Every spring, players coming off disappointing seasons talk of rebounding. The majority don’t actually make that happen because, well, it’s not that easy.
Sometimes mechanical adjustments or new approaches don’t click. Being in the best shape of one’s life doesn’t always equate to putting up the best numbers of one’s career.
Other times, though, you look up in mid-May, and those plans are becoming reality. That’s the group we’re interested in here today. These are players who had experienced some notable success in the past but who didn’t do so to the extent they would have wanted in 2025. The new season offers a new chance, however, and so far, it’s paying off.
It’s not quite time to say “Mission accomplished,” just yet, though. There is a lot of season remaining. So we asked a group of MLB.com writers and researchers to break down 10 notable rebounders who were below league average in 2025 and analyze how they have gotten to this point and whether the renewed success can continue.
To qualify for this list, hitters needed to have at least 350 plate appearances in 2025 and 100 in ‘26. Pitchers needed to have at least 100 innings in 2025 and 30 in ‘26. The metrics used to quantify each player’s rebound were OPS+ for hitters and ERA+ for pitchers, which both are scaled to an MLB average of 100. All stats are through Friday’s games.
Nolan Arenado, 3B, D-backs
2025 OPS+: 89 | 2026 OPS+: 128 (+39 points)
The real blow to Arenado's production since 2023 has been his tanking exit velocity, and although the overall numbers look better this year, things have actually never been worse in that department. The initial dip between 2023 (88.8 mph) and 2024 (86.3 mph) led to his first-ever sub-.400 slugging percentage. He's lost even more ground in 2026, languishing in the 4th percentile at 84.5 mph. That's really only tenable for contact hitters, but Arenado's whiff and strikeout rates have also ballooned despite him swinging less overall. So what's going on here?
Admittedly, it feels a little bit rude to invoke Coors Field five years down the line, but we kind of have to. From 2015-19 with the Rockies, Arenado had a .937 OPS; in his five seasons with the Cardinals (2021-25), that number dropped to .778. On the one hand, no player's prime lasts forever. On the other, Arenado was still only 29 at the time of the trade, and for his entire career, he's been a fly ball hitter without a ton of bat speed; in other words, exactly the kind of guy who stands to gain the most from playing where the ball carries better. No other park plays like Coors, but if what you're after is a dry climate well above sea level, your second choice would be Arizona. We can't exactly prove that the new home ballpark is what's giving Arenado the boost, but his splits aren't arguing against this theory; he's hitting .339 with a .923 OPS at Chase Field and .230 with a .722 OPS everywhere else.
So nothing indicates that Arenado himself is experiencing a resurgence, but there's no reason this can't be a rebound season, statistically speaking, if in fact the change of scenery is what's behind this. No one's going to complain if the end results are better.
-- Shanthi Sepe-Chepuru
Dylan Cease, RHP, Blue Jays
2025 ERA+: 93 | 2026 ERA+: 181 (+88 points)
Cease’s first season with the Blue Jays looked worse on paper than it really was. Yes, he had an elevated 4.55 ERA, but considering his strikeout-minus-walk rate (19.9%) and expected ERA (3.46), he probably deserved better.
This year, Cease’s numbers are indeed better. He’s cut his barrel rate in half, from 8.6% in 2025 to 4.3% in ‘26. His AL-leading 75 strikeouts have him on pace for his sixth straight 200-K season, and his K-BB rate (24.9%) ranks fifth among qualified pitchers. Currently riding a 16-inning scoreless streak, Cease owns a 2.41 ERA, and his xERA (2.88) supports that. Furthermore, Cease’s 1.86 FIP is second in the big leagues, trailing only the Yankees’ Cam Schlittler (1.82).
His four-seamer/slider combo is still dangerous, but Cease is also throwing his changeup more often this year, and that pitch has a 54.8% whiff rate. His 2026 numbers and pitch mix are proving that Cease has returned to being a bona fide ace.
-- Brian Murphy
Oneil Cruz, CF, Pirates
2025 OPS+: 86 | 2026 OPS+: 125 (+39 points)
Cruz is known for hitting the ball exceptionally hard. Even last year, when he was a below-league-average hitter, he still posted a 97th-percentile barrel rate and a 98th-percentile hard-hit rate. He’s smashing the baseball again this season -- ranking inside the top 10 in both stats, among qualified hitters -- while getting markedly better results. What gives?
It’s at least partially because of luck -- Cruz’s .365 batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is one of the highest in the Majors. But he’s also doing a few things differently. He’s pulling the ball more often, and, most notably, pulling the ball in the air 17.5% of the time (compared to 13.2% in 2025). The six-foot-seven Cruz has plenty of power, but even for him, that power is most easily tapped into when launching balls in the air to the pull side. Cruz has also raised his batting average by almost 100 points against breaking balls, and while there’s still plenty of swing and miss here, that changes the way pitchers approach him. He’s now seeing fastballs 51.5% of the time, up from 42.2% of the time last year, which should give him more pitches to hit.
-- Jared Greenspan
Bryce Elder, RHP, Braves
2025 ERA+: 78 | 2026 ERA+: 219 (+141 points)
Elder's career has been divided into three parts: Part 1: The All-Star; Part 2: The struggling former All-Star; and Part 3: The re-emerging semi-dominant potential All-Star.
Elder was an All-Star in 2023, his first full MLB season, thanks to a first half in which he went 7-2 with a 2.97 ERA. Over his next 44 starts, however, he went 12-16 with a 5.99 ERA. But from Aug. 24 of last season through Friday, a period of 16 starts, Elder went 7-3 with a 2.27 ERA. Is the real Bryce Elder the one sandwiched around that long stretch of unpleasantness? It's looking more and more like the answer may be yes.
Since working with Hall of Famer Greg Maddux to develop a cutter and hone his changeup and slider, Elder has found remarkable consistency and become one of Atlanta's most reliable pitchers. Entering Saturday, six of his first nine starts of 2026 were quality starts, and he'd not allowed more than three earned runs in any. Meanwhile, opponents were hitting .180 against him, the sixth-best mark among qualified starters. Elder's a major reason why the Braves lead MLB in ERA, and a second All-Star berth would not be a surprise.
-- Jason Foster
Michael Harris II, CF, Braves
2025 OPS+: 88 | 2026 OPS+: 138 (+50 points)
Depending on the metric, 2025 was Harris' best season or his worst. He notched career highs in homers (20) and RBIs (86), but produced career lows in on-base percentage (.268) and OPS (.678). Not to mention that his OPS+ was just 88, the lowest of his career.
But a new version of Harris emerged over the final two weeks of the season. He hit .352 with three homers and a .968 OPS over his last 14 games, and he's carried that success into 2026.
After some batted-ball bad luck early in the season, Harris has done consistent damage for the Braves over the first seven weeks. He's raised his average exit velocity by more than 4 mph over last season (it's now 94.7 mph) while his hard-hit rate has jumped by more than 14 percentage points to land in MLB's 99th percentile. He's also raised his walk rate, which last year sat in MLB's bottom 1%.
Though Harris' chase rate is higher than ever (43.9%), he's making contact on pitches in the zone at the highest rate of his career (89.7%). That's helped lead to an .843 OPS though Friday, which would be Harris’ highest since his 2022 NL Rookie of the Year campaign.
An honorable mention goes to teammate Ozzie Albies, who’s had a similarly remarkable turnaround by raising his OPS+ from 89 to 129.
-- Jason Foster
George Kirby, RHP, Mariners
2025 ERA+: 91 | 2026 ERA+: 137 (+46 points)
It’s never a great sign when a pitcher’s whiff and strikeout rates drop by roughly six percentage points each, but while batters have made more contact against Kirby this season, they’ve had a tougher time producing quality contact. These three numbers tell a convincing story:
- 57.0% ground-ball rate (+12.6 points from 2025)
- 23.0% LA sweet-spot rate (-12.3 points from 2025)
- 3.6% barrel rate (-5.0 points from 2025)
All of that has caused the control artist’s expected ERA to drop by a full run (3.88 to 2.88). Batted-ball numbers can be noisy for a pitcher, and Kirby’s ERA will likely climb unless he starts missing more bats, but a return to the mid-3.00s -- his career ERA is 3.52 -- feels far more likely than a repeat of 2025.
-- Thomas Harrigan
Bailey Ober, RHP, Twins
2025 ERA+: 84 | 2026 ERA+: 125 (+41 points)
It’s not surprising that fastball velocity is up again across the league: The average fastball (four-seamer or sinker) thrown by a Major League pitcher in 2026 is 94.4 mph, which would be the highest of the pitch tracking era (since 2008). Velo is king, but don’t tell that to Bailey Ober. The right-hander is averaging 88.6 mph on his fastball, which ranks last among 166 starting pitchers to throw at least 200 fastballs this year.
That doesn’t stop Ober, who threw a Maddux on just 89 pitches in his last start. How is he doing it? Well, Ober’s fastball is still effective -- opponents are hitting just .240 off it -- in part because of his elite extension. At 6-foot-9, Ober gets far down the mound, releasing the ball 7.2 feet in front of the rubber, which is almost a foot closer than the typical Major League pitcher. That gives hitters less time to see the ball, which makes his stuff play up. A changeup with plus horizontal break has been Ober’s best weapon, and it’s become his No. 1 pitch to both left-handed and right-handed hitters, as he throws it 36% of the time (up from 29% in 2025).
-- Jared Greenspan
Eduardo Rodriguez, LHP, D-backs
2025 ERA+: 85 | 2026 ERA+: 184 (+99 points)
With all due respect to E-Rod (especially after he was awesome against Team USA in the World Baseball Classic final), the peripherals don't really hold up here. Rodriguez doesn't get any swing-and-miss, he doesn't strike anybody out, and he walks a lot of people. That's just not a recipe for success over an entire season. Rodriguez is in the ninth percentile of MLB pitchers in whiff rate (18.3%). He's in the 16th percentile in strikeout rate (16.5%). And he's in the 27th percentile in walk rate (11.0%).
The one thing Rodriguez does fairly well is limit hard contact (basically all thanks to his changeup). But even factoring that in, his expected ERA right now is 4.59 -- more than two full runs higher than his actual ERA (2.25). To put that in perspective, Rodriguez's expected ERA last year, 4.51, was actually better than it is this year … and last year his actual ERA ended up at 5.02. He's a crafty veteran, but it seems like we're headed for a regression with this one.
-- David Adler
Adley Rutschman, C, Orioles
2025 OPS+: 90 | 2026 OPS+: 140 (+50 points)
Half of Baltimore’s productive catching tandem, Rutschman’s numbers last year were heavily impacted by a pair of oblique strains that limited him to 90 games. Despite spending 10 days on the injured list last month due to left ankle inflammation, Rutschman looks healthy at the plate this season and is performing much more like the two-time All-Star we saw at the outset of his career. And in some cases, even better than that.
Rutschman is making hard contact (44.9% hard-hit rate, 9.0% barrel rate) at career-best levels while still maintaining his strong bat-to-ball skills (16.2% strikeout rate, 14.6% whiff rate).
You can also tell that he’s feeling good at the plate since he’s back to crushing fastballs like he did in 2022 and '23. In those seasons, his slugging percentage against four-seamers, sinkers and cutters was north of .500 before falling beneath .450 in 2024 and '25. Rutschman’s slugging percentage against fastballs this season? .594.
As long as he can stay on the field, Rutschman looks like he could be on his way to his best offensive season yet in the Majors.
-- Brian Murphy
Christian Walker, 1B, Astros
2025 OPS+: 98 | 2026 OPS+: 137 (+39 points)
Over his last three seasons in Arizona, Walker was as consistent as it gets offensively, posting nearly identical slash lines, with an OPS+ winding up between 120-125 each time. But after signing a three-year, $60 million deal with an Astros club desperate for improvement at first base, that consistency suddenly evaporated and Walker endured a rough entry to Houston. Over the first three months of last season, his OPS mostly hovered below .650. He was still hitting the ball hard, but the production wasn’t there.
The thing is, though, the rebound actually started last year. Over the final three months of 2025, Walker hit .264/.318/.489 with 17 homers and 51 RBIs, more or less matching that 2022-24 standard. The 35-year-old has carried that into his second season in Houston and is putting up career-best offensive stats to this point. While Walker is overperforming a bit based on his Statcast expected numbers, the fact that Walker has maintained strong quality-of-contact metrics while significantly cutting his strikeout rate and raising his walk rate bodes well going forward.
-- Andrew Simon