One of the biggest questions of the analytical age is how much of a player’s performance is real, and how much is noise? This is really the driving question behind so much of analytical development — RBI as a comparative tool are pretty noisy, wOBA is less so, and that’s why the analytical movement has shifted away from RBI.
Cutting out noise is particularly tough when it comes to early season returns. Stats need time to normalize, hitters that start cold will have a hot streak, etc. However, we can look at some stats and try to get a picture of true talent, even after just a month’s worth of data.