

An xwOBA of 0.350

As you can see from this list, a number of these hitters did not make it this far because they have been unlucky, but because they have been bad at baseball so far in 2026 and do not warrant our fantasy attention. Looking at you, Dansby Swanson and Salvador Perez. I wanted a group with a well-rounded offensive profile and above-average expected performance so far in 2026.

By setting the cut-off slightly above league average at 0.350, the names went from 19 to 6 remaining.

Round 4

A 33%+ Squared Up Contact and 11% walk rate

This is where I really could have gone in any number of directions. I initially thought of setting it at xwOBA in the last 30 days or 50 PAs to see if we could catch a hitter coming into form. But I didn’t want to rely solely on xwOBA, since I thought integrating some more under-the-hood stats would give us a better picture, and recency bias or recent stats can be noisy and might not be the best predictor of success.

Round 4 combines two independent metrics, rather than just another window on xwOBA. Contact quality tells you whether the underlying skill supports continued production, while plate discipline tells you whether the approach at the plate is sound enough to sustain it. The cutoffs landed at an above league average walk rate of 11 percent, paired with a Squared Up rate of 33 percent. This led me to three remaining names of potential buy-lows from the unluckiest hitters so far in the league.

Trent Grisham, Max Muncy, and JJ Bleday.

Of the six, Moreno, Steer, and Nimmo were all eliminated on walk rate, each falling below 11 percent, leaving Grisham, Muncy, and Bleday as the three names that cleared both bars.

I’ll have a full breakdown on these three soon, along with a note on the other three names from the final six, but it seems these hitters could come into some luck sooner rather than later and are worth monitoring given their ownership.