Todd Zola May 7, 2026, 11:38 AM ET Close Todd Zola is contributing writer for fantasy baseball at ESPN, specializing in game theory and player analysis. Todd is a member of the FSWA Hall of Fame. He won LABR and Tout Wars championships in 2016. Most experienced fantasy baseball managers understand the difference between surface stats and underlying metrics, and how production is not always an accurate reflection of how a player has truly performed. Identifying players whose fortunes are due to change, for better or worse, is perhaps an obvious topic to pursue one month into the season. However, this level of player evaluation tends to focus more on luck than skill. A typical analysis sees that a pitcher cannot continue to carry such a low BABIP, so you'd expect him to start yielding more hits. There was a time when this was considered a next-level approach, but now it's mainstream. A more advanced exploration would be to explore how much a given player's skills have changed from preseason expectations.…