{"id":468447,"date":"2026-02-09T12:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T12:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/468447\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T12:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T12:08:13","slug":"mlbs-10-biggest-bust-candidates-among-hitters-for-2026-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/468447\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB&#8217;s 10 Biggest Bust Candidates Among Hitters For 2026 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Why Expectations Are High<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Playing on a modest one-year, $6.25 million deal last season, Harrison Bader posted career-high marks in OPS+ (117), hits (124), home runs (17) and RBI (54), and he logged a gaudy .305\/.361\/.463 line with 17 extra-base hits in 50 games after he was traded to the Phillies at the deadline. That was enough to earn him a two-year, $20.5 million contract from the Giants this time around in free agency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">A .220 expected batting average and a spike in his strikeout rate from 21.7 to 27.1 percent run counter to the idea that Bader had a career year, and moving to pitcher-friendly Oracle Park figures to rob him of any step forward he has taken in the power department. His +.057 differential between batting average and expected batting average was the second-highest gap among players with at least 200 plate appearances in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why Expectations Are High Playing on a modest one-year, $6.25 million deal last season, Harrison Bader posted career-high&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-468447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}