Small Sample Size Oddities- Player Commentary April 5, 2026
Early in the season some things stick out that would pass unnoticed in July or August.
Nick Kurtz-1B- ATH- Cold- Kurtz is having a horrid start to 2026 and small sample sizes make things look weirder. He only has two hits (both singles) in 30 PAs and is slashing .083/.267/.083. Kurtz has walked 6 times and has 13 strikeouts, which means that he has only put the ball in play 11 times because that’s how math works. The Statcast numbers for that micro-sized sample are decent, with a 93.4 EV and 37.5% HardHit%. The good news is that he got a hit yesterday, which doubled his season total. The odds are high that Kurtz will not continue this level of futility for long. Despite his 43.3% K%, his chase rate is only 27.4%. Pitchers are only throwing 42.1% of pitches in the zone to Kurtz, which is why he has a 20.0% BB%. Everything points to him turning things around, especially if his .182 BABIP starts regressing to the mean.
Trevor Story– SS- BOS- Cold- Story is another player whose early season is way different from his career norms. He has a .108/.108/.216 slash line. That isn’t a typo. A .143 BABIP is impacting him a lot. Story looks like he is pressing a lot, with a 40.5% chase rate and 52.7% chase rate. His SwStr% has jumped from 14.8% in 2025 to 17.5%. Story has a career 7.8% BB% but has yet to draw a walk in 2026. With a 92.2 EV and 47.4% HardHit% he looks like he still has the power that resulted in 25 homers last season. One of his hits this year was a homer. That bodes well for a revival.
Bo Bichette– SS-NYM- Stats- Before last night Bichette had a .194 AVG, well below his .240 xBA. His BABIP was .259. Well, Bichette went 2-for-5 with a run and RBI. He’s now hitting .220 and his BABIP jumped to .300. Bichette’s chase rate was 48.1% which plays into his 27.9% K%, well above his career mark of 19.5%. His LA of 6.6 indicates that he is hitting a lot of balls in the ground or on a line. Bichettes’s 22.2% FB% is lower than he’s ever finished with over a season. We are looking at a small sample size that varies from the body of Bichette’s career. Regression to the mean will help him.
Daulton Varsho– OF- TOR- FYI- Varsho is not producing like Varsho early in the season. He is slashing .160/.250/.200 in 28 PAs. Varsho has just one extra base hit, a double. His contact has been anemic, with a 78.7 EV, 11.1% HardHit%, and 5.6% Barrel%. Varsho is chasing more than usual, with a 40.9% O-Swing%, but he is making contact with those pitches at a 72.2% clip. That is likely contributing to his woes. His K% is only 14.3% so he is making a lot of weak contact instead of missing. This is so out of character that it is highly likely that his results will improve as he exhibits skills he has had through his career (a HardHit% of 36.3% and 87.5 EV.)
Kerry Carpenter– OF- DET- Stats- Carpenter has been having a horrible small sample size. Having it come at the beginning of the season makes it stand out a lot. He is slashing .172/.265/.276 with a BABIP of .267. While Carpenter has a solid 11.8% BB%, his K% is a whopping 41.2%. Carpenter’s career marks for those are 6.0% and 25.1% respectively. Over half of his PAs have resulted in a walk or strikeout. On the occasions when Carpenter has hit the ball he’s hit it hard (93.4 EV and 50.0 HardHit%) but he’s banged it into the ground (9.3 LA and 58.3% GB%.) These are so extreme and out of character that Carpenter has to do better. This is a buying opportunity.
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