Each week this season I’ll be taking a look at a specific advanced statistic. The goal is to fill out the strong foundation of information you all in FA Nation already possess. I recently looked at Fly Index to predict some possible power breakouts. On tap this week is wOBA-xwOBA. You’re probably familiar with Weighted On-base Average, a stat that places progressively weighted values on At-Bat results. It’s more indicative of a player's skills than OBP or AVG. We can enhance that even further by examining wOBA compared to xwOBA.

What is xwOBA? Per Statcast, “Expected Weighted On-base Average (xwOBA) is formulated using exit velocity, launch angle and, on certain types of batted balls, Sprint Speed.” In laymen's terms, it removes the luck of where a ball was hit and instead accounts for how well it was hit. If a hitter smokes a ball at the third baseman that would have been a double based on exit velocity his xwOBA will account for it where wOBA will not. We can look at this and see who has been unlucky despite quality contact on the early season. Statcast makes this super easy by selecting the desired fields to get wOBA-xwOBA.

The top ten features plenty of mashers. Franmil Reyes is particularly interesting. He’s only 1/14 on the young season. This shows he’s hitting the ball hard and the results should come soon.

We can look at the opposite end of the spectrum and see who’s had luckier results so far. Just switch the sort order to descending.

You need to take some of these with a grain of salt. Maikel Franco should only have a ridiculous .565 On-base Average, instead of a god-like .785. That’s not telling us much. Freddy Galvis is the result type that we’re looking for. He goes from slightly above average to below average without a little good fortune.

We’ll continue to monitor this as the sample size grows. The best way to apply it in the short term is for a hitter you may be getting impatient with and are looking for a confidence boost. In DFS it can be a reason to use a player that lines up well with a narrative but doesn’t have recent success. Like any stat, it has its place and shouldn’t be overestimated. Use it as another tool in your bag to continue your fantasy success.