Yesterday I posted Part I of a two-part piece on some historically strong performers in the 2nd half. For the study, I looked at post All-Star Break numbers from the years 2005 to 2007 and picked out the instances of players posting an .850 OPS or better. From there, I took the players that did it more than once and isolated them. The group that pulled the hat-trick were in yesterday’s list, while today will cover the remaining bunch that did it two out of three times. In the upcoming chart, you will see the three-year totals and averages for the 43 players that had an .850 or better OPS in two out of three seasons, meaning the season that they didn’t make it is factored in, too.
The email response to the first portion was great and I really appreciated it, thought some readers point blank asked what they are supposed to do with the information. You don’t have to do anything with it if you don’t want to, but it can be used for reference when entertaining trades for a stretch. It is by no means wholly predictive so don’t blindly follow it to the point of taking a bad trade because you think Player X is going to have a bust out second half. But if you are deciding between a few players, this information might lead towards the right guy to help your team from here until October. The Elite 16 list was filled with stars, but there were plenty of stars not listed meaning maybe you trade some stars you currently own for these ones that have shown a penchant for stepping it up during the dog days of summer.
The second list is decidedly less star-laden meaning you could find some real value by acquiring some of these players at a severely discounted price. Some of the players on the list are already having great seasons (Jason Bay, Milton Bradley, Adrian Gonzalez), but some others have seen their stock tumble based on a horrific first half (Robinson Cano, Matt Diaz, Todd Helton). Baltimore’s Luke Scott is having a breakout season of sorts due in large part to his job security, but if he holds to his usual pattern, he’s in for an even bigger 2nd half which would truly make 2008 a breakout season for him. He has the biggest pre to post All-Star Break delta in OPS at 261 points! Speaking of opportunity as a breeding ground for breakout potential, second to Scott in OPS improvement is recently traded Matt Murton. He should get a chance in Oakland to repeat his 194-point OPS improvements after the break especially given the fragility of Ryan Sweeney and suckiness of Emil Brown & Travis Buck. He’s batted second in back-to-back evenings since being recalled on July 11th.
Some other potential gems exist in the form of Carlos Delgado, Travis Hafner, Paul Konerko and Adam LaRoche. Althought Delgado and LaRoche have both been strong in July, so the window to acquire them cheaply might be closed.
Feel free to share your tales of trading for some of these guys as Steve from Iowa did via email. Steve sold high on BbP favorite, Justin Ducscherer in a deal that landed him Matt Holliday. Steve dealt Duchscherer and Bill Hall for Holliday. Like I said, Duchscherer is a huge favorite of Baseball by Paul, but this is an amazing deal for Steve.
Baseball By Paul 