Sport: MLB

This is one of my favorite articles to write – my yearly list of 100 facts for fantasy baseball. This is exactly what it says: a list of 100 facts without opinion or bias. These are pulled from various sources, including Statcast and Fangraphs, based on data from last season that you should consider for your 2026 fantasy baseball drafts.

The season is not here yet, but why not get a head start and jump in a Fantrax Classic Draft contest? Get a jump on the season with a Best Ball league or maybe a Draft and Hold. Or put some green on the line with a new season-long league to try and conquer. There’s no better time than now to get your baseball on!

100 Facts for Fantasy Baseball 2026

Take the following information into account in your own analysis and planning for the 2026 fantasy baseball season. The 100 facts list is divided into hitter and pitcher stats, with the first 50 corresponding to hitters and the last 50 corresponding to pitchers.

Facts 1 through 25

Four qualified batters were league average or better in all of the following categories in 2025 – K%, BB%, GB%, AVG, OBP, wOBA, avg EV, Barrel%, HardHit%, and Hard Contact%. They were George Springer, Ketel Marte, Freddie Freeman, and Francisco Lindor.
Freeman is the only player to repeat that feat from 2024.
Among qualified batters, James Wood had the largest gap between his BABIP and batting average, with his .349 BABIP being 94 points higher than his .255 AVG.
Wood was one of the hardest hitters in baseball last season, while also having a 23% line drive rate. His pull rate was just 29%, though.
Wood also had a 32% strikeout rate, the second-worst among qualified hitters behind Ryan McMahon. McMahon ranked fifth in BABIP vs. AVG.
Three qualified players had a higher AVG than BABIP. In order from the largest to the smallest gap, they were Junior Caminero, Jose Ramirez, and Luis Arraez.
Among qualified hitters, the largest gap between xBA and AVG last season belonged to Salvador Perez with a .272 xBA and a .236 AVG.
According to xBA, the other top-10 underperformers in AVG were Ben Rice, Augustin Ramirez, Luis Garcia Jr., Juan Soto, Jo Adell, Dansby Swanson, Otto Lopez, Josh Bell, and Luis Rengifo.
On the opposite end, Jacob Wilson, Sal Frelick, and Trea Turner topped the league in players with a higher AVG than xBA.
The other top-10 overperformers in AVG were Jeremy Pena, Hunter Goodman, TJ Friedl, Aaron Judge, Gavin Lux, Brice Turang, and Jordan Beck.
Of qualified hitters, Jacob Wilson’s wOBA outperformed his xwOBA by the largest margin. Top-10 wOBA outperformed his xwOBA by the largest margin. Top-10 wOBA overperformers that were also AVG overperformers include Goodman, Frelick, Turner, Friedl, and Pena.
Similar to xBA and AVG, Salvador Perez underperformed most according to the difference between his xwOBA and wOBA. Others who were top-10 underperformers in AVG that also underperformed in wOBA include Soto, Garcia, Rice, Bell, Swanson, Lopez, Ramirez, and Adell.
Turang owned a .356 BABIP in 2025, the second-highest BABIP in the league last season among qualified hitters. This was the highest of his career by, higher than his 2024 BABIP by 56 points, and higher than his career BABIP by 44 points. Turang struck out more frequently last season than in the past two years. His line drive rate and groundball rate each improved just 1% compared to his career averages, while his HR/FB% did not improve at all. He also pulled the ball 26%, no different than in 2024. His contact rate dropped by 7% from 2024 to 2025, and was lower than his career norm. The only things that dramatically changed for Turang in 2025 were a marked improvement in his hard contact and a lower chase rate.
Geraldo Perdomo is the only qualified hitter from 2025 to be top-10 in chase, zone contact, and contact rates. If you expand it to the top-15, then Maikel Garcia makes the cut as well.
Nobody ranks in the bottom 10 in all three categories, but Oneil Cruz, McMahon, Jazz Chisholm, Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Schwarber, and Aaron Judge all rank among the worst in z-contact% and contact%.
In terms of Runs Above Average on fastballs, no qualified batter was better last season than Judge. This was the case in 2024 as well. He was also sixth best against sliders, the best against cutters, and fifth best against changeups.
Trea Turner performed the best against sliders.
Pete Crow-Armstrong performed the best against curveballs.
Jarren Duran performed the best against splitters.
Jose Ramirez was the best against changeups.
Matt McLain was the only qualified batter to have negative Runs Above Average grades on every pitch type faced.
Bryce Harper, Josh Naylor, Perdomo, Bobby Witt Jr., Michael Busch, Jose Ramirez, Rice, Matt Olson, Ohtani, Byron Buxton, and Soto all had positive RAA grades on all of the pitch types faced.
McLain performed the second-worst overall against sliders among qualified hitters. He saw the fourth-most sliders in the league.
Similarly, Oneil Cruz was the second worst against curveballs and saw the most in the league.
Brooks Lee was bad against changeups, with the third-worst grade against them. He saw the sixth most changeups among qualified batters.

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