We’re about halfway through the 2021 season now, and there have been plenty of surprising and disappointing hitters thus far. Today I’ll look at some of the underlying stats for both groups. My goal is to see if we should anticipate regression for the surprises and progression for the disappointments.
In addition to the typical 5 categories (Runs, Home Runs, RBI’s, Stolen Bases, Batting Avg.), I pulled a few other stats to help paint a broader picture of the player’s performance thus far. These included Slugging % (SLG), Walk Rate (BB%), Strikeout Rate (K%), Isolated Power (ISO), Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP), and 2 Statcast Metrics: Expected Batting Avg. (xBA) and Expected Slugging % (xSLG).
Hopefully the combination of all these stats, along with a little deeper digging, will help us to determine the best Fantasy strategy for these guys moving forward. If needed, you can find a reference for how all these stats are calculated here.