My initial thought, since horizontal movement is also up this year, is that there may be a difference in the seams on the ball, but that idea seems less plausible after I spoke to a few pitchers. Tobias Myers of the New York Mets suggested that it may be weather: "Maybe colder weather...I know here we've had a lot of wind, which a lot of guys are getting crazy movements on their pitches, but it's more on like the sinkers and the sweepers."That could certainly be a component of it, and we know that offense is going to heat up when the weather heats up (more on that later). The other common hypothesis is that it's ABS-related.

However, ABS hasn't added any walks when you look at specific challenges overturned. A look at Statcast’s detailed breakdown would seem to refute that. So far, league-wide, batters have gained 50 walks on challenges.

However, catchers/pitchers have eliminated 60 walks on challenges. Now, this doesn’t mean that at-bat didn’t end in a walk, but it’s telling us that ABS challenges alone have not led to more walks. But what if the ABS is impacting pitchers in another way?"I think it's probably more guys thinking about it a little bit more," suggested Myers.

"Maybe guys are pushing, pressing a little bit, trying to throw strikes." That was a theory that was supported by Twins ace Joe Ryan: "Maybe because you're thinking about it too much, that makes sense...That might be something subconscious. People are thinking about a little bit.

Maybe guys who are living on the edges a lot, or maybe trying to make the perfect pitch."It might be worth an article looking into pitchers who have previously gotten the most called strikes on pitches outside of the zone, but that may have been a better focus in the offseason. Still, I may come back to that idea. Another component of how ABS could be impacting the walk rate is in how it's changed the strike zone, specifically the top of the strike zone, which many pitchers believe is lower this year.

The Athletic's Cody Stavenhagen wrote a great article specifically about that, so I'd encourage you to check that out. What that means for us is that this increased walk rate is likely here to stay. So if pitchers are going to be walking more batters, it's logical to ask which pitchers are going to be most impacted by it.

Especially since we know that offense in baseball always improves across the league as the weather gets warmer. With that in mind, I wanted to look at pitchers who ALREADY have an elevated walk rate, so pitchers who are giving hitters free bases, but haven't been hurt by it yet. I took all starting pitchers with over 20 innings pitched who have a walk rate that's higher than the league average.

Then, I looked at which of them also had BABIPs, HR/FB rates, and Left On Base Rates (LOB%) that were much better than the league average. The theory behind this is that, since these pitchers are walking more guys than most, if home runs or balls in play or inherited runners start to move towards the league average, these pitchers are going to be allowing far more runs than they currently are, and we're going to see regression in WHIP and ERA. So, which pitchers might be most impacted by this as the season goes on?All data is BEFORE games on Saturday, April 25thFantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Regression CandidatesPitchers with unsustainable left on base ratesAs of Friday, April 24th, the league average LOB% for all starting pitchers is 72.3%NameTeamBB%LOB%José SorianoLAA0.0928571Gavin WilliamsCLE0.1478260.942623Robbie RaySFG0.0964910.916667Chase BurnsCIN0.0990990.901639Jameson TaillonCHC0.0947370.87963Chad PatrickMIL0.0851060.877863Matthew LiberatoreSTL0.085470.870968Taj BradleyMIN0.0847460.861111Eduardo RodriguezARI0.10.859873Connelly EarlyBOS0.1214950.843373Casey MizeDET0.085470.833333Seth LugoKCR0.0862070.827586You're going to see Jose Soriano up here as the first name and say, "When are you just going to believe?"

The truth is that I do believe. It shouldn't be a surprise to suggest he is going to regress because he's clearly not going to have a 0.24 ERA. One big reason he's going to regress is this 100% left on base rate (LOB%).

That's just not sustainable. Soriano also has an above-average walk rate, and that has always been a bit of an issue for him, so I expect it to hang around. However, the top four names on this list (Gavin Williams, Robbie Ray, Chase Burns) are not pitchers I'm "worried" about or dropping.

But we should acknowledge that they're running high walk rates right now, and their LOB% is not sustainable. There will be regression, but that doesn't mean they'll become bad. Taj Bradley is another pitcher who will a