10 MLB – A spring ritual—talk of “rebounding”—has become real for several players who were below league average in 2025. Using OPS+ and ERA+ through Friday’s games, MISRYOUM highlights 10 hitters and pitchers with qualifying workloads who have surged in 2026, while not
Every year, spring brings the same promise: the season that hurt might be followed by one that finally clicks. Most times it doesn’t. Mechanical tweaks fall flat, new approaches take longer than expected, and even being in peak physical shape doesn’t guarantee career-best results.
This year, the timing feels different. By mid-May, a group of players who were below league average in 2025 are showing measurable lifts in 2026, at least so far. It’s still too early to call anything “mission accomplished,” but the early signs have already turned heads.
To qualify for the rebound list, hitters needed at least 350 plate appearances in 2025 and 100 in ’26.. Pitchers needed at least 100 innings in 2025 and 30 in ‘26.. The rebound scores were measured with OPS+ for hitters and ERA+ for pitchers, both 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)
Arenado’s rebound comes with a complicated detail: exit velocity. the part of the swing that has driven his decline. has not improved even as his overall numbers look better in 2026.. His production drop since 2023 has been tied to tanking exit velocity. and things have “actually never been worse” in that department this year.. The initial dip between 2023 (88.8 mph) and 2024 (86.3 mph) led to his first-ever sub-.400 slugging percentage.. In 2026, he’s sunk further to the 4th percentile at 84.5 mph.
He’s also posted a bigger whiff and strikeout problem while swinging less overall.. The explanation offered here isn’t that Arenado has suddenly transformed—it’s that a change of environment can matter.. Coors Field is mentioned because from 2015-19 with the Rockies Arenado posted a .937 OPS. and in his five Cardinals seasons (2021-25) that figure dropped to .778.. The piece points out that if a player is a fly-ball hitter without a ton of bat speed. he’s exactly the kind of hitter who can benefit most from playing where the ball carries.
That doesn’t “prove” the new home park is the cause. but the splits are presented as support: Arenado is hitting .339 with a .923 OPS at Chase Field and .230 with a .722 OPS everywhere else.. The conclusion offered is cautious—nothing indicates Arenado himself is experiencing a resurgence—but the numbers can still make 2026 a rebound season if the change of scenery is behind it.
Dylan Cease. RHP. Blue Jays: 2025 ERA+ 93; 2026 ERA+ 181 (+88 points)
Cease’s rebound reads like a clean turnaround. but with an important starting point that makes the improvement feel less surprising.. His first season with the Blue Jays looked worse on paper than it likely was.. He had a 4.55 ERA, yet the strikeout-minus-walk rate was 19.9% and his expected ERA was 3.46.
In 2026, the improvement shows up in results and in pitch-level changes.. His barrel rate is down from 8.6% in 2025 to 4.3% in ’26.. He’s thrown AL-leading 75 strikeouts, pacing a sixth straight 200-K season, and his K-BB rate (24.9%) ranks fifth among qualified pitchers.. He’s riding a 16-inning scoreless streak and owns a 2.41 ERA.. His xERA sits at 2.88.
The piece also highlights his 1.86 FIP as second in the big leagues, trailing only the Yankees’ Cam Schlittler (1.82).. His four-seamer/slider combo remains dangerous. and the change comes in increased usage of his changeup. which he’s throwing with a 54.8% whiff rate.. The overall picture: the jump in 2026 is paired with a pitch mix that suggests a return to being an ace.
Oneil Cruz. CF. Pirates: 2025 OPS+ 86; 2026 OPS+ 125 (+39 points)
Cruz is described as a hitter who always has power. even when his season overall isn’t landing the way he wants.. Even last year, when he was below league average, he posted a 97th-percentile barrel rate and a 98th-percentile hard-hit rate.
What changed is that the hard contact is turning into better outcomes.. In 2026. he’s ranking inside the top 10 in both barrel and hard-hit rate among qualified hitters. and his results have followed.. The piece points to luck as part of it—his .365 batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is one of the highest in the Majors—but it also ties the improvement to specific approach shifts.
Cruz is pulling the ball more often and. more notably. pulling the ball in the air 17.5% of the time compared to 13.2% in 2025.. His size—he’s listed as six-foot-seven—is framed as a factor in why his power shows up best when he launches balls in the air to the pull side.. He’s also raised his batting average by almost 100 points against breaking balls.
Pitchers, facing that, are seeing a different hitter: Cruz is seeing fastballs 51.5% of the time, up from 42.2% last year. That should mean more pitches to hit, and the piece frames that as part of why the rebound has happened.
Bryce Elder, RHP, Braves: 2025 ERA+ 78; 2026 ERA+ 219 (+141 points)
Elder’s story is organized as three distinct chapters. He was an All-Star in 2023, then a struggling former All-Star, then now a re-emerging version of the talent. In 2023, he had a first-half run of 7-2 with a 2.97 ERA.
But over his next 44 starts, the results turned sharply. He went 12-16 with a 5.99 ERA. The turnaround segment starts Aug. 24 of last season. From Aug. 24 of the previous year through Friday—a period of 16 starts—Elder went 7-3 with a 2.27 ERA.
The question presented is whether the “real Bryce Elder” is the pitcher who appeared in that later stretch.. The reporting leans toward yes by pointing to what’s happening entering Saturday: six of his first nine starts of 2026 were quality starts. and he hasn’t allowed more than three earned runs in any.. Opponents are hitting .180 against him, the sixth-best mark among qualified starters.
The piece attributes part of the steadiness to his work with Hall of Famer Greg Maddux. where Elder developed a cutter and honed his changeup and slider.. It ends by noting his importance to Atlanta’s pitching—Elder is identified as a major reason the Braves lead MLB in ERA—and that a second All-Star berth would not be a surprise.
Michael Harris II. CF. Braves: 2025 OPS+ 88; 2026 OPS+ 138 (+50 points)
Harris’ rebound is described through the tension between two different versions of his 2025.. Depending on the metric, 2025 was either his best season or his worst.. He set career highs in homers (20) and RBIs (86), but produced career lows in on-base percentage (.268) and OPS (.678).. His OPS+ was 88, the lowest of his career.
Then, over the final two weeks of last season, the story shifted.. He hit .352 with three homers and a .968 OPS over his last 14 games, and carried that into 2026.. Early 2026 production is tied to changes in the ball he’s hitting: his average exit velocity is up by more than 4 mph over last season. now at 94.7 mph. and his hard-hit rate jumped by more than 14 percentage points to land in MLB’s 99th percentile.
The piece also says he raised his walk rate, which was in MLB’s bottom 1% last year.. His chase rate is up to 43.9%. but he’s making contact on pitches in the zone at the highest rate of his career (89.7%).. That contact is producing an .843 OPS through Friday. which would be his highest since his 2022 NL Rookie of the Year campaign.
An honorable mention is added for teammate Ozzie Albies, whose OPS+ moved from 89 to 129.
George Kirby. RHP. Mariners: 2025 ERA+ 91; 2026 ERA+ 137 (+46 points)
Kirby’s rebound comes with a warning sign: it’s “never a great sign” when a pitcher’s whiff and strikeout rates drop by roughly six percentage points each.. But the piece argues that while batters are making more contact against him this season. they’re producing tougher quality contact.
Three numbers are highlighted as the convincing story.. First, expected ERA drops by a full run, from 3.88 to 2.88.. Second, batted-ball numbers can be noisy for a pitcher, and his ERA may climb unless he starts missing more bats.. Still, a return to the mid-3.00s is framed as more likely than repeating 2025.
The basis offered is his career ERA of 3.52.
Bailey Ober. RHP. Twins: 2025 ERA+ 84; 2026 ERA+ 125 (+41 points)
Ober’s rebound begins with a league-wide baseline: fastball velocity is up in 2026. with the average fastball thrown by a Major League pitcher listed as 94.4 mph. the highest of the pitch tracking era since 2008.. But Ober’s fastball average sits at 88.6 mph, the lowest among 166 starting pitchers who throw at least 200 fastballs this year.
That makes his success feel harder to explain. but the piece says it still works because his fastball is effective and the reason is his elite extension.. At 6-foot-9. Ober gets far down the mound. releasing the ball 7.2 feet in front of the rubber—almost a foot closer than the typical Major League pitcher—giving hitters less time to see the ball.
His opponents are hitting .240 off his fastball. His best weapon is described as a changeup with plus horizontal break, used as his No. 1 pitch to both left- and right-handed hitters. He throws it 36% of the time, up from 29% in 2025.
Eduardo Rodriguez, LHP, D-backs: 2025 ERA+ 85; 2026 ERA+ 184 (+99 points)
Rodriguez’s rebound is presented with caveats right up front.. His peripherals don’t match the success.. The reporting notes that he doesn’t get swing-and-miss and doesn’t strike out many hitters. while also walking a lot of people.
His whiff rate is given as 18.3%, which is described as ninth percentile, and his strikeout rate is 16.5% (16th percentile).. His walk rate is 11.0% (27th percentile).. The piece says he limits hard contact—“basically all thanks to his changeup”—but even after that. his expected ERA is listed at 4.59. more than two full runs higher than his actual ERA of 2.25.
The numbers are contrasted with last year: his expected ERA last year was 4.51. which the piece says was actually better than this year’s. and last year his actual ERA finished at 5.02.. The reporting ends by framing his profile as crafty but sets up a regression possibility without declaring it certain.
Adley Rutschman, C, Orioles: 2025 OPS+ 90; 2026 OPS+ 140 (+50 points)
Rutschman’s rebound is tied directly to availability.. Last year. half of Baltimore’s productive catching tandem. his numbers were heavily impacted by a pair of oblique strains that limited him to 90 games.. In 2026. he spent 10 days on the injured list last month due to left ankle inflammation. but the piece says he looks healthy at the plate.
His offensive profile is described as performing much more like the two-time All-Star from the start of his career. and in some cases even better.. The piece says he’s making hard contact at career-best levels: 44.9% hard-hit rate and 9.0% barrel rate.. It also notes his strong bat-to-ball skills with a 16.2% strikeout rate and a 14.6% whiff rate.
There’s also a pitch target shift.. He’s back to crushing fastballs like he did in 2022 and 2023. when his slugging percentage against four-seamers. sinkers. and cutters was north of .500.. That fell below .450 in 2024 and 2025.. This season, his slugging against fastballs is .594.. The piece’s final condition is simple: as long as he can stay on the field. he looks like he could be on his way to his best offensive season yet in the Majors.
Christian Walker. 1B. Astros: 2025 OPS+ 98; 2026 OPS+ 137 (+39 points)
Walker’s rebound is framed as a move from stable production in Arizona to an abrupt slowdown in Houston. followed by a return that looks earned.. Over the last three seasons in Arizona. Walker was described as consistent. with slash lines nearly identical and OPS+ landing between 120-125 each time.
After signing a three-year. $60 million deal with the Astros and joining a club described as desperate for improvement at first base. that consistency “suddenly evaporated.” His entry to Houston is quantified: over the first three months of last season. his OPS mostly hovered below .650.. The production stayed hard-hit, but the results weren’t there.
The rebound began last year.. Over the final three months of 2025, Walker hit .264/.318/.489 with 17 homers and 51 RBIs, matching the 2022-24 standard more or less.. The 35-year-old carried it into his second season in Houston and is putting up career-best offensive stats.. The piece adds that he’s overperforming a bit based on Statcast expected numbers.
Even so, the argument for sustainability is grounded in quality of contact: he’s maintained strong quality-of-contact metrics while cutting his strikeout rate and raising his walk rate, which the piece says bodes well going forward.
MLB rebounders 2026 OPS+ ERA+ Nolan Arenado Dylan Cease Oneil Cruz Bryce Elder Michael Harris II George Kirby Bailey Ober Eduardo Rodriguez Adley Rutschman Christian Walker