Fantasy Baseball: 7 Hitters Whose Strikeout-Rate Trends Should Have Your Attention

J.T. Realmuto, Miami Marlins

The hot hitting of Miami Marlins backstop J.T. Realmuto was a surprise narrative to the opening days of 2017, with the relatively low-profile Miami catcher boasting a robust 1.451 on base plus slugging (OPS) over his first five games.

Of course, Realmuto's bat has inevitably cooled, but his .986 OPS on the current season remains an impressive mark that suggests he may soon be establishing himself in the ranks of upper-tier fantasy backstops.

Buoying Realmuto's breakout is a minuscule 8.4-percent strikeout mark, tied for seventh-best across the majors. This trend is no aberration, as the 26-year-old has boasted a well-above-average contact profile throughout his quietly productive career.

The gains in contact rate (up to nearly 90 percent from the already strong 82.4 percent last year) and swinging-strike rate (all the way down below 5 percent, almost half of his lean 8.5-percent rate last year) indicate that even if some negative regression looms for Realmuto, he should be a stout multi-category contributor for the duration of the season.