While it is important to identify the validity of a hot streak from players available in your leagues, it is also important to know which players on your team are legit to ensure you don’t end up moving on from a player that could be helpful through the second half of the season.
Bo Bichette, SS, Toronto Blue Jays
Bo Bichette was one of the most difficult players to evaluate coming into the 2025 season. With only 4 home runs and a .599 OPS through 81 games last season, it was difficult to know whether his poor results were due to skills loss or impacts related to his myriad of calf injuries. But so far in 2025, those who held faith have been rewarded with a Bichette that has looked very close to his past self.
Before 2024, Bichette was a player known for elite batting averages with 20-HR power, albeit declining speed. With this skillset, he led the AL in hits twice alongside two all-star nominations. But after five straight seasons batting on or about .300, Bichette hit a measly .225 last season, even while posting a normal strikeout rate, which indicates a decline in his quality of contact. Though his AIR% was right on with his career norms, Bichette saw a career low in barrel rate by a wide margin alongside a dip in his average exit velocity. This likely contributed to his career-low BABIP, which was well off his career averages in the .330 range.
But this year, Bichette is back to his usual self. He is back up to his normal barrel rate, Hard-Hit rate, and a .307 xBA. He has poked 8 homeruns already, on pace for an 18-HR season. And he is even showing the best contact rate and strikeout rate of his career. Bichette is not only matching what he did before 2024, but exceeding it on some fronts. Though he is only hitting .268 so far this year, he should see some positive regression throughout the rest of the season to nudge him back towards .300. Just don’t be expecting too many more steals.
Verdict: Legit – It’s Bo Time. Following a series of injuries that detracted from his 2024 season, Bichette has seen a resurgence in his quality of contact. Looking much more like his normal self, he should continue to post high batting averages and middling power, though his declining speed indicates his 13+ steal years are behind him.
Jo Adell, OF, Los Angeles Angels
Well, well, well… this feels familiar. Jo Adell has once again been setting the world on fire, flashing the insane upside he has continually teased since his MLB debut in 2020. In his last 14 games, Adell has hit 7 balls over the fence, landing him at a crispy 13 long-balls on the year. And they aren’t just dinkers either; the average distance on his home runs has been an astounding 411 feet.
This isn’t all too surprising as Adell has an MLB-career max EV of 117.2 mph and a 99th percentile bat speed. He has proven time and time again that he can hit some of the loudest balls in the league. But the reason he hasn’t been in the conversation as an elite power bat isn’t because he can’t hit the ball hard; it’s because he can’t hit the ball often enough in the first place. This begs the question: has Adell finally improved in his contact to help him better translate his insane raw power into game power?
First, let’s see if his poor contact rates are a result of a poor plate approach. Last season, Adell’s swing decisions weren’t great, but they also weren’t terrible. In fact, his season’s average Decision Value+ was almost exactly league average at 100. And so far this year, though he has walked at a below-average rate, his Decision Value+ has been almost identical to the year before, even trending up of late. This indicates that his poor whiff rates and strikeout rates haven’t been due to him hacking at unhittable pitches.
Even with average decisions, Adell whiffed at almost 30% of pitches he swung at last year, leading to a 15th-percentile 27.9% strikeout rate and a paltry .207 batting average through his 130 games. And unfortunately, this year has been much of the same. Though he has seen an improvement in strikeout rate by a few percentage points, Adell has still been whiffing at very similar rates to his 2024 season. And even when he has been making contact, he hasn’t been able to square up the ball, leading to a major lag between his elite bat speed and his fairly middling average exit velocity.
This profile can work and has worked in the past. Austin Riley, Riley Greene, and even Luis Robert Jr. are players who have found success (at one point) with elite bat speed, poor contact rates, and poor square-upability. But these players make up for it with strong launch-angle-sweet-spot percentages that Adell just hasn’t been able to replicate yet. It just becomes too rare for Adell to not only make contact, but hit it square, and at a good angle.
Verdict: Not Legit – Though Adell has been slowly improving in overall contact through his career, it isn’t yet in a good place. Most of his improvement has been in his in-zone contact rate, though he has surprisingly seen pitches in the zone around league-average rates. Pitchers should be able to adjust to leverage his high chase rates by throwing out of the zone more. With insane bat speed and power potential, he just needs to make a further marked improvement in contact rate, ideal launch angle rate, or plate approach for his breakout to become more than another hot streak.
Alejandro Kirk, C, Toronto Blue Jays
Though they weren’t able to land Sasaki, the Blue Jays still had quite the offseason. Headlined by the 14-year Vladimir Guerrero Jr. extension, the Blue Jays also locked up Alejandro Kirk with a 5-year, $58M extension. Kirk has rewarded the Canadian club so far in 2025 with not only his electric defense but also a hot bat, batting .316 with a 122 wRC+ across 58 games.
This isn’t new territory for Kirk. He hit .285 over 139 games during his all-star 2022 season, good for a 129 wRC+. But he had a different story between his stellar 2022 and now, posting below-average offensive seasons in each of 2023 and 2024. With the blue birds jumping the gun on his 2025 revival, what is Kirk doing differently now?
Kirk has always had some of the best contact skills in the game. And while his in-zone contact rate has taken a dip this season, it’s still well above average on the year. He might chase fairly often, but his out-of-zone contact rate is far above average to make it mostly a non-issue. This culminates in a minute 10.4% strikeout rate this season, 8th among qualified batters. Though he hasn’t walked much this year, he still has more walks than strikeouts since the beginning of May. All this is great, but it isn’t new; Kirk has often hovered in the 10% strikeout rate in the past.
Instead, one of the biggest differences in his offensive profile has been a drastic increase in his bat speed. Among batters with at least 150 PA in both 2024 and 2025, Kirk has the 5th biggest jump between the two years. He has doubled his fast swing rate and increased his average exit velocity by 3.2 mph. With his decent launch angles and ability to put the ball in play at elite rates, this 98th percentile hard hit rate translates easily into the game.
Verdict: Legit – Kirk has found a second wind in his age-26 MLB season. Carrying through his elite contact rates, his increased bat speed becomes even more impactful. The Blue Jays and fantasy managers alike should be able to enjoy Captain Kirk’s output for years to come.
