We have made it to the All-Star break, and as long as we don’t have real games to watch anyway, we may as well look back on what’s happened so far, and where the season’s headed.
With that sentiment in mind, this week I’m looking at every hitter I told you to buy and sell so far (except for last week), and we’ll see if the label I gave them still holds. To keep this as legible as possible, I chose a single stat to evaluate hitters before and after I wrote about them, and that stat is wRC+. For the uninitiated, wRC+ takes everything a hitter does at the plate and spits out a number: 100 is league average, 110 is 10% above league average, 99 is 1% below league average, etc. It adjusts for a player’s park and the overall offensive environment (so 100 doesn’t mean the same thing in the steroid era as the dead ball era).
It’s a great catch-all stat, but, like any, it has its limitations. It doesn’t account for playing time or counting stats, so we’ll have to do some mental adjustments, especially for players who get a lot of value from steals. That said, how a hitter does with the stick is the main determinant of their value, and the most sustainable part of their performance. Let’s dive in.
Buy recommendations
DatePlayerwRC+ at writingwRC+ at ASGwRC+ Diff.
4/28/26
46
108
62
4/28/26
104
119
15
4/28/26
107
140
33
4/28/26
134
119
-15
5/5/26
53
81
28
5/5/26
78
118
40
5/12/26
92
64
-28
5/12/26
135
166
31
5/12/26
73
126
53
5/19/26
n/a
73
n/a
5/19/26
86
103
17
5/19/26
102
102
0
5/27/26
89
210
121
5/27/26
114
125
11
6/2/26
116
139
23
6/2/26
63
142
79
6/9/26
112
127
15
6/9/26
107
114
7
6/16/26
126
90
-36
6/16/26
127
142
15
6/23/26
129
155
26
6/23
109
118
9
6/30/26
96
137
41
6/30/26
106
147
41
6/30/26
142
51
-91
(One more note: I omitted the occasional name, like Roman Anthony, who couldn’t handle the pressure of being mentioned here and immediately went on the IL.)
I was surprised that I listed Caleb Durbin as a buy, and even more surprised that it actually worked out. I usually don’t have nice things to say about players who don’t hit the ball with any real authority, but he makes a ton of contact and is on nearly a 20-HR/20-SB pace this year. The average will rise — he runs low BABIPs, but not .239-low — and he might tack on another 10 steals. I’d still be happy to jettison him to another team. He’s been playing near the peak of his potential value, and there’s more downside than upside.
If you were to construct Durbin’s exact opposite, it would essentially be Jac Caglianone — he swings and misses a ton, but destroys the ball when he makes contact. If he would just lift the ball a little more, he would be an annual 40-home run guy. Easier said than done, but there is power upside here. Pencil him in to keep doing what he’s doing, but I’d pay up for him in dynasty leagues.
Skipping over the injured Ronald Acuña, we get to my first miss in Ivan Herrera. I’m still a believer long term, but something has been off for the past few weeks. His bat speed is down half a tick since the start of June, and he isn’t hitting the ball as hard. He could be tired, or this could be one of those blips you only notice when you zoom in on a random month. He’s still one of the top catchers out there, but I’d be open to selling at top-catcher value in case he can’t shake this.
I was directionally right about Lawrence Butler, but not so right that you’d want him on your fantasy team. The guy who looked like a budding star a couple of years ago is now barely hanging on to a starting job.
Fernando Tatis finally hit a few homers. My prediction that he’d eventually reach 20 is far from guaranteed, but I think he has a solid hot streak in him. I’d buy if his manager is getting sick of waiting for the guy they thought they were drafting.
I can be a sucker for big power, but Mark Vientos has Caglianone’s swing-and-miss with Christian Walker’s raw power. That’s not going to cut it.
I’m a big Willson Contreras believer. This may be a peak season, but I think he can keep something like this going. Maybe his new approach, where he’s pulling everything, has a downside at some point, but this is what the combo of great power and good bat control looks like.
Carson Benge has a full season slash line of .263/.326/.402, which looks about right to me, but Statcast gives him an expected average and slugging of .290 and .454. I wouldn’t bank on that, but it gives the rookie some upside, and the steals are nice too.
Dansby Swanson was one of those, “Well he’s not THIS bad” buys, but I have a hard time getting excited about him. Still, he racks up counting stats, so wRC+ undersells him for our purposes. I guess that adds up to a “hold” here.
Dylan Crews is underperforming his expected stats by a healthy margin for the third season in a row. Maybe it all clicks at some point, but for this year, I’m not waiting around.
Esmerlyn Valdez is probably not the best hitter in baseball, contrary to what you have seen the past few weeks. I’ll still take a victory lap for believing in him more than the Pirates, who sent him back to the minors shortly after I listed him as a buy, only to see him reemerge with a vengeance. Pick him up if he’s somehow still on the wire in your league.
I actually said in Zack Gelof’s writeup that I would regret boosting him in a month, so… nailed it? What we’re really seeing is the limitations of our chosen stat in a small sample size — wRC+ can jump around wildly in a two-week period, and if we gave Gelof another game or two prior to his writeup, his before and after looks much more even. The K% has stayed in the mid-20s through the recent cold stretch, so he’s worth keeping an eye on.
On that note, I’ll zoom out on the rest of the list, where you can see I have a type: power plus enough contact to make it count. I’m still a Lars Nootbaar believer, despite the recent slump. Vladimir Guerrero and Ketel Marte weren’t going to keep looking like average hitters as long as they stayed healthy. The more interesting names here are Curtis Mead and Miguel Vargas. I don’t think Mead has the raw power to keep up this level of production, but I still believe in the breakout. Vargas has a little more oomph to work with, and the combo of a 15.3% barrel rate and 7.3% swinging strike rate is elite stuff. Even if he gives a little back on each, he has turned himself into a really exciting player.
On to the sells!
Sell recommendations
DatePlayerwRC+ at writingwRC+ at ASGwRC+ Diff.
4/28/26
105
104
-1
4/28/26
104
97
-7
4/28/26
152
108
-44
5/5/26
137
95
-42
5/5/26
138
111
-27
5/5/26
118
105
-13
5/12/26
138
116
-22
5/12/26
118
62
-56
5/19/26
143
145
2
5/19/26
131
126
-5
5/27/26
119
133
14
5/27/26
105
75
-30
5/27/26
112
101
-11
6/2/26
132
154
22
6/2/26
86
132
46
6/9/26
117
66
-51
6/9/26
130
76
-54
6/16/26
154
58
-96
6/16/26
97
157
60
6/23/26
118
158
40
6/23
143
90
-53
6/30/26
107
101
-6
6/30/26
123
127
4
I’m not anti-veteran, especially given how undervalued they can be in fantasy, but there are a lot of mid-to-late career players on this list. With vets, we usually have a sense of their peak value, and it’s relatively easy to spot when a player is on an unsustainable heater. We also don’t see a ton of raw power on this list, with a few notable exceptions.
Ian Happ represents a more interesting case than some of the veterans here, because it appears he traded power for contact in his walk year. The issue is that, while his barrel rate is up a little, his exit velocity, maxEV and launch angle are basically the same as last year, and the strikeout rate has leapt from 22.8% last year to 31.5% this season. He’ll pull out of the ugly slump he’s in now, but he’s also stuck in the bottom third of the lineup at the moment. I’d hold and bench in 12-teamers.
I get to count Andy Pages as a win because his production dropped after I called him a sell, but he’s still a stud hitting second in an elite lineup. Buy if you can. The one place I’d dial him back is in steals, where he gets caught almost as often as he succeeds.
Xander Bogaerts now hits everything into the ground, and I just don’t see much to work with beyond deep-league roster filler. Fortunately for the Padres, there are only seven more years on the contract after this one.
Jazz Chisholm has entered, “well, he’s not THIS bad” territory, and he props up his value with his steals. He’s a streaky player who might turn back into a star for a month. Buy the dip if you can.
Let’s look at my misses.
Randy Arozarena remains awesome. I don’t see him ending the year with a wRC+ over 140 — an average in the .260s feels more realistic than his current .286 — but he still swipes bags and will remain a huge value.
Liam Hicks has apparently stolen Steven Kwan’s magic. Good things can happen if you never swing and miss. I’m still not sure how he has hit 13 homers with his lack of power, but maybe his bat control is good enough to be opportunistic on certain pitches. I don’t think he keeps this up, but a batting average specialist at catcher is nothing to sneeze at.
Apparently I just don’t believe in Marlins hitters, especially if they have four-letter first names that start with “O” — Otto Lopez and Owen Caissie are both proving me wrong. Caissie’s strikeout rate has been more mid-30s than high-30s lately, and the power is so good that he’s put up star numbers. If he can get his K rate down to 30% while keeping everything else the same, he could hit 50 homers in a season. As for Lopez, it usually takes Nick Kurtz-level contact quality to maintain a .370 BABIP, and I can’t believe he keeps this going with a 7% barrel rate but, hey, he’s made it this far. I’d buy Owen and sell Otto (especially in dynasty), but each will be dependent on your team needs at this point.
A.J. Ewing is a very similar story to Lopez — 7.7% barrel rate, .353 BABIP, went berserk as soon as I called him a “sell.” Statcast believes in what he’s done so far, and he has the speed to steal more than he has. I’d hold for now. TJ Rumfield is still a sell for me. I see more strikeouts and less power going forward.
I caused an uproar in the comments section when I called CJ Abrams a sell, but there’s obviously plenty to like here. I see him as broadly similar to Chisholm — an infielder with enviable power and speed who sometimes looks like a star and sometimes looks lost. Don’t believe either version as the “real” one.
Hope you’ve enjoyed the journey to this point and that you continue to “buy,” or at least “hold,” this column. And let me know which players you’d like to see here for the stretch run.