RADIO
While nobody will argue that the desired final end point to the marathon that is the grueling fantasy baseball season is staking claim to a league championship, veterans of this fair game relish a few other nuances of the grind along the way. There's the smug feeling of besting a rival in a trade, the nightly box score checking on a night when your team posts those wonderful crooked numbers, and the lazy flip on the remote, just in time to watch your ace carve up the competition. But perhaps tops on this list, is the feeling associated with the slow buildup and long-term payout of a bargain acquisition posting glorious counting stats on a nightly basis.
So sit back, grab your popcorn, and enjoy this position-by-position rundown of the best batting bargains of the first half.
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First Half Studs - Draft Day Steals
Catcher: Wilson Ramos
Was there any question as to who would claim this spot? Ramos leads all catchers in HR and RBI with 13 and 47, respectively. His wRC+ (Weighted Runs Created Plus) currently sits at a league-leading 147 - second in that category, trailing well behind at 127, is a guy by the name of Buster Posey. You may have heard of him. This leads to a few obvious questions -
Is this first half just a result of good luck?
Has Ramos broke through to a higher rung on the fantasy value ladder?
Can I put ketchup on my hot dog?
Let's start with the obvious one. Ketchup on a hot dog is a violation of Rule 1.2 of the Universal Hot Dog Code. And while children may be given leniency, adults should be mocked shamelessly if even one droplet of ketchup hits that dog. Now back to Ramos. To address the first question - has he been lucky? At first glance, his .344 BABIP seems like a red flag - especially in comparison to his .289 career mark. But when we dig further, Ramos has praised the results of his off-season LASIK surgery, an operation which has allowed him to see the ball better - and last time I checked, seeing the ball is one of the first steps to take when one desires to hit the ball. His Hard Hit rate backs this up. In 2014 and 2015, Ramos averaged 27% in that department - this season he sits at a sterling 34.4%. Additional proof that Ramos is seeing the ball better? He has nearly doubled his walk rate from the previous two seasons. Long story short - this IS a new and improved Wilson Ramos, so do not sell high.
First Base: Wil Myers
Wil Myers entered the season as almost an afterthought at the first-base position, a fallback plan when the top and middle tiers were exhausted. Now it appears that those residing at the top-tier of the position will need to slide over to make room for the post-hype breakthrough slugger. And while the 19 HR are good enough to place him fifth among all first-basemen, his stolen base prowess is really what sets him apart from the pack. His 14 steals rank him 10th in all the majors and - injuries aside - he seems a safe bet to eclipse 25 this year. To put that into context, Paul Goldschmidt - the reigning king of the fleet-footed first-basemen kingdom - has a career high mark of 21 steals.
The main driver of Myers' success has been his ability to pound the ball to all fields. Take a look at the splits:
Pull% = 35.8%
Cent% = 40.9%
Oppo% = 23.2%
And now his OPS and ISO for each:
Pull = 1.000 / .297
Cent = 1.158 / .304
Oppo = 1.041 / .386
An ability to hit the ball with authority to all fields is an excellent indicator of untapped power in young players and Myers is still only 25 years old. The power breakout we are seeing appears to be legitimate.
Second Base: Danny Espinosa
Espinosa has played solely at shortstop this season but qualifies at second-base after playing 81 games there in 2015. To omit him from this discussion would do a disservice to the remarkable and strange year that he has cobbled together. All the more impressive has been his invaluable dispensing of home runs from a middle infield position with such largesse after a dismal April performance, all while uber-prospect Trea Turner has been breathing down his neck in Triple-A.
But the question that begs answering is whether we are seeing a new-and-improved player or just a flash in the pan performance out of a seven year veteran. The month of June is where most of the damage was done - .309/.418/.704 slash line, with 21 R, 9 HR, and 21 RBI. Extrapolating the counting numbers over 600 at-bats and you end up with 155 R, 55 HR, and 155 RBI. Even an HGH-fueled cyborg programmed to annihilate stitched-cowhide spheres of cork and yarn would be proud of that stat line. Of course, the question of why one would need to fuel a baseball-destroying automaton with HGH is a discussion for another day. The question answered here and now is that after logging well over 2,000 major league at-bats, we have a pretty concrete idea of what to expect from Danny Espinosa - and it's not elite production. Enjoy the ride while it lasts, but be prepared to cut bait once signs of the inevitable regression return.
Shortstop: Jonathan Villar
All apologies to Trevor Story, but Villar's run - and by run, I certainly mean run - has quickly (see where I am going with this) made him a free agent steal (groans are welcome at this point). And while Villar does not have the name cache of other stars, maybe he should. Let's take a look at a quick player comparison.
Player A - .316 AVG, 46 R, 6 HR, 32 RBI, 27 S
Player B - .295 AVG, 42 R, 6 HR, 31 RBI, 29 S
Near identical stats, right?
Player A is Starling Marte, Player B is Jonathan Villar.
Detractors may point to an elevated .406 BABIP, but Villar excels at putting the ball on the ground (57.9 GB%) and from there, uses his speed to get on base. Therefore, a BABIP somewhere in the range of .360 for the second half is not an unreasonable expectation. After being misused and under-utilized in Houston, the Brewers have given him every chance to succeed, as evidenced by the green light he has on the base paths. So much so, that an outside shot of 60 SB exists. Read that again. Sixty steals for a guy that cost pennies to acquire. If that doesn't butter your bread, then nothing will.
Third Base: Jake Lamb
This Lamb has been anything but meek and mild. Jake Lamb. He of the 20 HR and NL-leading .621 SLG percentage. Those numbers alone are worthy of a side of mint jelly but Lamb's cleanup slot has also netted owners 61 RBI - and the three steals are just icing on the cake. And if ISO is your thing, only David Ortiz has a higher one. As far as good deals go, Lamb has been the garage sale Van Gogh of bargains.
So the question that drifts unanswered in the ether is whether we can expect this production to continue into the second half and beyond. To answer that, we must delve deeply into the waters of the first half data. The worrying aspect that the numbers present is a eerie similarity to Lamb's 2015 numbers. The plate discipline numbers in particular, are alarming - a near-identical percentage of swings at balls in the zone and out of the zone, with an overall contact rate that has actually decreased slightly over the past season. Certainly not the enthralling numbers that owners are looking for. But what to make of the gigantic increase in HR/FB rate from 7.2% to 29.4% in 2016? Undoubtedly, this rate will not continue at its current high level, but two stats in particular provide hope for second half success. A spike in Hard Hit Percentage from 36.3% to 42.9% and a Pull Percentage that has climbed to 50.7% from 38.7% of 2015.
While the advanced statistics indicate a few holes in the breakout, this level of improvement goes well beyond advanced metrics. Other than receiving the offer to end all offers, redraft league owners should expect to continue to reap vast second half rewards. Dynasty league Jake Lamb owners should convert their league payouts into dollar bills and thrust them into the air, sans care, and bask in the shimmering, green glory that flutters gently downward.
Outfield: Mark Trumbo
The cream of the 2016 outfield crop features a few guys that could qualify for this honor - certainly Adam Duvall and his NL-leading 23 HR could be pegged, or do-it-all guys like Jackie Bradley Jr. and Odubel Herrera could make their case. But the 2016 version of Mark Trumbo has played like a man possessed in his new Camden Yard wonderland. And the scary prospect for non-Trumbo owners is that he has been equally effective at home as he has been on the road - 13 HR in 170 AB at home and 14 HR in 171 AB on the road.
What the data shows is that his batted ball profile has not deviated exceedingly from his historical numbers. The spray chart looks in line with past seasons, albeit with a slight increase in pull percentage. The Hard Hit and Line Drive rate also exhibit similar minuscule increases, but not enough to account for the current power surge. The outlier in the data set appears to be the HR/FB rate - a rate that currently sits at 26%, up a whopping 11.5% from last season. So when Trumbo is hitting fly balls, luck seems to be playing a bit of a factor as to whether or not they leave the park.
So he's lucky. Sell, right? Not so fast my friend. There is another interesting statistic that can be gleaned when one continues to dig. Mark Trumbo is seeing more fastballs this year. And Mark Trumbo is destroying fastballs this year. The wFB/C stat shows the average amount of runs that a hitter has produced when facing 100 fastballs. Trumbo's wFB/C currently sits at 2.81. His previous career high - 0.56. And with how well the Orioles offense has played this season, it's a safe expectation that he will continue to see an increased rate of fastballs in the second half. Fantasy owners - continue to ride the Mark Trumbo wave off into the sunset.
