Hitters To Improve for Fantasy Baseball - Analyzing BABIP+ and xBA Studs

June 13, 2023

Brenton's hitter risers and fallers for fantasy baseball using advanced sabermetrics BABIP+ and xBA. Hitter trade targets for for Week 12 (2023).

Welcome to the Week 12 edition of Statcast Hitter Studs and Duds for the 2023 fantasy baseball season! Be sure to also check out all of our Statcast analysis for fantasy baseball, including the weekly series by Connelly Doan about Statcast Pitcher Studs and Duds.

Don't look now but we're roughly a month away from the All-Star break! In other words, the MLB regular season is no longer "young" and it's about to heat up right in line with the weather. Players and teams alike are about to hit the stretch run while the rumor mill should gain serious steam in the coming weeks.

This week, we're going to use the BABIP+ statistic along with the expected batting average to get an idea of whether a group of players should see improved results moving forward. Of course, someone has to be the unluckiest hitter in the game every season but there's also plenty of time for the unlucky to have their fortunes turn around. Let's combine these two metrics to predict the likeliest of candidates to get things going as we approach the second half of the season! Remember, all of the names on these lists are among qualified hitters.

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Hitter Studs and Duds for Fantasy Baseball

Kyle Schwarber, OF, Phillies

As per BABIP+, Schwarber has been the unluckiest hitter in baseball. His 56 mark is 44% below the league average. As a result, the Phillies' slugger is hitting a paltry .171 on the season. However, Schwarber also owns a .229 xBA on the campaign. It's not pretty and it's nearly identical to his .228 career mark but it's still 58 points above his prevailing average across his first 279 plate appearances of the season.

It appears the positive regression has kicked in. After hitting a disgusting .115 in May, Schwarber is nearly 100 points higher at .211 for June in 46 plate appearances. Again, it's not pretty, but it's worth keeping in mind that the 30-year-old owns a career .254 average in the month of June, his highest in any single month throughout his career.

He's providing fantasy managers with power as per his 17 home runs, and his 17.2% BB% keeps his OBP reasonable, but Schwarber appears to be a lock to see positive batting-average regression moving forward.

Jean Segura, 3B, Marlins

Jean Segura has made a living hitting for average as his .281 career mark can attest. He's hit as high as .319 in his career and cracked the .300 threshold each season from 2016-2018. While his average has dipped some in recent seasons, he's hit at least .277 in each of the last two campaigns.

That is what makes his ugly .195 average so surprising in his first season in South Florida. Segura's batting average and his 77 BABIP+ are both the sixth-worst figures in baseball and the fact that his 132 GB%+ is the second-highest mark in baseball is not helping his cause.

However, Segura also sports a more modest .243 xBA that is 48 points above his current batting average. His speed has declined with age but he's not "slow" given his 59th percentile in sprint speed. He's still able to leg out infield hits but has simply been dealt a feeble hand on balls he has put into play, even if his hard-hit rate sits in the 32nd percentile.

At the very least, look for Segura to have a nice second half from a batting-average standpoint.

Willson Contreras, C, Cardinals

Like Segura, Willson Contreras has had a tough go of it in his first season with his new club. For his part, Contreras is hitting all of .204 on the campaign while his 83 wRC+ tells us his bat has been 17% below the league average overall.

At the same time, his 81 BABIP+ sits 152nd of 162 qualified big-league hitters. However, his .253 xBA sits at a more reasonable 94th of 162 hitters. For context, his .253 xBA is only one point below Randy Arozarena, who is hitting .289. It appears Randy is at the opposite end of this spectrum.

Interestingly, Contreras' xBA is one point above his .252 career batting average. He has never hit below .237 in his career and has hit as high as .282. The latter is not happening, but it's safe to say Contreras should see his batting average trend north moving forward.

Pete Alonso, 1B, Mets

Pete Alonso is a marvelous case when it comes to the regression debate. I mean, the guy leads baseball with 22 home runs, yet there's a wealth of sabermetrics that suggest he is still due to regress positively moving forward.

He'll have to wait a bit to do so as he's currently on the injured list with a wrist injury but, from a batting average perspective, Alonso has been very unlucky. In fact, only Schwarber and Max Muncy sport an inferior BABIP+ to Alonso's 66 mark, good for 34% below the league average. His solid .273 xBA is 42 points above his .231 batting average while we can also note that his .406 xwOBA is 36 points above his .370 wOBA.

He's hitting .231 yet sits in the 77th percentile in xBA. While it's his light-tower power that makes him a fantasy baseball dynamo, his likelihood of positive batting average regression will also give him a boost in both average and OPS leagues moving forward.

Bobby Witt Jr., SS, Royals

Unlike the others on this list, Bobby Witt Jr.'s BABIP+ isn't a bottom-feeding figure. His .270 BABIP is still 8% below the league average as per his 92 BABIP+, however, it's the separation between his batting average and xBA, among other metrics, that really suggests he should see increased fortune at the plate over the next few months.

Witt is hitting just .239 on the season, but his .276 xBA ranks in the league's 82nd percentile. It's not just batting average with this player either, as Witt's .417 SLG is more than 100 points below his .519 xSLG and his .353 xwOBA is far superior to his .295 wOBA to this point in the season.

The sophomore is already providing fantasy managers with plenty of speed (20 stolen bases) and a nice home run total (10), but he should also be able to provide a boost in the average/OPS departments over the second half of the season.

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