00:00:00
Speaker 1: Thank you. What's going on, everybody? Welcome into Fantasy Pros. This is the Fantasy Baseball Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Arrico, and today we're going to talk about some second-half standouts going through the leaderboards. I've always kind of not been a huge fan of the way that the league separates the first and second half. It's technically post-All-Star break, not Game 82 and beyond. But we're going to break down some second-half standouts here on the show today. And joining me on the podcast is an old friend, a dear friend, and a phenomenal fantasy player, somebody... who has won the overall contest in TGFBI before. You can hear him on The Wire, the On The Wire podcast, with Adam Howe over at Pitcherless, breaking down your fab pickups every single week. It is the great Kevin Hastings. Kevin, how you doing, my friend? Good to get on the mic with you.
00:00:47
Speaker 2: Always great to talk to you, Joe. Thank you so much. Yeah, doing well, and always love talking baseball with you. uh second half standouts love it especially um with the season i'm having we were talking a little off air not i'm not having the the best season i'm looking ahead at draft and hold draft season coming up so this is a some of the things we're looking at right.
00:01:11
Speaker 1: Now yeah that's the way it goes this time of year once you get into mid late september especially if it's uh head-to-head leagues which i know a lot of our listeners playing head-to-head leagues 10 of the people in those 12-team leagues are already on to next season. There's obviously a couple people who are still fighting for championships. And even in the Roto Leagues, two-thirds, three-quarters of the league has already written off the season at this point and is looking ahead to next year. So we're going to break down some second-half standouts. Some names more notable than others. We're going to start with a very notable one. But just breaking down their seasons and what we expect going forward. And we're going to start with Fernando Tatis. He has been night and day different in the second half. He really just couldn't hit a home run in the first half of the season. And it was mostly unlucky. The five homers over his first 95 games, the underlying numbers were still very good for Fernando. But in the second half, in his 55 games, Kev, We're looking at an entirely different player. 18 homers, 45 runs, 43 RBI, 12 stolen bases, and a 301 batting average. His 169 WRC plus trails only one player who we're going to talk about in a little bit on this show. But what have you made of Fernando Tatis' turnaround at this point and fully solidifying himself back into the first round for next year as well?
00:02:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was crazy with Tatis, right? We kept waiting for him to hit his first home run. Didn't come until May 30th, two months into the season. And he was still helping those that drafted him. He was underperforming overall, but batting average and the stolen bases were there. The so-called first half, as you mentioned, pre-All-Star break, he had 23 stolen bases, hit 277, but only five home runs. Second half, completely different story. A little over half of the number of plate appearances that he had pre-All-Star break. 18 home runs since then. 12 stolen bases as well. But I still have a little bit of concern. I was one of those that coming into the season, I still have concerns with the PED suspension. We haven't seen Tatis do what he's done for the last month or so in quite some time. And if you look at his rolling WOBA charts for his career, right now he just came back down from a very short spike in And it is the second highest spike of his career after that 2022 season that he really got off to a great start and continued on through the year 2021. I mean, so I, I'm not, saying that I'm out on Tatis. We talked about him on the FTN podcast not too long ago, Joe. And you asked me if I thought at that time it's why he was still down before he made the turnaround if I would draft him by the end of the fourth round. And at the time, I told you no. And I probably would at this point. However, with this spike, when you look at his rolling charts, I'm still a little tentative and it would be towards towards the the end of that period i think.
Speaker 1: Thank you. What's going on, everybody? Welcome into Fantasy Pros. This is the Fantasy Baseball Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Arrico, and today we're going to talk about some second-half standouts going through the leaderboards. I've always kind of not been a huge fan of the way that the league separates the first and second half. It's technically post-All-Star break, not Game 82 and beyond. But we're going to break down some second-half standouts here on the show today. And joining me on the podcast is an old friend, a dear friend, and a phenomenal fantasy player, somebody... who has won the overall contest in TGFBI before. You can hear him on The Wire, the On The Wire podcast, with Adam Howe over at Pitcherless, breaking down your fab pickups every single week. It is the great Kevin Hastings. Kevin, how you doing, my friend? Good to get on the mic with you.
00:00:47
Speaker 2: Always great to talk to you, Joe. Thank you so much. Yeah, doing well, and always love talking baseball with you. uh second half standouts love it especially um with the season i'm having we were talking a little off air not i'm not having the the best season i'm looking ahead at draft and hold draft season coming up so this is a some of the things we're looking at right.
00:01:11
Speaker 1: Now yeah that's the way it goes this time of year once you get into mid late september especially if it's uh head-to-head leagues which i know a lot of our listeners playing head-to-head leagues 10 of the people in those 12-team leagues are already on to next season. There's obviously a couple people who are still fighting for championships. And even in the Roto Leagues, two-thirds, three-quarters of the league has already written off the season at this point and is looking ahead to next year. So we're going to break down some second-half standouts. Some names more notable than others. We're going to start with a very notable one. But just breaking down their seasons and what we expect going forward. And we're going to start with Fernando Tatis. He has been night and day different in the second half. He really just couldn't hit a home run in the first half of the season. And it was mostly unlucky. The five homers over his first 95 games, the underlying numbers were still very good for Fernando. But in the second half, in his 55 games, Kev, We're looking at an entirely different player. 18 homers, 45 runs, 43 RBI, 12 stolen bases, and a 301 batting average. His 169 WRC plus trails only one player who we're going to talk about in a little bit on this show. But what have you made of Fernando Tatis' turnaround at this point and fully solidifying himself back into the first round for next year as well?
00:02:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was crazy with Tatis, right? We kept waiting for him to hit his first home run. Didn't come until May 30th, two months into the season. And he was still helping those that drafted him. He was underperforming overall, but batting average and the stolen bases were there. The so-called first half, as you mentioned, pre-All-Star break, he had 23 stolen bases, hit 277, but only five home runs. Second half, completely different story. A little over half of the number of plate appearances that he had pre-All-Star break. 18 home runs since then. 12 stolen bases as well. But I still have a little bit of concern. I was one of those that coming into the season, I still have concerns with the PED suspension. We haven't seen Tatis do what he's done for the last month or so in quite some time. And if you look at his rolling WOBA charts for his career, right now he just came back down from a very short spike in And it is the second highest spike of his career after that 2022 season that he really got off to a great start and continued on through the year 2021. I mean, so I, I'm not, saying that I'm out on Tatis. We talked about him on the FTN podcast not too long ago, Joe. And you asked me if I thought at that time it's why he was still down before he made the turnaround if I would draft him by the end of the fourth round. And at the time, I told you no. And I probably would at this point. However, with this spike, when you look at his rolling charts, I'm still a little tentative and it would be towards towards the the end of that period i think.
00:04:24
Speaker 1: Yeah i think that means kev you're not going to end up getting him because i think that he's going to go back into the first round pretty consistently um and like you said we haven't seen the consistent production from him really going back to that massive 2021 year where it looked like he was going to be the next big thing around baseball. At age 22, he had a 158 WRC +. And he's never been able to reach those highs again until this last month or so. And how sustainable is that? I mean, on the one hand, you could say he's going to be 28 years old next year. This is when the peak years tend to happen. But then you can look back and say, well, age 25 and 26 were okay, not amazing first-round type of season. So I think you could come out on either side of it, but– I tend to be more on your side here. I've never been a huge Tatis fan. The first round is generally so filled with talent that I don't feel it.
00:05:18
Speaker 2: For me as well. I've never really been in. So it's easy for me to lean that way. Right.
00:05:24
Speaker 1: Yeah. And if we see him sustain this over the course of an entire year, then I think I would be in. But at this point, if you're looking at the fan graphs, player Raider, he's the number seven player overall. And I think we're looking at a top five valuation for next year. If you're not feeling amazing.
00:05:39
Speaker 2: And that second base eligibility, number one second baseman.
00:05:42
Speaker 1: That's a good point. And if you're not feeling amazing about the guy you're going to take fifth overall, you should probably take somebody else because that's in all likelihood where I think he's going to go fifth, sixth, maybe seventh. But you're not going to see many second or third round prices based on what we've seen here in the second half and especially what we've seen over the last couple weeks. He has just been so good carrying teams. But I wonder if people may overreact a little bit heading into next year.
00:06:06
Speaker 2: Now, I said really hot stretch really started a few weeks after the All-Star game. Since August 5th, he's had 15 of those second half home runs.
00:06:17
Speaker 1: Unbelievable. He really has been fantastic. And I know they recently came off of a Coors Field series, but it doesn't matter if he was on the moon right now. I think he'd still be hit the way he's hitting.
00:06:26
Speaker 2: The three multi home run games in that time. Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:29
Speaker 1: He's just fun to watch.
00:06:31
Speaker 2: Oh, he is.
00:06:32
Speaker 1: He is just super hot right now, and we'll see if it's able to sustain. Let us know down below if you guys think that Fernando Tatis will be worth a top five pick next year. I could see it going either way. But I mentioned that he was the second leader in WRC Plus going back to the All-Star break. Number one is Alex Bregman. Alex Bregman has been the best hitter in baseball in the second half. It is rather odd to say that, especially coming off of the first half of the season, Kev. Nothing to write home about. 94 games, he hit nine homers. He was hitting. 241. Very mediocre. He was just below a league average bat with a 97 WRC +, which was a 696 OPS. And now he's at an 1,000 OPS in the second half. I'm not really understanding exactly how this turnaround has happened, but water finds its level, as Bubba tends to say on our show. And he's doing what we've come to know Alex Bregman to do. Mid-20s homers, around 100 runs, around 100 RBI runs. It's kind of a classic Alex Bregman season. I just wasn't really expecting it after the first half we've seen at age 32. I thought that was kind of the beginning of the end for Bregman, but maybe it's not. What do you have to say about Bregman going forward? Will he be a target for you next season?
00:07:41
Speaker 2: Maybe. I'm going to be curious to see what our fellow fantasy players think about Alex Bregman and where he lands because I think he just has done– the exact same thing for five consecutive seasons now. And it may not look that way when you first pull up his page, but if you prorate the games that he missed in 2025 in Boston, he was exactly on this mid-20s home run pace again. 90 or so runs in RBI, just a couple of stolen bases that we don't count on from him. Now this is five consecutive seasons of 23 to 26 home runs. If we look at 2025 that way on a per-game basis. 32 years old, I think this shouldn't surprise us too much. It only does because of that slower start. But it wasn't horrible. Like, Tatis who we talked about who other than the stolen bases and batting average wasn't giving us much Alex Bregman was barely below league average and 97 or 98 WRC plus I believe pre all-star break but like you said since then the best in baseball to get him back to these numbers but at alex bregman i think would have this run in any season and at 32 years old the only concern his bat speed is down a little bit this season uh compared to the prior couple but so far that um at least this second half or post all-star break hasn't affected his results in fact they have really a bit amazing since the the break so um i'd watch that bat speed a little bit hopefully in spring training that's not dropping any further and if not then uh i think we can expect another season just like this out of bregman.
00:09:39
Speaker 1: Yeah it got me wondering if maybe there was some first half second half dramatic split with the bat speed it was 69.8 in the first half 69 in the second half. So no drastic change in bat speed despite this massive change in the production that we've seen from him. And it is kind of hard to put your finger on exactly when why this has happened now he is a quality hitter like you said I guess it's harder to put your finger on why he was bad in the first half but that could just be chalked up to the natural fluctuation that we see throughout the course of a baseball.
00:10:11
Speaker 2: He's also the type of hitter that he can figure things out and understand my, my swing has slowed down a bit. I need to do something slightly different. So that I would give him that benefit of the doubt as well.
00:10:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, there are certain players who get by despite not having crazy barrel and hard hit rates, and Jose Ramirez is another guy that kind of comes to mind. He's not giving you 15% barrel and 52% hard hit rate. For Bregman's career, he has a 6% barrel rate and a 38% hard hit rate, but he makes really good plate decisions. He has a sub-20% chase rate for his career, 91% in-zone contact rate, a 5% swinging strike rate, So he makes really good decisions, which I think aids the lack of the quality of contact. Now, the bat speed, I think, is really interesting. And I've talked a lot on our shows this year about how the increasers in bat speed, the gainers, I should say, in bat speed, are essentially the list of breakout hitters in 2026. So losing more than a mile on your bat speed going into what will be your age 33 season, I'm not going to sit here and say it's my favorite thing in the world, but like you said, He's an intelligent hitter. He's an adaptable hitter, and I don't think that necessarily means the end of Bregman, even if he is only swinging at 70 miles an hour as opposed to 71. If he goes down to 67 or 68 next year, that's when I think we can start to worry a little bit. But I wonder where the price will fall because I don't think anybody is going to– pay what we've seen in the second half type of price on Bregman. He's not the best hitter in baseball, of course, but will people be paying top 50, top 60 prices? You think Kev, if we see a 30 Homer, a hundred run, a hundred RBI season, I could see him as in the fifth round, fourth round, maybe.
00:11:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, for a couple of seasons now, he's kind of been thought of as that last third baseman before we really hit a cliff. And I think maybe he jumps in front of one or two of those in that tier. But yeah, about that range that we've been seeing the last couple of seasons. I don't think he's going to fall. I agree with you. He probably doesn't jump a lot because his overall numbers for the season are going to be very in line with what he's done throughout his career. But yeah, he's going to be there before we see the big fall off in third baseman.
00:12:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's number four among third basemen on the player radar behind Caminero, Sal Stewart, and Miguel Vargas. His ADP last year, I believe that Fangraphs pulls from the main event, but it might be draft champions. Either way, it's pulling from a main NFBC contest. His ADP was listed at 119 next year. So maybe the fifth round is jumping in a little bit too much, but I can see him borderline top 100 pick, 95 to 100 type of range maybe, especially because This second half will be fresh in people's minds as they enter the early draft. So maybe he's a little overdrafted to begin draft season, but we'll have to see. You have to follow along here on the channel as we will be breaking down all those early draft boards. But before we keep it going, guys, I do want to remind you about Polymarket. Football is back, folks, and it's time to level up your approach to the NFL and college football this season because Polymarket is here. Polymarket is a legal prediction market now available in all 50 states, and unlike traditional sportsbooks, on Polymarket you can trade on all things football– From the Saturday and Sunday slates to who wins the Heisman to who performs the halftime show, Polymarket gives you the freedom to cash out instantly. If the momentum swings, you sell it off in real time. You are in control. No one can lock you out, and you can also buy in any time. So when the market dips, like if a team starts slow and drops to, say, 40%, that's not necessarily a loss. That's when you can buy in. At Polymarket, you can buy cheap and ride the momentum back up. Polymarket is so confident you'll never go back to the old way. They're issuing a challenge. They're giving you a $ 50 bonus when you deposit just $ 10. So sign up right now with promo code FPPOD. That's polymarket.us and use promo code FPPOD to get a $ 50 bonus when you deposit just $ 10. Now, Kev, making our way through this leaderboard here, I'm not going in a linear fashion. I'll bounce around a little bit in the second half WRC Plus leaderboard, but Jackson Merrill Also feels like a name that's worth talking about. In his 56 second half games, a 157 WRC +. 15 homers, 7 stolen bases. He's driven in 45 runs. And he's hitting. 315. In the early pods we were doing this season, a lot of people were pretty justifiably concerned about the production through the first half of the season. 92 games. Now, he did have 10 homers and 19 steals in the first half. But it came with a 76 WRC +. He was almost 25% worse than league average. He was hitting 219. He was striking out 25% of the time. And things have really turned around for him here in the second half and giving us a nice overall stat line at this point of 25 homers, 26 steals, and a 256 batting average. Now, coming into last year, Merrill was like a second, third-round pick, obviously fell down this season. Do you think he'll go back up into the second, third-round range? What do you expect the market to fall on Jackson Merrill in 2027?
00:15:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he bounces back up, maybe not quite all the way to where he was. But I think most fantasy players and I am one of them that thinks that he just got off to a slow start. He improved as the season went on. As you said, he still had a little bit of pop. Uh, and, and the stolen bases in the first half striking out 25% of the time led to the batting averages at, at two 20 or lower for the first three months of the season. But then he really turned it around July and August, and he's keeping it up here in September. So far, uh, he's cruising along batting averages in the high two hundreds, if not 300 or above each month, uh, seven home runs in each of July and August. So it wasn't just one big spike. Like I was talking with Fernando Tatis Jr. He's kind of been a steady producer since the all-star break and continuing now into well into September. I think that we're seeing the Jackson Merrill that I expect to see over a full season. uh this what he's doing right now maybe not 300 batted average quite but that 272 80 i think he's got in him for an entire.
00:16:35
Speaker 1: Season yeah and again going back to bat speed not to harp on it so much but an increase of 1.3 miles per hour this season and between 2024 and 2025 he was about the same 72.272 respectively and then up to 73.4 He's got the barrel rate right around where it was last year at 12.6%, but he's raised his hard hit rate. He's hitting the ball harder on average at 91.5 miles an hour. Now, there's still a couple things with the plate discipline that scare me a little bit with how much he chases, how much he swings and misses, a 14% swing strike rate. He could push those higher strikeout numbers, and honestly, a. 304 on base rate for the year isn't super, super impressive, but I think a lot of that is weighed down by the poor first half, which I think partly is due to just some bad luck So Jackson Merrill, I think if he's third-ish, third, fourth round pick next year, that's when I'll start to think about it. Borderline top 50 pick, and I think he has earned that based on what we've seen this year. Honestly, the second half has fully made up for it. A 25-25 season that might end up being, well, probably not 30-30, but 27 and 28 with 85 runs and 90 RBI. That's well worth what you ended up paying for him this year.
00:17:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, one more thing going back to the bat speed that you brought up. He got that increase without lengthening his swing. That's a great sign. And also the fast swing percentage, which is percentage of your swings that are 75 miles per hour or higher. uh went up by over 50 percent went up nearly 11 percentage points from 19.9 to 31.5 percent that's a huge jump and then how often he's getting his hardest swings.
00:18:20
Speaker 1: In massive jump been a big fan of Merrill and still at his age we could see another level here I mean it's easy to forget after three full seasons but he's just turned 23 years old earlier this year so Still so young. And I mentioned this to Bubba the other day. There's just so many guys who come up really young. Like Raphael Devers still not being 30 years old. It's kind of crazy considering how long he's been around. And Jackson Merrill will be one of these same guys. We'll be saying in six years, how the hell is Jackson Merrill only 29 years old? But that's what happens when you come up and debut as young as he did. Let's shift gears and talk about a different style of player. And this is Stephen Kwan. And my friend and co-host Paul Spohr and I were fighting the whole first half about Stephen Kwan. I thought he was done. I honestly thought we saw a nice couple years. He maxed out what the profile could give us. But the loss that we saw in average exit velocity this year, three miles an hour down. He's barreled two balls the entire season. A 10% hard hit rate. A three-year loss in bat speed. It all looked pretty bad for Stephen Kwan. In the first half of the season, he was pretty miserable. In the second half, he's hitting. 351. Now, yes, two homers, four stolen bases, that's whatever, but he scored 40 runs and he's hitting. 351. His. 153 WRC plus is just about in line with Jordan Alvarez at. 155 in the second half. So I wonder, is Stephen Kwan somebody that you think you'd be interested in drafting next year, this type of profile where you're not getting a ton of power and speed, but you're going to push close to 100 runs and you'll likely get something close to a 300 batting average? Do you think you're willing to buy back in after what we've seen here in the second half, Kev? Yes.
00:20:01
Speaker 2: Depends on how high he bounces back up. I haven't been in the past at his price. You're basically paying for a batting average boost, and it's usually a good one. And runs scored. Pretty big hit in the power categories. And so.
00:20:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I haven't really been in before. And we saw him. You weren't the only one that thought he was done. We saw him dropped in a lot of leagues earlier this season. Because if he's not hitting for average, then he is no help at all to our teams. I think he's back to being that guy. I think it was just an extended slump here. batting average and runs scored uh he's he needs to drop a little bit uh in price from what he's been in the past for me to be interested but i do think he's going to be that the same guy we've seen.
00:20:54
Speaker 1: Yeah i i think i was premature in calling for his demise but I'm also not really sure why he has lost so much on his average exit velocity, his bat speeds, all of that being down. He's just 29 years old. He just turned 29 a couple weeks ago. It shouldn't be an age where you're seeing a ton of decline unless there's potentially some kind of an injury. But he's also changed the way that he approaches at the plate a little bit. He's walking way more than he ever did. He always had a pretty reasonable walk rate, 10%, 10%, 8%. He's up at 13% this year. And I think it comes down to the fact that he's not swinging as much. He was swinging 42% of the time last year. It's down to 36%. And why would somebody like Stephen Kwan, who makes such good contact, shy away from swinging as much? And I've thought the whole year that maybe he's trying to hide some kind of an injury and that's showing itself in the exit velocities and all that. Of course, as soon as I was super public about it, he must be hurt. He's got to be done. He's hitting. 351 in the second half. I think it goes also to the Bregman example of just because the numbers are down, smart ballplayers are able to make those adjustments that they need to still be successful. So I think Kwon is interesting, but you also got to factor in you're not getting a ton of RBIs, homers, or steals. He's very build dependent, I think, Kev. Is that a good way to put it? You need to have your power and your speed taken care of if you're going to take him. Because the speed is something we used to really be able to rely upon for Stephen Kwon, and it's something I haven't really mentioned yet. But just 10 steals this year after four consecutive 20-ish steal seasons. So I'm not really a huge fan. I got to be honest. I think the overall profile leaves something to be desired a little bit.
00:22:33
Speaker 2: I agree. Like I said, someone I have not been really interested in during drafts in the past because of his price for what he gives us. He would have to drop for me to be interested. There definitely are builds where he can help your team, especially if he drops in price a little bit.
00:22:53
Speaker 1: Let's move on and talk about Jake Bowers because I didn't think that he'd be able to make it for this type of topic, second half standouts, because Jake Bowers was a first half standout. The first half, 18 homers, 56 runs, 59 driven in. He stole six bases. He hit 270. And then here we are in the second half. He's actually raised his WRC plus by 14 points. He has a higher OPS. He has a higher on base rate. He has a higher batting average here in the second half, Kev. 49 games, he's been eight homers, 32 runs, 24 driven in, and he's added another five steals in half the time it took him to get six in the first half of the season. So it's really a breakout year for Jake Bowers, which is a little bit odd at age 30, pushing 31, but 26 homers, 88 runs, 83 driven in, 11 steals, and a 270 batting average for the year. One of the absolute steals of draft season, and I wonder what people are going to make of him heading into next year.
00:23:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, the batting average is the key there. That's what's probably given him more playing time. He was always a fairly good, or at least last couple of seasons, had got his OBP up enough that he was in there, but mostly a platoon player. And we were kind of joking about it last season. I remember from time to time always hearing people, and I probably said things too, I can't believe... I'm in on Jake Bowers, and when we're talking fab and stuff, with those 218 plate appearances he got off and on last season, he was always interesting when the matchups worked out. And now this season, he's been given the full-time run, and as you said, he's just taken advantage of it. The batting average is a surprise. I don't know that we can continue to expect anything close to 270 batting But, you know, some of the projections are got him up to the 240 range, even 249 by zips moving forward as a projection. If we can project Jake Bowers for a 250 batting average, he will probably be undervalued during draft season in spite of the year and second half he's had.
00:25:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think with a player like this where you get the one-year big spike in homers, runs, RBI, and maybe not so much stolen bases because that's kind of where he's been the last couple years. But I feel like projections struggle a little bit with the one big year because if you look at zips right now, I think they struggle in particular. Let me revise that with the counting stats because he's projected right now for next season 314– or excuse me, 329 plate appearances, 15 homers, 9 steals, over that period of time. But I think what the projections fail in that case, and maybe they'll adjust over the offseason, is he's going to have the playing time next year.
00:25:42
Speaker 2: Exactly.
00:25:43
Speaker 1: The rate stats are probably roughly correct a lot of the time when you're looking at those projections when you see one big year like this. If they're down on the playing time, if they're only telling you that he's going to play in 100 games, barring something crazy, barring a huge injury or a huge fall off in production, he is going to exceed that. So I would take it with a bit of a grain of salt when looking at the counting stats, and I would use them more for the rate stats. Does that sound about right?
00:26:11
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. In my opinion, the biggest advantage you can have on a player in draft season is if you are correct in believing their plate appearances is going to be vastly different than what is projected.
00:26:28
Speaker 1: And I think that could be the case with Jake Bowers. Now we'll have to see, and we'll have to give my colleague Dan Zimborski some time to rerun the numbers in the off season, because it's, there's a lot going on and there'll still be time until these new projections are out next year. What I'm looking at is the three year projection on the Fangraphs player page, which I'm sure we'll, we'll get a little bit of fine tuning over the course of the off season. Those are the hitters we're going to cover. We're going to switch gears and talk about some pitchers in a second. But first I want to remind you guys, you can still sync your leagues with my playbook. It is late the year, but, If you're looking for a little bit of an edge on your opponent, some help on the waiver wire, then download the My Playbook app right there at FantasyPros.com. It really does help you with all your pickups. If you're in a dynasty league and you need help with the trades, you can use our trade analyzer. Optimal lineups every single day based on our projections and your specific scoring settings. So FantasyPros.com slash MLBMyPlaybook or you can download the Fantasy Pros app for personalized expert advice. Cav, we are going to go and talk about some pitchers now who have really stood out in the second half. And Reid Detmers, I think, has been maybe not the best pitcher in the second half, but one could make the case that he is right up there. A 165 ERA over his 11 second half starts. It does not get much better than that. A. 89 ERA, a 31% strikeout rate.
00:27:44
Speaker 2: The whip.
00:27:47
Speaker 1: Which has been a big problem historically for Reid Detmers, as has a lot of things. But the whip had never been below about 130, down at 105 for the whole season and below 0.9 in the second half. Is this a true, legitimate breakout for Reid Detmers here in his first year back as a starter, you think? Is this something that we can build off of and project forward for future seasons? Possibly.
00:28:10
Speaker 2: Right. We've seen the strikeout rate up a few points here in the second half versus the first half and the walk percentage drop a little bit. And that really drastically increased his K minus BB by seven percentage points up to that elite level at five. 26.5 and the 9.5 he was at at the first half is very very good close to elite so he just took that next step it appears to me um i i haven't looked at opponents that would be the next place i would go just make sure he didn't have a a much easier schedule in the second half but even with if there was a couple of uh easier lineups in there a 550 ops allowed since the all-star break that's insane.
00:29:00
Speaker 1: Yeah just looking back on it i'll go for most recent and work backwards seattle boston the yankees the phillies the rangers the royals the rangers the orioles the astros and the cardinals it's not a.
00:29:14
Speaker 2: Couple of teams that can be down at times but most of those lineups can be good to are very good so yeah i love it.
00:29:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a big fan of Reid Detmers. This feels like a win for the advanced analytical community who has said for years, Reid Detmers is very good and all the pushback every year. Reid Detmers sucks, and then he throws up a 5 ERA, and it's like, how am I supposed to keep arguing it, but I'll keep arguing it. carrying the torch reed detmers is good and then a four era out of the bullpen and it's like okay maybe he's not actually that good and then this year over the course of the entirety of the season it's 30 starts now something he's never done up to 174 innings which is an 100 inning increase over last year by the way more than 100 innings of a 336 ERA, a 303 FIP, a 105 WIP, and a 22% strikeout to walk rate. I cannot wait to see where the ADP falls. For sure, we're looking at a top 100 pick. Where inside of the top 100 picks, I'm still not sure. I think probably around 50 to 60, maybe. Does that sound about right for you? Or maybe that's a little bit high, like a fourth, fifth round, maybe. Does that sound about right?
00:30:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe towards the back end there, more 4-5 turn than 3-4 turn that you were talking.
00:30:28
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll take it. If he's going in the fifth round, then I could see myself having some interest there. Let's talk a little bit about Logan Henderson. Bubba and I were talking about how odd it was recently. that he wasn't listed in the rookie of the year odds. And looking at it, why isn't he listed in the Cy Young odds is the next question that I think a lot of people are going to have. What he's done in the second half has been phenomenal. A. 222 ERA, a. 74 whip. As a fantasy player, seeing a. 74 whip is just so heartwarming. It leads all qualified pitchers in the second half. You're also talking about a 27% strikeout to walk rate. I mean... I know it's only 93 innings, but they've been about as good as they possibly could be for a guy who didn't get a really fair shake last year, got sent down after being very good, and there's a lot of pitchers in Milwaukee, obviously. He's got some injury concerns with the elbow over the years, but he's just very, very good, Kevin. I don't know if he gets the credit he deserves.
00:31:30
Speaker 2: I agree. Prior to the way, as you were speaking about, he was treated last season, and maybe that's a little harsh way to put it, how he was used last season. This is what we were hoping we would see from him when he got the opportunity, and he has 100% taken advantage of it.
00:31:53
Speaker 1: The pricing for him is a little bit interesting to think about, just because there is not a long history, but there's Some history of arm troubles already at his age, and there's not a ton of innings under his belt. This year, between the majors and the minors, you're looking at 115 or so innings. Last year, it wasn't much more. But as I just mentioned with Reed Detmers, he just jumped over 100 innings from last year. So maybe we read a little bit too much into that. If you had to just pick one or the other, now that I think about it, if you had to go with Henderson or Detmers, which one would you trust more for next year? Hmm.
00:32:28
Speaker 2: You had to use the T word, huh? Who would I trust more? I think I'm going to go with Henderson. Um, it's close. I think these guys, so, you know, Henderson reminds me of, we had a lot of second year guys. I, we talked about him once again, uh, on the FTN, uh, fantasy baseball podcast earlier in the season, we were talking about Cam Schlittler and Mizorowski and, and there was, you know, six or seven of these guys coming into draft season and And obviously, Mizorowski and Schlittler have just been phenomenal. And most of them have been good, at least when they are healthy. That's the question. I think I'm hoping that due to the success we saw out of a lot of these guys this season in 2026, it doesn't make Logan Henderson more expensive than I want to see this coming season because I do have interest. Absolutely.
00:33:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've worried about that a little bit myself, more so with the rookies, the incoming potential rookie classes, just because we've seen some really strong batches over the last four or five years. And this year in particular, I mean, Sal Stewart, McLean, Henderson, I could spend the next couple hours going through just the rookies and how good they've been. And I wonder if, they'll maybe be a little bit overdrafted going forward. And I wonder if that can be the same thing for these year two-ish type of breakouts. And it's funny because it actually segues perfectly into the next guy I wanted to talk about, Parker Messick, who gave us a decent sample size last year, 39 innings of a 2-7-2 ERA, although it did come with a little bit of a high whip at 131. So he wasn't getting... a ton of interest in draft season. He definitely had his supporters, but he wasn't a really flashy pick by any means. And he's been phenomenal. And he also kind of fits into the category of Jake Bowers of this guy was so good in the first half. Surely he couldn't be on a second half breakout list because he had a 273 ERA over his 112 innings in the first half. He was, there was no way to say anything besides he was amazing. A 107 whip, a 328 fit, a 357 expected fit. And now, Kevin, the second half, it's a 231 ERA, so he shaved about 40 points off of the ERA in the second half. His whip is below one. He is stranding more base runners. He's taken 40 points off of his FIP, and he's taken 60 points off of his expected FIP. So despite having an amazing first half, Parker Messick has somehow folded up with an even better second half to the point where he has a 257 ERA and a 104 whip. And a guy in most years would be in the running for the Cy Young if it wasn't for what Schlittler and what Dylan Cease have done this year. But a hell of a season from a team that is historically very good at developing pitching. This is a guy I could see being very, very expensive next year, especially when you add in how much people have an affinity for left-handed pitchers.
00:35:28
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And, yeah, I just heard– It was you and Bubba, I think, on Fantasy Pro's podcast are talking about left-handed pitchers being more of a priority next draft season. So that will affect this a lot. But yeah, just like with Henderson, he just took it to another, or Detmers, I should say, more like Detmers. took his K rates and walk rates to the next level. But between his pre all-star break and post all-star break numbers, almost a four percentage point increase in strikeout rate up to 28.6 and a four percentage point decrease in walk rate up down to 4.1 that's that's some easy math that's an eight percentage increase in your strikeout minus walk rate which got him up to that elite 24.4 percent in the second half and yeah being a lefty this performance continuing to improve after what we saw last season towards the end of draft season I started hearing more and more rumbling about Parker Messick and saw his draft price moving up just a little bit people started to get excited they were correct congratulations to those that did that because in some leagues he was available on the wire very early in the season and he has just continued to improve throughout the year Yeah.
00:36:56
Speaker 1: I think if you play in a standard 12-team league, 10-team league or smaller leagues of any size or of any kind, I should say, you were probably picking him up off the waiver wire or maybe he was the last round, last two rounds of your draft. I'm kicking myself for not seeing it coming a little bit more after we got 39 pretty good innings last year. I think it's because, as I alluded to before with Logan Anderson, I'm such a sucker for whip. If I see somebody has a high whip, then there's something– that i mark against them in my head but you know i took a 39 inning sample size and read too much into a bit of an inflated whip so that one is my fault especially because he had a really good walk rate last year too like i just i i'm annoyed at myself this is when we should have probably seen coming and didn't uh well like i said i didn't see it but if you did see it coming congratulations and looking forward it's a good pitching organization it's a lefty which adds a A little bit of a trickier element for batters to pick up on a lot of the time. It's a pretty solid arsenal where he can throw six pitches. He doesn't throw a ton of the cutter and a ton of the slider, but he still has the ability to throw six pitches. He gets whiffs outside of the zone. I could go on and on. There's just a lot to like about Parker Messick. I just hope he doesn't get pushed too far up draft boards because I want to get me some shares next season, and I.
00:38:15
Speaker 2: Hope the prices get defensive. his strikeout minus walk rates throughout the minors. He has maintained this at every level, including the, at the major league level. So this is somebody we, I love to see this progression. Sure. When he first gets to the next level, his, his walk rate jumps up a bit and then he brings it back down throughout his career. And now we're seeing that at the major league level here, post all-star break.
00:38:44
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about somebody from your favorite team, the Kansas City Royals, and I didn't just shoehorn this player in here because Kev is a Royals fan. Noah Cameron is deserving of a conversation because in the first half, it looked like he'd been kind of figured out a little bit. A. 489 ERA. He had a. 142 whip. Just insane. wasn't that impressive and below the surface things were not as bad as things indicated based on those era numbers it was a 403 fit before 11 expected fit which isn't the end of the world but in the second half in his 70 innings it's a 242 era we're looking at a 0.88 whip just phenomenal stuff in the second half and it's interesting kev we talked about strikeout to walk rate a lot his strikeout and walk rates are identical first and second half and yet he's been a completely different pitcher. Being a Royals fan, I'm sure you know a little bit more about Noah Cameron and watch more of him than the average baseball fan. Have you seen anything that indicates this change is something sustainable, or is this maybe just a run of good luck here from Noah Cameron?
00:39:46
Speaker 2: Well, For the most part, it's been a really long run of good luck, but I really don't have much more to explain it. I was not in on Noah Cameron in draft season for 2026. I did not believe that he could come anywhere close to the numbers that he did in 2025. And then he started out the season Right back to it. We started picking him up, a lot of us, in our leagues and throwing him out there. And then he ran into some trouble there in June. I dropped him. I was dropping him after a couple of starts there where he was giving up too many runs because you weren't getting strikeouts from him. He was all about the– the ERA and chasing wins. But then he started striking guys out in the second half and he bounced right back. And I really don't know what to make of it. I'm just wondering, it's too early for me to put him in the class, but if he's going to be one of these guys that gets by an entire career with somehow fooling us and outperforming his projections year in, year out, because there's nothing in there that supports what he's done that I can find. Yeah. I'm still interested when he's on the wire in the right matchups. But if he continues this much longer, he might be more of a team streamer. I'd like to hold on on my bench and have him when I want him because it's almost two seasons now of him, for the most part, maintaining better results than we would think for what he's doing.
00:41:42
Speaker 1: And better than probably what the expected stats would indicate he deserves to have as well. Even if you're looking at the second half, I've mentioned like the ERA, the whip, they're immaculate 242 and 0.88. But his expected FIP in the first half was 411. His expected FIP in the second half is 397. So that particular metric, whether you want to read into it or not, that's up to you. But it would tell you that he's been essentially the same guy. Strikeout to walk rate would also tell you that he's essentially been the same guy. And I wonder if there's a little bit of Andrew Abbott in here maybe. And I'm not the first one to make that comparison. But the lefty who defies the metrics for a few years, and Andrew Abbott did for three years. He gave you a. 387 ERA, a. 372, and then a. 287 last year. And this year we've kind of seen the numbers catch up to him a little bit. Now, I think Noah Cameron is a better pitcher than Abbott. I think the strikeout upside is higher. He doesn't have to pitch at Great American Ballpark, which is obviously a huge plus. But I wonder, is that a comp that you've thought of or heard other people talk about? The lefty who gets by deceiving for a couple of years and then water finds his level, as I said earlier in the show?
00:42:50
Speaker 2: Yep. I agree with that 100%. And you can also look at when guys like this do have their blow-up starts, it's usually because of the home run. And we see that in his home run rate drastically lower post-All-Star break than pre. So that's the issue with these guys. That's why we really, really need them. to have that nice K minus BB. We don't want a high walk rate. We don't want a lot of guys on base because their issues are when they give up a home run.
00:43:24
Speaker 1: You're giving me perfect segues here talking about walk rates. To go into our final guy for the day, Walbert Urania. And first and second half, if you're looking at his ERA, you'd probably say, Joe, what the hell are you talking about? It was 288 ERA in the first half, 289 in the second half. He hasn't really broken out or done anything different. And where I would push back is I would say, The walks. The walks and the whip. And I read a lot into it. I know that some people don't care as much about whip, but you should. The less base runners a guy allows, the less runs are going to come through. And his 132 whip in the first half is down to 113. I think a large part of that is the walk rate has gone from 13% down to nine. Now nine's a little bit still higher than I'd like it, but when you're also adding a point and a half to your strikeout rate, that strikeout minus walk rate has gone from 9% in the first half to 14% in the second half. The expected FIP from 441 to 354 the FIP itself from 393 to 331 so Urania has been a better pitcher in the second half the overall product has been great over these 137 innings and I'm really interested to see where the price will land on him I don't think he'll be too too expensive considering what I mentioned some of the walk troubles and the overall whip not being great and the fact that it's the Angels but I wonder Kev are we talking about a potential top 100 pick here I.
00:44:41
Speaker 2: Hope not because I'm like you, I'm interested, but I don't think I'm quite interested at that price. But I do agree on the analysis, the walk rate and making it so much better K minus BB with just a smaller increase in strikeout rate, I think is what we're seeing. And again... this is, he's 22 years old. This is someone that, sure, there's going to be hitting coaches out there that see something, so their hitters are going to adjust, but if he's making these improvements in the second half at 22 years old, I tend to think he's going to be pretty darn good going forward.
00:45:31
Speaker 1: And another thing that people are probably going to talk about a lot this winter, and people have probably already talked about it, but I'm a little bit optimistic about the angels in the post Artie Moreno era. We'll have to see, but this may have ushered in some competency for lack of a better word after the last 20 or so years of what Moreno has done. Now they did have Mike Maddox as the pitching coach, and then they cleaned out the entire pitching staff earlier in the year. And I think they went to more of an analytical approach and we've seen Detmers, we've seen Urania, we've seen Ryan Johnson have a really good run as of late. So, I'm a little bit optimistic. Is there anything organizationally you think that we should take from this, Kev? Because the Nationals were kind of this team last year where they made some front office changes and they were going to start doing some things differently. And they were really good in the first half. And I wonder if that could be the Angels in 2027.
00:46:20
Speaker 2: I think there is something to that. I know from my Royals, it hasn't been very long, just three or four years ago, our friend Eno Saris would often say the Royals pitching development was the worst in baseball. they have improved. Now, they're not one of the organizations we're looking at being great at developing pitching, but it's been so much better. And not Cole Reagans. He did a lot of that on his own. That was before the last couple of years they've kind of gotten better. And I think it can be huge for a team. And the other thing it does is it means– If they spend a little bit of money much more wisely than they have in the past under Arde Moreno, which is not going to be very difficult to do, in my opinion, then these guys like... Urena don't have to be your one or two. They can be your four or five. And then that makes such a huge difference in, in their mentality and what they're able to do when they go out there every five days. I think it's a huge deal. The organizational development.
00:47:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm excited. And I, you know, I'd kind of thrown in the towel on Grayson Rodriguez last year, as soon as he, I heard he got traded to the angels and now it kind of creaks the door back open a little bit like, well, okay, he's only 26 years old still. Maybe they can do something. Maybe they can tinker around. And, and Kev, to go back to your Royals and the pitching development, you guys fixed Randy Dobnak. So I think that you've, anything is possible.
00:48:03
Speaker 2: At times it appears that way.
00:48:06
Speaker 1: Over his 70 innings. I mean, a 2-7-3 ERA for Randy Dobnak. I mean, he's been in my lineups. He's been in a lot of my lineups in the second half of the year, which Maybe it tells you how the first half of the year went for me. But, guys, that will do it for us today. I really do appreciate everybody who has been watching these shows all year. We've got one more guest show next week. We'll keep it a secret who it is for now because I don't know who it's going to be yet. And then we also have three leading off episodes next week for you guys to check out. But, Kev, thank you so much for coming on. I really do appreciate it, my friend. Where can people keep up with your fine work?
00:48:38
Speaker 2: I am a co-host of On The Wire over on the Pitcher List Podcast Network with Nick Pollack and the crew there. We record Friday or Saturday evenings during season. It's a fab-based podcast, and it's always released by early Sunday morning, so... Hopefully it can help you out with your fab decisions on Sundays. Off season, we're a little more lenient with our scheduling times and days, but we still try to put out an episode every week. And then I'm with you over at FTA and a little more behind the scenes, helping with the the weekly projections, putting in a daily lineups based on projected pitching matchups so that hopefully we're giving more accurate weekly projections over there for FTN. Gavin is one of the best.
00:49:29
Speaker 1: Make sure you guys are checking out on the wire. It's a must listen before you set your waiver pickups and fab placements for the weekend. And, A great show. And tell Adam I say hi because it's been a while since we've been able to chat. Awesome crew over there at Pitcher List. Awesome crew over there at Pitcher List. Make sure you guys are following along with everything they're doing and everything that Kev's doing. And that will do it for us for today. For Kevin Hastings, I'm Joel Rico. We will talk to you next time right here on Fantasy Pros. Take it easy, everybody.
00:49:55
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Fantasy Pros Fantasy Baseball Podcast.
00:49:58
Speaker 1: If you love the show, the best free way to support us is by leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Follow us on X, Instagram, and TikTok at Fantasy Pros, and subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash fantasyprosmlb.