Statistical anomalies are a big part of baseball's allure, but it's easy to lose sight of some of those stats given the everyday grind of the sport and the flood of peripheral and underlying stats. With that context, I took a simple approach to this week's articles, sorting all qualified hitters by the traditional five roto categories and picking out some of the most prominent outliers – both positive and negative.
Risers
Dillon Dingler 
– 16 HR in 60 games
Dingler had a moderate breakout last season, but he's taken another step forward that has perhaps been masked a bit by Detroit's disappointing year as a team. He has provided a significant advantage at catcher in the stats most directly related to power production, ranking third in home runs and tied for first in RBI (48). Among catchers with at least 100 plate appearances, only Hunter Goodman has a higher ISO than Dingler (.280).
The underlying skills in Dingler's profile are a bit more mixed. Dingler has been very passive, swinging at pitches inside the strike zone, as he ranks 113th out of 161 qualified hitters in the metric. On the other hand, he ranks 34th out of those same 161 qualified hitters in in-zone contact rate. That has led to both excellent quality of contact – Dingler has a 13.3 percent barrel rate and a 50.9 percent hard-hit rate – as well as a very manageable 19.4 percent strikeout rate. Dingler's passivity seemingly gives him a narrow margin for
Statistical anomalies are a big part of baseball's allure, but it's easy to lose sight of some of those stats given the everyday grind of the sport and the flood of peripheral and underlying stats. With that context, I took a simple approach to this week's articles, sorting all qualified hitters by the traditional five roto categories and picking out some of the most prominent outliers – both positive and negative.
Risers
Dillon Dingler – 16 HR in 60 games
Dingler had a moderate breakout last season, but he's taken another step forward that has perhaps been masked a bit by Detroit's disappointing year as a team. He has provided a significant advantage at catcher in the stats most directly related to power production, ranking third in home runs and tied for first in RBI (48). Among catchers with at least 100 plate appearances, only Hunter Goodman has a higher ISO than Dingler (.280).
The underlying skills in Dingler's profile are a bit more mixed. Dingler has been very passive, swinging at pitches inside the strike zone, as he ranks 113th out of 161 qualified hitters in the metric. On the other hand, he ranks 34th out of those same 161 qualified hitters in in-zone contact rate. That has led to both excellent quality of contact – Dingler has a 13.3 percent barrel rate and a 50.9 percent hard-hit rate – as well as a very manageable 19.4 percent strikeout rate. Dingler's passivity seemingly gives him a narrow margin for error, but he has gotten the most out of his profile and is breaking out so far in 2026.
Zach Neto 
– 47 runs scored in 65 games
Neto's season hasn't gone as expected, but that hasn't necessarily meant it's bad for his fantasy value. His skills have shifted toward three true outcomes, with both his walk and strikeout rates on the rise. The positive news regarding his strikeout rate is that it has steadily crept down as the season has progressed. Additionally, Neto has remained aggressive, swinging at pitches inside the zone while also maintaining the highest zone contact rate of his career. An increased strikeout rate is never good, but Neto's has risen in the least harmful way possible.
As for the walk rate, Neto simply has seen fewer pitches inside the zone and is willing to take them. Even given the poor Angels' offense, Neto has taken advantage of being the team's primary leadoff hitter. He currently ranks seventh in the league in runs scored (47) and is nearly universally projected to reach 100 runs scored this season. Paired with his stolen base and power production, Neto has the chance to be an elite producer in three categories.
Andy Pages 
– 56 RBI across 67 games
It's not exactly a surprise that a Dodgers' hitter is benefiting from the quality of the lineup, but Pages' rise this season is still noteworthy. The reasons for his rise are relatively unclear, as his plate discipline metrics have universally gotten worse while his quality of contact has improved. That casts some doubt on the longevity of his success, but it's hard to argue with his results so far.
More importantly, the Dodgers are buying in. Pages has spent the last two weeks hitting second in the order, and he's since racked up 10 RBI and 10 runs scored across 13 games. He's surprisingly flipped Mookie Betts in the order, and has steadily climbed up the lineup since hitting eighth to begin the season. This is likely the peak of Pages' season, but it's quite a high point.
Jung Hoo Lee 
– .335 batting average across 245 plate appearances
Lee has the second-highest batting average among all qualified hitters, behind only Otto Lopez. His case is particularly interesting because many of the metrics we use to measure quality of contact have gotten worse since 2025, when Lee hit only .266. He has an abysmal 2.4 percent barrel rate and a hard-hit rate of only 30.3 percent. Yet, the fact that his xBA is .318 suggests his results are at least relatively earned.
The first thing Lee continues to do well is get balls into play. He has just a 9.8 percent strikeout rate and is capable of using all areas of the field. It also appears that Lee has learned how his skills fit into the big-league game. Specifically, Lee is hitting more line drives (33.9 percent), and he is hitting more flares/burners (32.7 percent). Per Statcast, a flare/burner is defined as a shallow looper or line drive, or a hard hit ground ball that tends to yield high batting averages regardless of how hard they are hit. Among qualified hitters, Lee ranks fifth in both line driver percentage and flare/burner percentage.
That type of contact fits his skills profile well and unlocks his potential for production. A move back toward the top of the lineup would give Lee the best chance of providing more counting stats – particularly runs scored—but his current skill set looks to be the most encouraging since he arrived stateside.
Fallers
Vladimir Guerrero 
– 3 HR across 67 games
Some of the problems for Guerrero are familiar. He has a 48.4 percent groundball rate and has hit 1.49 ground balls for every fly ball. That has naturally capped his power output for long stretches of his career, but 2026 has brought on additional problems. However, those issues may be counterintuitive. Guerrero has swung more often this season, an aggressiveness that we would typically associate with more power and also potentially more strikeouts. The issue is that Guerrero is seeing more pitches outside the zone, leading to worse quality of contact. His 6.6 percent barrel rate is five percentage points lower than his career mark, and his hard-hit rate is at its lowest since his rookie season in 2019.
Guerrero has managed to score 38 runs due to his ability to get on base and the context of the Jays' lineup, while also maintaining a high batting average. The bottom won't fall out, but Guerrero isn't likely to come anywhere near paying off his draft day price.
Fernando Tatis 
– 2 HR across 66 games
Tatis has taken a lot more heat for his underperformance than Guerrero, so his inclusion on this list isn't exactly an original thought. Tatis has also shown signs of breaking out of his season-long slump, lowering his strikeout rate while increasing his on-base percentage, ISO and OPS nearly linearly as the season has progressed.
Tatis' swing decisions and quality of contact are also largely intact, as he's maintained a 10.3 percent barrel rate and 50.5 percent hard-hit rate. Much like Guerrero, Tatis is extremely unlikely to meet his draft-day cost. Nevertheless, Tatis is showing more signs of bouncing back than Guerrero.
Alex Bregman 
– 20 RBI in 67 games
Bregman has had a disastrous start to his first year with the Cubs, and that has come to the forefront in recent days due to his own public comments. He acknowledged his underperformance following the Cubs' loss to the Giants on Sunday, calling his offensive performance "awful." Bregman's assessment is accurate, but the more difficult question is why.
Bregman has never had a particularly impressive batted ball profile, but it has taken even further of a step back this season as measured by nearly any metric. The primary driver of that step back is tied to a loss of bat speed. Only 3.5 percent of Bregman's swings have been fast, down from 12.0 percent in 2024 and 9.0 percent in 2025. The result has been a downturn in barrel percentage, hard hit percentage and the highest groundball rate of his career.
There was concern that Bregman leaving Houston would severely harm his ability to hit for power, and that's proven to be true. Across 796 plate appearances since leaving the Astros, he has only 23 home runs. This could be the new normal.
Find out who to target the rest of the way with RotoWire's MLB Rest of Season Projections!
Manny Machado – .172 batting average across 270 plate appearances
Machado's problem has been the opposite of Tatis and Guerrero. His power production has been solid enough, yet his batting average and run scoring are both significant drags on his fantasy value. There are some small problems in his surface stats, including a 22.9 percent strikeout rate, the highest mark of his career. He's additionally seen his barrel and hard-hit rates fall to near career lows, but the underlying cause of those results is the bigger concern.
Machado has gotten more passive at the plate overall but has swung at more pitches outside the zone. A higher portion of his contact has thus come on pitches outside the zone, a pretty clear explanation for his lack of quality contact. Digging one layer further makes it clear that Machado is losing bat speed, another explanation for his loss of hard contact. His fast swing percentage has fallen to 41.1 percent, and he's hitting only .192 against fastballs this season. While his expected stats against the pitch suggest a bounce back could be on the way against the pitch, the beginning of the 2026 season has been extremely concerning for Machado.
