Second Half Breakouts for Fantasy Baseball - Eric Samulski's "My Guys"

June 30, 2023

Eric Samulski takes a look at players he thinks will breakout in the second half of the fantasy baseball season. These are all players he's trying to get on his rosters via waiver wire or trade.

One of the more fun traditional pre-season fantasy baseball columns is the "my guys" article where analysts provide players that they have considerable shares of for the upcoming season. It's a good way to identify potential value based on a writer's analysis and also track the writer's process by seeing if the results pan out.

However, not many people do a "my guys" just for the second half of the season. Thanks to the idea of my good buddy "Thunder" Dan Palyo, that's exactly what we're going to do.

In this article, I'll highlight the "my guys" that I'm trying to get on my team for the second half of the fantasy baseball season. Some of them will be players you can still add on waivers and others will be players you need to trade for, but they're all players who are popping for me based on the research I've been doing lately.

Revisiting Eric's Pre-Season "My Guys" List

But before we do that, I thought it would be fun to revisit my pre-season "my guys" article and see how we're doing halfway through the season.

So far, I can take a big "L" on Willson Contreras, who is hitting just .216 with eight home runs. His teammate, Tyler O'Neill, is also an "L" but mostly because of injury and weird politics that are happening within the Cardinals' organization right now.

James Outman started hot, so I'm not gonna take a full "L" there because his March ADP was 340th, and he certainly provided value at that cost during his hot start. Same for Triston Casas, who started slow but is bouncing back, and Ryan McMahon, who's hitting .263/.346/.484 with 12 home runs if you stuck with him.

Big win for Ketel Marte, who is destroying the baseball this season but a bit of a disappointment for Willy Adames, who has 12 home runs but is hitting just .206 and didn't experience the steals bump I thought the new rules might give him. Garrett Whitlock has battled injuries but has been solid for the Red Sox, and I continue to believe.

So with that out of the way, let's dive into our second half "My Guys"

Triston Casas - 1B, Boston Red Sox

Oh, yeah, we're going back to the well here. Casas is 36th in all of baseball among hitters with over 100 batted ball events with an 8.5% barrels per plate appearance. He also is posting a 14.3% barrels per batted ball event mark and a 45.5% hard-hit rate. The quality of contact has been good for most of the season, so it seemed like a matter of time before the results came.

Well, the results started to come in the middle of May. In his last 30 games, Casas is hitting .282/.362/.456 with three home runs, 12 RBI, and 11 runs. He has also lowered his strikeout rate to 25.9% while posting an 11.2% walk rate. He has a 13.7% barrel rate over that span and a 52.1% hard-hit rate.

We always knew the good swing decisions would be part of his profile, but it's also been nice to see him elevating the ball more of late. In May, Casas had a 32.7% fly ball rate. So far in June, that is up to 43.3%. Considering he's pulling the ball 51.7% of the time, the added lift will help him to get to that power more often. The only issue here is that the Red Sox still don't trust him to hit against lefties, but aside from that, all of the pieces are there for a second-half breakout.

Matt McLain - 2B/SS, Cincinnati Reds

I didn't know much about McLain heading into this season, but my research for the Samulski Sunday Tribune kept bringing up his name. While Elly De La Cruz and Christian Encarnacion-Strand get all the love in prospect circles, McLain has been at least equal to his teammates so far this season. The 23-year-old hit .348/.474/.710 in Triple-A with 12 home runs and 10 steals before getting called up to the big leagues.

Since coming up, he has delivered, even if projections don't believe it. Most projection systems have him for a .240 or .250 average the rest of the way, but I'm not buying that.

McLain has an 88% zone contact rate and just a 9% SwStr%, so he makes a lot of contact. He also has just a 28% O-Swing, which means he's making good swing decisions, so it's no surprise that he also has a 13.3% barrel rate. He also went from hitting the ball in the air 26% of the time in May to 46% of the time in June, which is why he's doubled his home run output in the month. Considering he plays in Great American Ballpark, him lifting the ball and continuing to hit it that hard is a good thing.

He's always run high BABIPs in the minors, so I'm not worried that he has a .421 BABIP right now. We know that will come down, but he has always had over a .300 BABIP, so I don't expect his average to fall below the .270 range this year.

My only issue so far has been the lack of stolen bases based on my expectation. He stole 27 bases last year and had 10 in 38 games in Triple-A, but just four in 40 MLB games, so I hope he starts running more soon. The arrow is pointing firmly upward here.

Maikel Garcia - 3B/SS, Kansas City Royals

To be clear, this is more Rob Silver's guy, but Rob and James Anderson put me onto Garcia during Spring Training, and now I have shares in many places. He also appeared in my article where I used Pull% to try and predict home run surges. In that article, I mentioned that Garcia is currently fourth among all qualified third basemen in hard-hit rate and also 9th in average exit velocity on fly balls and line drives. All of that indicates that he makes hard enough contact to be more than just a speed player.

Garcia has a 45.1% hard-hit rate over the last 30 days but just a 5.6% barrel rate due to his 60% groundball rate. Still, we know he CAN hit the ball hard in the air, so I'm not concerned that he isn't doing it much in June because his speed allows him to hit for a solid average by focusing on groundballs and line drives. Also, Kauffman Stadium is not conducive to power production, so I wouldn't want Garcia trying to lift and pull too much.

He has an 18.8% strikeout rate over the last 30 days and has been hitting in the middle of the order for the Royals, which will lead to RBIs and runs when they have a good game here and there. All of which is to say that Garcia is a 20+ stolen base player who is making lots of contact and hits the ball hard while also batting 4th or 5th in a lineup. You love all of that for fantasy.

Eugenio Suarez - 3B, Seattle Mariners

Betting on Suarez to heat up in the summer is certainly not a risky bet. For his career, Suarez is a .240/.326/.434 hitter in the first half of the season with a .760 OPS, .194 ISO, and 17.3% HR/FB. In the second half of the season, he has career marks of .259/.341/.488 with a .829 OPS, .230 ISO, and 19.8% HR/FB.

It's not surprising for Suarez to heat up with the weather and considering he's rocking just a 9.4% HR/FB rate right now, which is well below his career average, I think we're going to see the long balls flying, like when he hit nine home runs in just August of last year.

In June, Suarez has a 14.3% barrel rate and 54% hard-hit rate; however, that has come with a .233 average and .411 slugging percentage. Part of that is due to a 25.3-degree launch angle, which is leading to a few too many pop-ups, but I think the warmer weather will allow a few of those pop-ups to fly out of the park.

Josh Naylor - 1B/OF, Cleveland Guardians

I covered Josh Naylor in the same article where I mentioned Maikel Garcia, so it shouldn't be a shock that he appears here as well. Naylor has been hitting the ball extremely well of late. He is making a lot of contact with just a 12.6% strikeout rate over the last 30 days while posting a 12.1% barrel rate and 48.4% hard-hit rate.

Part of the reason he has just three home runs in that span is that he has just a 33% pull rate, so he's not selling out for pull-side power as much as you'd like to see for somebody who hits the ball that hard. Still, you're not complaining about his .398/423/.602 triple slash, but it does just show that there might still be another level where he can trade in a bit of that high average for more power by looking to turn on pitches.

Regardless, Naylor is not being given enough attention for his strong run of production. Cleveland is also one of the colder home parks in the spring, so some of Naylor's home run drought might be connected to the ball not carrying as well as when the weather is warm. Given his overall quality of contact, I think Naylor is still a good trade target with a potential home run spike coming.

Matt Vierling - OF, Detroit Tigers

Since we've done a few shallower league options, I want to cover a deep league guy I like as well in Vierling. I first covered the Detroit outfielder in Spring Training with my xSLG Leaderboard article where I mentioned that Vierling "was 85th percentile in hard-hit rate and 82nd percentile in max exit velocity. That solid contact approach and good quality of contact gave him a .279 xBA, which was good for the top 7% in baseball."

Well, he has carried that over into this season and, since coming back from injury in early June, has a .385/467/.667 triple slash with just a 17.8% strikeout rate and a 12.9% barrel rate. When you combine that with the xwOBA rolling graph from below, it seems like a breakout could be in motion for Vierling.

Working against him is the non-friendly confines of Comerica Park and a launch angle that was 0.5 degrees up until a week ago. However, Vierling has adjusted back, and I think we could start to see home runs start to come as well.

Another interesting thing to note is that he's hitting .211/.311/.296 off of lefties, compared to .292/.348/.469 against righties, which is a shock because he came into this season as a "lefty killer." In 2022, Vierling hit .295/.333/.426 off of lefties with two home runs and three stolen bases, so we have to expect those numbers to rebound a little bit which could boost his overall profile if the success against righties holds too.

Yainer Diaz - C, Houston Astros

Back in late February, Justin Mason had me on Friends With Fantasy Benefits to discuss the Houston Astros, and I mentioned Diaz in the context of draft-and-hold formats (Also, it's wild that, at that time, my son was just "army crawling around" and now he's super close to walking and is basically grabbing everything off of every shelf in our apartment"). On that podcast, I mentioned that Diaz hit over .300 across two levels last year and has always kept his strikeout rate in check. Given that he was a bit raw behind the plate, I didn't expect him to push Maldonado off of the catcher spot, but I thought Yainer Diaz could emerge as the backup in Houston and provide offensive upside.

As it turned out, Diaz worked his way regularly into the lineup because of Yordan Alvarez's injury and has crushed the ball, hitting .276 overall with seven home runs and just a 17.8% strikeout rate. In June alone, he's played 17 games, hitting .323/.328/.646 with five home runs, seven runs, and 11 RBI. He's not going to walk, so his on-base percentage will always be a little low, but I think he's carved out a regular spot in Houston's lineup as a C/DH and even played three games at 1B, so he should remain a quality option in two-catcher formats, even when Alvarez and, likely, Michael Brantley return for the Astros.

Justin Lawrence - RP, Colorado Rockies

I covered Lawrence in late May in the Samulski Sunday Tribune and also for Reliever Recon when he was next in line to Pierce Johnson but out-pitching him. It seems like Lawrence has taken this job, and while Colorado isn't winning a ton of games, I think he'll have value in the second half.

Lawrence has posted a 2.93 ERA with a 12.9% K-BB% which has dropped from his earlier 17.6% mark after a few scoreless but also strikeout-less appearances in the middle of the month. Yet, that swing-and-miss dip doesn't worry me too much because I like his profile. He throws a sweeper with a 16.1% SwStr% but because of his low arm slot where he kind of slings the ball, he’s able to manipulate the slider so some are slower and have far more sweep while others are harder and tighter. As a result, it’s almost like he throws two sliders. That pitch, and his sinker, both hold up well in the altitude of Coors because he has a 3.6% barrel rate -7 degree launch angle allowed.

Prospect "My Guys" for Fantasy Baseball

Here are two guys who are not yet called up that I think will be interesting as soon as they do see MLB action, which I think they will this season:

Trey Cabbage - 1B/OF, Los Angeles Angels

Eric's Rank: 225

Cabbage is another player I was put onto by my research for the Samulski Sunday Tribune (seriously, you should sign up because we've been onto some guys months before they were called up just by going through stats).

The 26-year-old was a former top prospect in the Twins organization but has taken his game to a new level this year thanks to 21 steals in 71 games. In fact, he is now the second player in Salt Lake Bees franchise history to put up a 20/20 season in the minors. That's a 20/20 season with 78 games to play.

He had never stolen more than 10 bases in a season. 21 home runs and 21 steals are certainly intriguing from a fantasy perspective, especially with a .292 average; however, he also has a 30.5% strikeout rate this year and had a 34.6% rate last year, so there will be some swing-and-miss in his game which could hurt at the big league level.

With Jared Walsh being awful again and both Gio Urshela and Anthony Rendon hurt, we could see Cabbage get a shot at the 1B job. I just can't quite believe that a team with playoff aspirations is going to role with Eduardo Escobar and Mike Moustakas for the rest of the season.

Connor Phillips - SP, Cincinnati Reds

Eric's Rank: 225

Credit where credit is due, I learned about Phillips from reading Chris Clegg's awesome work. In 64.2 innings at Double-A this year, Phillips has a 3.34 ERA, 2.94 xFIP, and a stupid 29.6% K-BB that comes with a 39.1% strikeout rate. That's insane. Among pitchers with over 40 innings this season at any minor league level, Phillips ranks 2nd behind Yankees' prospect Chase Hampton with that 29.6% K-BB%.

The Reds have promoted pitching prospects straight from Double-A before, and we know they are hurting for pitching with Luke Weaver, Levi Stout, and Brandon Williamson in the rotation. Shoot, even Graham Ashcraft has been bad. They will get Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo back at some point this summer and could make a trade for a starter, but this is a team that is pushing for the division crown, so Phillips could absolutely be in their plans if he keeps pitching like this.

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