What to make of Alec Burleson, Nick Kurtz and more early-season Statcast outliers

Based on the early 2026 returns, A's slugger Nick Kurtz is looking more like Adam Dunn rather than Aaron Judge. Neville E. Guard / Imagn Images Share full articleYou really should not be moving off your fantasy baseball priors based on early-season performance yet. If you believed something, continue to believe it. I focus mainly on strikeouts and walks at this point of the season and those won’t stabilize for at least another couple of weeks — meaning even then they will be basically only half skill. Here are some players I am noticing as outliers in stats I would expect to be relatively stable, even in the small sample. I’m using Statcast percentile ranks as the main filter. Alec Burleson, STL, 1B: Burleson is the poor man’s/younger Freddie Freeman, and he’s is in a much worse park for power. But he’s 71st percentile or better in all major hitting categories except chase (53rd). He’s a must-roster in points and categories leagues given he just doesn’t K (97th percentile in lowest K rate). Liam Hicks, MIA, C: Hicks has my attention with three strikeouts and three homers through Tuesday. That doesn’t mean I’m absolutely picking him up. I’m not cutting Cal Raleigh for him (Raleigh doubters have more victory laps so far in 2026 than Raleigh had homers in 2025). But Hicks should be rostered in all two-catcher formats. Drake Baldwin, ATL, C: Baldwin is a top catcher, maybe the top catcher. I was on a preseason show where someone said he was their pick for bust of the year. I didn’t get it. That person could still be right. But Baldwin is a serious hitter at catcher and probably gets 40 DH starts. He chases a bit too much and doesn’t walk, but other than that he has a Silver Slugger offensive profile on Statcast and he hit well last year, too. Randy Arozarena, SEA, OF: Arozarena has cut his K rate by 11 points from last year. The Mariners got similar results last year from Jorge Polanco, who dropped his Ks the most in history, and his rate improvement (10-point reduction) still wasn’t even as much as Arozarena. I think there’s a 25% chance this is real, and that would completely transform Arozarena as a player in leagues that debit for Ks (points, head-to-head). I note the bat speed has disappeared, but I hate the bat speed stat because I think it should chart the median bat speed, or at least top 10%, as opposed to average speed. Still, I am worried for Arozarena that it’s either slightly above average power with massive Ks or no power with good Ks. Kazuma Okamoto, TOR, 3B: The Japanese import who was supposed to struggle with Ks was Munetaka Murakami and he has delivered on that with a 31% K rate. But Okamoto was supposed to be a point-league player who would have an above average (meaning lower) K rate, yet he leads the league through Monday at 41.9%. The rest of his hitting profile looks great, but that’s like saying that the Titanic was a great cruise except for the iceberg. Remember, guys who struck out over 25% last year hit nearly 30 points less than those who fanned under 20%. And, again, this is over 40%. Yikes! Nick Kurtz, ATH, 1B:  We hoped Kurtz would get better in K rate, but instead he’s added almost 10 points. The walks are up. He’s so far been the new Adam Dunn, where I thought maybe he could be the new Aaron Judge. Again, the Judge comp could still prove to be more right. I’m not throwing it in the waste basket, but it’s not looking good right now. Carson Benge, NYM, OF: Benge is a rookie. He was likely to struggle, but I was not expecting a .150 xBA and 32.4% Ks. Good lord. However, when I look down deeper, I’m not seeing commensurate numbers in zone contact, zone swing, chase. None of these are good but they are not .150/32.4% — not remotely. More players who are worrying me: Trevor Story, Jazz Chisholm, and Pete Alonso. Alonso’s expected slugging and bat speed are collapsing, but his exit velocity is good when he makes contact. Alonso’s 30.2% K rate is abhorrent, though. Now some (too) early pitcher observations … Why didn’t I like Kevin Gausman at all? I didn’t respect the 1.06 WHIP enough. The Ks were good. Now they are unreal — literally. He’s not going to K over 50% of batters, but he’s very likely to be no worse than “good” in K rate. My issue was his age. I just don’t like betting on non-Hall of Famers in their mid-30s. But this start is such an outlier it threatens to break small-sample rules. Cameron Schlittler, Jack Leiter and Gavin Williams all have earned my attention in positive ways. Emerson Hancock has come out of nowhere and seems like a decent bet to continue to pitch well — he’s worth rostering, for sure. Kodai Senga and MacKenzie Gore are better bets than Hancock, but in a similar bucket. Gregory Soto and Jordan Romano look like worthy closers. Romano was dismissed by most sharps, saying whatever you paid in FAAB was too much. But he’s been an all-star and being a closer is the easiest job in sports. I did an analysis many years ago, before the implementation of the ghost runner, where I found basically the last guy in the bullpen when thrust into a save situation in extra innings had the same save percentages/probability as the generic closer. Most of the time, you’re protecting a multi-run lead. Never look down on anyone with the job. It’s like a starting running back in fantasy football. Both Soto and Romano have great Statcast pages. I know the expectation is for a co-closer approach in Pittsburgh, but Soto is way better than Dennis Santana. Again, though, there’s a case for having more flexibility for high-leverage situations with the better pitcher because the saves job is easier. I would pick up Soto (48% Ks) in all formats though. Here are pitchers below the 10th percentile in Ks, meaning I would just drop them: Griffin Jax, Justin Verlander, Chris Bassitt, and Matthew Liberatore. There are others on the list, but they are not rostered enough to be worth a mention. Someone just above the cut line at 20th percentile is Logan Webb. I’d be a little worried about him, but he’s obviously still a hold. Would I buy low? Well, I wasn’t a huge Webb fan anyway so, “No.” Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Michael Salfino writes about fantasy sports and collectibles for The Athletic. His numbers-driven fantasy analysis began with a nationally syndicated newspaper column in 2004. He has covered a variety of sports for FiveThirtyEight and The Wall Street Journal, for whom he also wrote about movies. He's been the U.S. elections correspondent for the U.K.'s The Independent. Michael helped Cade Massey of the Wharton School of Business originate an NFL prediction model https://massey-peabody.com that understands context and chance and avoids the trap of overconfidence. He strives to do the same when projecting player performance. Follow Michael on Twitter @MichaelSalfino