Second Half Fantasy Baseball Breakout Candidates - Underperforming Hitters To Buy Low

Michael analyzes fantasy baseball breakout hitters, sleepers for the 2nd half of 2025. These underperforming hitters are buy-low fantasy baseball trade targets.

Every MLB team has now played at least 95 games, meaning the season is nearly 60% complete. One trend we’ve noticed this year is a large number of underperforming hitters, especially from the first 10 rounds of fantasy drafts.

There’s still time to move up the standings, but we’ll need some of those players to step up. In this article, I will highlight a few hitters likely to bounce back in 2025 -- second half fantasy baseball breakout candidates that we should hold onto, or trade for at a discount.

The average draft position (ADP) here is taken from NFBC preseason drafts. The “hitter rank” is based on FanGraphs’ Player Rater 5x5 roto settings for 12-team leagues.

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Gunnar Henderson, SS, Baltimore Orioles

ADP: 9
Hitter Rank: 96

Henderson suffered a strained intercostal in February and missed all but three spring training games. By the time he rehabbed, he only got into five minor league games before joining the Orioles a week into the season. The rust was apparent as he posted a .748 OPS through May.

Whatever the context, Henderson’s .280 batting average, 11 home runs, 10 stolen bases, and 80 runs plus RBI at the break are underwhelming for a top 10 pick.

In a bit of a surprise, Henderson’s primary problem was hitting breaking balls. Last season, his best numbers came off sliders (+9 run value) and curveballs (+8 run value). This year, he’s hitting .080 against curves with a 51% whiff rate! (It was .313 and 26%, respectively, in 2024). He’s been okay versus sliders, but even there, his slugging is down over 130 points from 2024.

The incompetence against curveballs may have been a blip. Indeed, it appears the tide is already turning, as Henderson’s average against breaking pitches has risen every month following a terrible March and April:

As the performance against breaking balls has improved, so has Henderson’s overall line. He is now hitting .280 overall with an .803 OPS. He has a .300 average and .833 OPS in July. Now that he’s fully healthy and given his recent trends, it looks like we could get first-round Henderson the rest of the way. He should be a target in trading leagues.

Wyatt Langford, OF, Texas Rangers

ADP: 41
Hitter Rank: 85

Given his pedigree, skill set, and the signs he showed as a rookie, Langford was widely seen as a player who could vault into the first round for 2026 fantasy drafts. Despite delivering on the power and speed with 15 home runs and 15 stolen bases, Langford is just not hitting as well as many hoped. He is slashing just .242/.322/.433, with extreme struggles against offspeed stuff.

Last year, Langford hit .245 against that pitch type—primarily changeups and splitters—but Statcast cautioned that it may not be real (.152 xBA). Those issues caught up to him this year:

It is tempting to blame the two minor oblique injuries Langford suffered, which cost him around 10 games each, first in April and then in late June. After all, he began the season with four home runs and a .561 slugging percentage across his first 48 plate appearances, before suffering the first injury. But even then, he had a .244 batting average.

Langford has increased his hard-hit rate to 47% and barrels per batted ball to 12.5%, which are both in the upper quartile of the majors. He has raised his HR/FB from a below-average 10% to an excellent 17%. His strikeout rate has also increased six points to 26.2% as he’s traded power for whiffs (swinging strikes up 2%). Langford may just be more of a slugger than a pure hitter, and we should adjust our expectations accordingly.

He hits a good number of flyballs (over 41%), so despite superlative speed (88th percentile), he flies into a good amount of outs. Hence, his BABIP has been below .300 in both seasons. Add in a strikeout every fourth trip to the plate, and there’s a narrow path to a high batting average.

With all that said, Langford is on pace to go 25/25. While the runs and RBI are modest, there are signs the moribund Texas offense is coalescing. Since the calendar flipped to July, Texas is tied for first in team runs scored and fifth in wRC+ with 127.

Additionally, this is a young player who still has room to improve. It’s time to fully buy back in on Langford.

Salvador Perez, C, Kansas City Royals

ADP: 74
Hitter Rank: 81

Perez has been one of the unluckiest hitters this season. His .244 average and .304 wOBA are belied by a .284 xBA and .361 xwOBA. In fact, we could argue he has been better this season than last, at least under the hood.

For example, Perez continues to consistently hit the ball hard. His 14.1% barrel and 44.9% hard-hit rates are actually up. He has set a new career-high max EV (114.8). His .361 expected wOBA is not only a strong number, but it’s also essentially identical to his mark from last season (.360).

The main problem is Perez’s conversion of barrels to home runs. Perez has just 13 homers on 40 barrels. The league average indicates that approximately 55% of barrels result in home runs. For Perez, that would mean 22 homers, not 13. Even with a power-suppressing home park, he “should” have 16.5 home runs, per Statcast.

The disappointing power is all the more curious given a 28.1% pull-air rate, his highest in eight years. More pulled balls in the air usually means more damage. One area for concern is offspeed pitches: Perez is only slugging .250 off changeups. But his expected slugging against them looks much better (.416).

Lately, however, it appears Perez is turning the ship around. Over the last 30 days, he has seven home runs on 14 barrels. That’s more like it! The slugging on all pitch types, including offspeed, has spiked in July:

Perez has also cut his strikeout rate to 15.5% in the last 30 days. As a result, the expected and actual numbers have dovetailed: his recent .370 wOBA is even better than the season-long .361 xwOBA.

Perez owners should hold the line, and he should be picked up or traded for if he’s on the waiver wire or has a panicky owner, even in single-catcher leagues.

Jake Burger, 1B/3B, Texas Rangers

ADP: 109
Hitter Rank: 202

Fantasy managers had high expectations for Burger after Texas traded for him this past offseason. Drafters saw a proven 30-homer bat in what many expected to be a resurgent offense. This pushed Burger near the top 100 in ADP.

He started miserably, batting just .190 with three home runs through May 1. He was striking out at a 29.6% clip, pacing for his worst rate since 2022 when he was a part-time player. It was bad enough that he was sent to the minors to reset and clean up his mechanics.

Since returning, Burger has been mostly himself. He’s batting .250—exactly what he hit in 2023 and 2024—with eight homers and 23 RBI in 178 plate appearances. That is a 30-homer, 80 RBI pace over 650 plate appearances.

Throughout the season, Burger has a 13% barrel rate (81st percentile), which is slightly above last year's rate. His hard-hit rate is also up slightly to 48% (77th percentile).

His performance on fastballs drags down the overall numbers. Every other season, he’s hit at least .273 against heaters, but just .216 this year. However, his expected average is .279, about the same as last season:

Burger’s 25% strikeout rate is identical to last year, as is the 84% zone contact rate. In terms of skills, this is the same guy who hit 63 bombs over the previous two seasons.

We have seen Burger go on torrid power tears, such as last season when he knocked 18 homers across July and August. He hasn’t popped off like that yet this year, but given his underlying metrics, it could happen at any time.

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