Technically, the All-Star break ends today. The Mets and Phillies play at 7 pm, so before we do anything else, you'll want to make sure your lineups are set for the first period of the second with Scott White's sleeper pitchers and sleeper hitters for Week 17.
But it's just one game, you know? The real second half starts Friday with all 30 teams taking part in the action, so we're going to pretend it's still the All-Star break with another look ahead to the second half. Today, we're looking at breakout and bust candidates for the second half to either target or trade away for the stretch run.
Before we get to that, though, a quick rundown of the news you might have missed from around the league over the past few days:
- Jacob Misiorowski won't pitch in the Brewers' first series back from the break. It shouldn't be too long before we see him, but they're giving him some extra time off after he had his final start before the break, skipped due to arm fatigue. I'm not worried, but I'm not, not worried, you know?
- Junior Caminero left Tuesday's All-Star game after being hit by a pitch on the hand, but X-rays came back negative, so hopefully he'll be okay this weekend.
- The A's are promoting Tommy White. If you follow college baseball at all, this is probably a name you know and are excited to hear. If you follow prospects, you're probably a bit less excited. White hasn't carried over his big college power to the pro game, as he has posted mostly pretty middling exit velocities with a very aggressive approach at the plate that leaves him ill-suited to maximize his power. There's too much contact on the ground, and while there are paths to finding success with his profile, it's likely as an Alec Bohm-type than someone truly impactful. In deeper leagues, maybe you can look his way, but I don't expect White to be someone to matter much in most leagues.
- The Brewers traded for Lance McCullers. We spend a lot of time talking about the Brewers' prowess with developing pitchers, but this would really be their coup de grace, given how much McCullers has struggled in recent years when he's been healthy enough to be on the mound. I need to see it first, even with a team like the Brewers.
- Reports on Kyle Harrison are positive as he deals with forearm tightness, but he doesn't have a timetable. Maybe the positive reports mean he'll be back relatively soon; maybe it just means that his season isn't over yet. We can't really say right now, but at least it's not bad news yet?
- Tommy Troy was placed on the 10-day IL with a sprained right shoulder. When Ryan Waldschmidt got called up, it wasn't clear where he was going to play every day, but Troy's injury makes that less of a pressing concern immediately.
- Harry Ford will be recalled from Triple-A after the break. The Nationals traded for him in the offseason but it never seemed like he really challenged Keibert Ruiz for the starting job, and it's not like he was crushing it at Triple-A, so I'd wait for him to force us to take interest before doing so.
- Sebastian Walcott began a rehab assignment Tuesday. He's working his way back from an internal brace procedure and will likely see some time at Triple-A before the season is over, with an eye on competing for a job out of Spring Training next year if all goes well.
Second half breakouts and busts
Breakout: Ronald Acuna, OF, Braves
I have some questions about whether Acuna is likely to run much when he comes back from his hamstring injury, his fifth stint on the IL with a leg injury in the past three seasons. But I don't really have any concerns about whether he's going to hit, despite his lackluster numbers so far this season. Acuna's average exit velocity and overall quality of contact numbers were down this season, even before this latest injury, but he was also making a bit more contact to make up for it; his .378 expected wOBA isn't quite at the level we've come to expect from him, but it's better than the .351 mark he was actually putting up. I don't expect we'll see a 40-steal pace from Acuna ever again, but as long as he's healthy, I still expect a huge second half from him.
Breakout: Kade Anderson, SP, Mariners
The last pitching prospect to have as much hype surrounding his hoped-for promotion was probably Paul Skenes? Anderson has been absolutely dominant in his first pro season, jumping straight from the SEC to Double-A and putting up a 1.36 ERA in 72.2 innings. He has a 41.4% strikeout rate and 3.8% walk rate – his 37.5% K-BB rate is the highest of any pitcher with at least 70 innings pitched in the minors this season, and the runner-up is at 25.3%, so it hasn't been close. There isn't an obvious spot for him in the Mariners rotation, and even a trade of Luis Castillo might not make that happen for him. But the Mariners also don't tend to have their top pitching prospects spend much time at Tacoma (the Pacific Coast League is notoriously a horrible environment for pitchers), and they kind of need to see if Anderson can be this dominant against big-leaguers while the team sits a game below .500. In this instance, I think the lack of an apparent rotation spot will work itself out.
Breakout: Bryan Woo, SP, Mariners
This one is pretty straightforward: I just think Woo is a lot better than he has pitched so far this season. Yeah, his 4.23 ERA is ugly, and it's been a frustrating season, but nothing in the underlying skill set looks like it has gone that wrong, really. His groundball rate is down about 3 percentage points and his strikeout rate is down by about the same, and that's not nothing – Woo is probably pitching a bit worse on the whole than he did last season, with his xERA dropping from 3.07 to 3.51. Still, most of his ERA estimators suggest he has been one of the most unlucky pitchers in baseball, and it wouldn't take much for him to get back to last year's level down the stretch – in fact, I think an ERA below 3.00 is more likely than one above 4.00 moving forward. I'll plant my flag there.
Breakout: Luke Weaver, RP, Mets
One of the biggest impacts of the second half is obviously the trade deadline, and the most direct way that impacts things is with closer changes. Unfortunately, most of the least competitive teams in the league right now have pretty bad bullpens, so there aren't exactly a lot of candidates in, say, the Angels or Giants bullpens to make a big impact in the second half. But Weaver looks like a strong candidate to end up closing somewhere in the next few weeks. The Mets have already said it won't be with them, as Devin Williams got the vote of confidence (and the longer contract) just before the break, so we're hoping for a trade here. Weaver is sure to fetch a big offer, especially since he's under contract for 2027, and his 1.85 ERA would look good in any bullpen. There's no guarantee he does end up closing even in the event of a trade, but Weaver could be an elite closer if he gets that chance, making him one of the better set-up men stashes right now.
Breakout: Ryan Waldschmidt, OF, Diamondbacks
Waldschmidt's first stint in the majors was a pretty big disappointment, owing mostly to a 34% strikeout rate that would be too high for even a good power hitter to carry. Waldschmidt may eventually develop into a pretty good power source, but he isn't there yet, so we're going to have to see a change in his approach to allow him to make more contact this time around. Still, this is a talented 23-year-old hitter who put up a near-.900 OPS during his time in the minors, including 15 homers and 25 steals in just 117 games between Double-A and Triple-A. Waldschmidt was a top-50 prospect in baseball prior to his promotion and he has the skill set to be very valuable in Fantasy if he can get the strikeout rate closer to his 22% rate from Triple-A. I have faith he can get there.
Bust: Eduardo Rodriguez, SP, Diamondbacks
There are plenty of other pitchers I could choose here – Nick Martinez, Michael McGreevy, maybe Foster Griffin – but Rodriguez is by far the most emblematic of this particular class of overachievers. He has the fourth-best ERA among qualifiers this season, behind just Jacob Misiorowski, Cam Schlittler, and Chris Sale, and there is effectively no reason to have any faith in him. Among the 15 starters with an ERA below 3.00, Rodriguez has the second-lowest strikeout rate and the third-highest walk rate, which tells you most of the story. But hey, maybe he's just really good at limiting hard contact? Nope! Among 62 qualifiers, his .384 expected wOBA on contact is the 14th-worst mark. Based on what we understand about how pitchers succeed, there is basically no reason to believe Rodriguez is even an average starter at this point, let alone one of the best in baseball, as his ERA suggests. This is going to end ugly, and the only question is whether you're going to let him stick around long enough to wreck your ratios when it inevitably does.
Bust: Max Meyer, SP, Marlins
Meyer has smartly leaned all the way into his pair of breaking balls, leveraging his existing feel for his slider and further developing his sweeper into a weapon in its own right. It should go without saying that he probably isn't a true-talent 2.58 ERA pitcher – there might not be more than two or three of those guys in baseball – but Meyer's 3.79 xERA suggests he's gotten more than a little lucky so far, especially as he has grown more flyball prone in the types of batted balls he gives up. He's also up to 108 innings for the season, one good start away from matching 2024's career high of 115 between the majors and minors. A regression candidate on the verge of surpassing his career-high in innings? That's too many ways for this to go wrong for me to bet on Meyer in the second half.
Bust: Brandon Marsh, OF, Phillies
I think we're already starting to see the dropoff for Marsh. He managed to put up a massive .949 OPS despite an equally massive 33% strikeout rate in June, and the strikeout rate might have been the portent of things to come, because he hit just .179/.273/.256 in July before the break. Marsh has benefited in some ways from facing lefties more regularly, but I fear that is going to cause his rate stats to start collapsing, as his OBP vs. lefties has fallen below .273. On the whole, you'd still rather have the counting stats gained from playing every day, but if Marsh continues to struggle, the Phillies might be inclined to back off playing him as often against lefties. And Marsh is a player who needs to rely on outlier batting averages to really have a ton of value – his 15 homers so far are nearly a career high, but the underlying power metrics don't quite back it up, suggesting there's a healthy amount of regression likely waiting for him. Marsh is a pretty good player, but he's never been a must-start type until the past two months, and I just don't see enough in the underlying skill set to buy into this change.
Bust: Otto Lopez, SS, Marlins
Lopez is another case where the surface-level breakout isn't necessarily backed up by the underlying stats. The underlying stats agree that he is a good hitter, with a .290 expected batting average and .336 expected wOBA, both of which are career-best marks. But neither is as good as what he is actually producing, which has made him a top-10 hitter in Fantasy on the season. Surely nobody is actually valuing Lopez that way, but once the regression hits, I'm not even sure he'll be a top-10 shortstop in Fantasy, and he's definitely valued that way. Which makes this the right time to trade him, because I think he's likelier to be a fringe starter or middle-infield type than a superstar the rest of the way.
Bust: Mickey Moniak, OF, Rockies
Moniak is a tough player to value, because his overall numbers look excellent – he's hitting .272/.313/.537 since getting to the Rockies last season, which isn't far off from what someone like Byron Buxton might be expected to produce. But he's hitting .231 away from Coors Field this season after hitting just .230 last season; he has also been a sub-.600 OPS bat against lefties across both seasons. If he stays with the Rockies and keeps playing half his games in Coors Field, that should inflate his numbers enough to keep him very relevant in Fantasy, but the Rockies also have an outfield glut to clear up and Moniak is a 28-year-old journeyman who has no real long-term fit here, so they should really be trying to get whatever they can for him. I'm not actually sure anyone should really give up much for Moniak, because I'm not sure he's actually a good enough hitter to matter anywhere but Coors, which is actually why I'm so worried about what the second half holds.
