Collette Calls: Let's Rewind

Before I was a baseball nerd, I was a history nerd. History was always my favorite subject in school, and I was particularly fond of Civil War history, as I spent many summers around the Manassas area and my mom and/or grandparents would take us to the Bull Run battlefield to run us around while learning history. Today, I have expanded my historical tastes beyond that four-year period, and my favorite non-baseball podcast, History That Doesn't Suck, helps me with that. Professor Greg Jackson has a phenomenal podcast which I have enjoyed for several years and even got to take in a live episode on his current tour when he came through North Carolina in January of this year. If you would like to mix baseball and this particular podcast, I would recommend starting with this great episode where Jackson and his producer interviewed Bob Kendrick about the Nego Leagues. 

The HTDS podcast typically has a segment called, "Let's Rewind!" where the sound of a cassette tape (remember those?!) is inserted to help our minds travel back as Jackson sets the stage for the premise of the main topic of the podcast. I am loosely stealing that concept for this week's article, as we are now one-third, well, 32.6 percent to be exact, through the 2026 season. Fantasy managers often like using Memorial Day weekend to check the temperature of their fantasy squads overall and where they may need help in each category. I thought it would be helpful to rewind to this time last year and see who the leaders where in the scoring categories heading into Memorial Day 2025, and what happened with those players as you decide whether the current leaders can continue at their pace. Let's rewind.

Home Runs

Last season, the first four names on this leaderboard each went on to finish the season with at least 53 home runs, but Ward tapered off throughout the summer despite not missing any playing time and finished with 36 home runs. Ward had a 20 percent home run to fly ball ratio heading at this point, and that only came down to 17.1 percent for the remainder of the season, but the home run production faded. Buxton finished one home run behind Ward last season and is nearly halfway to that total already this season. He did so with a 21.3 percent HR/FB rate last season, and is nearly matching that with a 19.8 percent rate thus far in 2026. It is not the statistical regression we worry about with him as much as the health regression, because he hasn't exceeded 126 games played since the 2017 season. Meanwhile, Murakami has cooled off, with just five home runs in May after a 12-homer start in the first month of the season. 

RBIs

Suzuki was nearly halfway to 100 RBI a third of the way through the season, but he finished at 103 RBI in 151 games played. Devers and Crow-Armstrong were just one RBI behind him, but neither of them got to 100 RBI by season's end as their production in the final two-thirds of the season tapered off from their hot starts to the 2025 season.

League-wide, 14 percent of baserunners score in 2026. RBI production remains a skill heavily dependent upon opportunities, as RBI production increases with traffic on the bases in front of the hitter. Hicks leads all regular hitters by driving in 26.4 percent of baserunners this season, with Abrams driving in 23.1 percent and Pages driving in an even 23 percent of his baserunners. Walker and Olson have nearly matched those two despite driving in less than 18 percent of their baserunners. Simply put, the top of this leaderboard is running red hot, and there will be a cooling off period. 

Last season, Bo Bichette led all hitters with at least 500 plate appearances by driving in 21.2 percent of his runners, and Geraldo Perdomo was the only other hitter to reach the 20 percent plateau. Judge was the only one of the leaders last season to to finish the season in the top five on the RBI leaderboard. Devers came in ninth, Suzuki 13th and Crow-Armstrong 23rd. This is a category to look for opportunities in the schedule such as seven-game weeks or runs against sub-par opponents. You can also look for underperformers in driving runners in such as Willy Adames (9.9 percent), Wilyer Abreu (9.7 percent), or Alex Bregman (7.7 percent) and hope they regress to career norms while the talent in front of them steps up their collective game.

Runs

Runs are also somewhat a skill of opportunity, but at least the batter can help their cause by driving themselves in as well as moving well on the bases. Last season, three of the five leaders leaned heavily on self-production, while this season has been a mixture of homers and good baserunning. Ohtani wenr on to lead the league in runs and Judge finished second, but Juan Soto, who was 18th on the leaderboard on Memorial Day, finished third with 120 runs. Schwarber dropped to 5th place with 111 runs, while Tucker and Crow-Armstrong tied with 91 runs scored by season's end. 

Seeing Trout on the leaderboard warms the heart, but much like with Buxton, fantasy managers are waiting for the next injury to derail a productive season. Trout's last 100-run season was in 2019 when the ball was still traveling somewhere, and his post-Covid career high is 85. Baldwin is currently on the IL with an oblique injury, so we already know his run production will taper off. Theere is no secret to this category, as it remains a pursuit of top half of the lineup hitters on well-functioning offenses. If you want one area of focus to look for buying opportunities, Seattle hitters cannot possibly stay down all season.

Steals

Cruz held onto the third spot on the final leaderboard finishing the season with 20 more steals over the remaining two thirds of the season, while Witt Jr. fell to fourth, finishing at 48 steals. Robert fell to 11th with 33 steals due to second-half injury issues. This season, Nunez is leading the league in steals despite a .186 batting average and a .289 on-base percentage, while Jose Ramirez continues to defy his age and usage pattern, already reaching 20 steals. Ramirez has swiped 40-plus bags in each of the past two seasons and is pacing to do the same again this year even if he might not reach 30 homers this season.

Pitchers and catchers across the league are doing better in stymieing steals, thanks in part to a concerted effort to throw more to the first base side of second moreso than on the bag. The league-wide success rate is down to 76 percent, which represents a five-percent decline in success from 2023 when the new rules were introduced to the running game. Nobody reached 50 steals last season, and only Nunez and Ramirez are on pace to challenge 50 if we just did the simple math of multiplying current stolen base totals by three. 

In fact, there are just 21 players in the league with double-digit steals at this turning point, and just four — Nunez, Ramirez, Cruz and Witt Jr. — with more than 14 steals. We are often told it is easier to find steals in-season, but they are not exactly omnipresent in this moment, and unless Boston is going to call up Braiden Ward and play him regularly, there isn't anything coming up from the minors. Ward is 20-of-22 stealing bases for Worchester, including a perfect 14-for-14 this month...while hitting .213.  Duke Ellis is on a simiilar tear for Scranton-Wilkes-Barre with 22 steals in 23 attempts, but neither player is on their respective team's 40-man roster.

Batting Average

I liked Lopez coming into this season, but I challenge you to find anyone who had any of Lopez, Johnston or Marsh leading the league in batting average at any point other than possibly the first month of the season. Last season, Judge's average fell to .331 by seasons's end, yet he still led all of baseball with that figure. Wilson retained the third spot with a final average of .311, while Freeman fell to 10th place by season's end, hitting .295. 

Lopez, Johnston and Marsh have batting averages on balls in play of .388, .415 and .391 respectively. Arraez is well behind them at .320, and at a rate much closer to his career mark of .328. Batters can help make some of their own luck, but this was also the same trio of hitters whose BABIP last season was .264, .329, and .363 respectively. Marsh's rate does not feel as abnormal as the others' as his career BABIP is .373, but he is also putting more balls in play this season than ever before thanks to a career-low walk rate as well as the lowest strikeout rate of his career. He is currently hitting 54 points above his career average and 40 points above where he finished last season. He did have a .397 BABIP over 472 plate appearances in 2023 and finished that season hitting .277. 

The xBA difference leaderboard shows the trio overperforming by at least 30 points, but a reverse sort of that same leaderboard presents some interesting candidates for positive batting average regression in Dillon Dingler, Manny Machado and Blaze Alexander, depending on league depth. 

Wins

This time last season, 18 pitchers were on pace to win 15 or more games. From that list, just Fried, Rodon, Peralta, Webb, Luzardo and Woo achieved that feat. We are all too familiar with the variables that go into whether a pitcher gets a win or not, and it can be frustrating to watch something like we saw Sunday, when both Ryan Weathers and Drew Rasmussen threw seven shutout innings only to see the win go to Tim Hill.  

We currently have three pitchers on pace for 20-win seasons, but it is worth remembering we've had exactly three pitchers with a 20-win season this decade in Julio Urias (2021), Kyle Wright (2022), and Spencer Strider (2023). That alone seemingly gives Chris Sale the best odds, since two-thirds of the recent list are Atlanta pitchers, but all kidding aside, the messy AL Central also provides chances for Gavin Williams with the success Cleveland is having, while Martin's climb is steeper with the White Sox. It's worth remembering that 13 of the 18 pitchers who were on pace to win 15-plus last season failed to reach that mark, and looking at the current list of pitchers pacing in that direction does not exactly exude confidence that rate will increase. Perhaps I am mostly bummed because Chase Burns has been fantastic this season, setting aside one terrible start against the Angels that I happened to attend in person last month. 

Saves

The names on the leaderboard remained the same by the end of 2025, but it was Estevez who came out on top, finishing the season with 42 saves while Suarez finished at 40 and Munoz at 38. Finnegan got penalized as he was dealt from a closing role in Washington to a complementary role in Detroit. Estevez continued on his early pace, while Munoz and Suarez each tapered off from their hot starts.

The current leaderboard is not a surprise at the top spots, with the electric arms of Smith and Miller leading the way, but the changeup-heavy Baker was an afterthought in the spring behind Griffin Jax, a rehabbing Edwin Uceta and perhaps a Garrett Cleavinger, yet Baker has flourished in the role even if Cash sometimes uses him for the heart of the lineup in the eighth and allows a lesser reliever to handle the ninth. There are currently just 10 relievers with double-digit saves this season compared to 15 who had reached that threshold this time last year. We knew there would be some closer committees this season, but there are already eight clubs who have at least six different pitchers with a save, led by Minnesota, who already has 11 pitchers with a save this season. 

Strikeouts

Gore fell off wildly from his hot start and struck out just 92 batters over the final two thirds of the season. Skubal nearly kept his pace, finishing with 241 strikeouts, trailing only Garrett Crochet, who was sixth on the Memorial Day leaderboard with 78 strikeouts. Sanchez ended up finishing seventh.

12 pitchers finished with 200 or more strikeouts last season, while just nine are currently on pace to do so this year, as the following pitchers have at least 70 strikeouts this season along with the current leaderboard above: Gavin Williams, Reid Detmers, Cam Schlittler, Jose Soriano, Chris Sale and Parker Messick. You are going to have to find your strikeous where you can get them by maximizing matchups and streaming two-start pitchers when you can, because we do not appear to have the same volume of strikeout anchors we have previously had, mainly due to injuries to Skubal, Logan Webb and Hunter Brown. 

ERA

Last year, we had two surprises on the early ERA leaderboard, and Bubic finished with the best of the bunch by season's end with a 2.55 final ERA, with Fried finishing at 2.86 and Senga at 3.02 with a much lower workload. This season, Martinez is the huge surprise, especially with how poor his numbers were in the Grapefruit League. Only Burns has stranded a higher percentage of baserunners than Martinez's 92.9 percent, so the pain train is coming for his ERA this summer, and the same can likely be said for the other 11 pitchers whose season ERA is currently under 2.50 as the weather warms up next month. 

There were five quailified pitchers with ERA's 2.50 or lower by season's end last year, so start studying up on your ERA estimators and finding some potential help for the summer. Reid Detmers might have been flying under some radars until his 14-strikeout performance over the weekend, because his 4.57 ERA is hiding a 21.1 percent K-BB% and a .219 batting average against, as well as a 1.14 WHIP. We can only hope the Angels trade him somewhere where he can get better overall support, because he gets no run support and was saddled with a no-decision despite his outstanding effort Sunday.

WHIP

At this point in 2025, there were 26 qualified pitchers with a WHIP of 1.10 or lower. That list was reduced by 10 by season's end. Eovaldi fell off the list because he did not pitch enough innings to qualify, while Skubal went on to lead all of baseball with a 0.89 WHIP and Ryan finished ninth with a 1.04 WHIP. 

This season, we currently have 25 qualified pitchers with WHIPs no higher than 1.10. We know the league-wide walk rate is very high this season as the league adjusts to the supervised strike zone, and Jose Soriano is the only pitcher in the group with a double-digit walk rate this season. He is offsetting his walks with a .186 opponents' batting average. As we look to identify the pitchers ikely to fall off from their current pace, a reverse-sort by K-BB% could be helpful:

Seeing Davis Martin well down that list while Max Fried is higher up is not something I ever would have expected coming into the season, yet there he is. 

Best of luck in your planning for the summer stretch as the weather heats up. We should finally start to see more offense, as this season has gotten off to a slow start overall yet again while the minor leagues are enjoying a 2019-like atmosphere.