Fantasy Baseball: 5 Hitters Who Must Build Off a Strong Second Half
Alex Bregman, 3B, Houston Astros
It's been well established around these parts that the Houston Astros have had an elite offense this year. So elite, in fact, that it's the most productive group of hitters we've seen this century. Imagine how much better they would've been if Alex Bregman had it going all year long.
This is not to say that Bregman's first half was bad -- his 105 wRC+ and .326 wOBA were still pretty good. However, he's being highlighted here because his second half of play was that much better (141 wRC+ and .378 wOBA). What's interesting is that the young third baseman's ground-ball rate, line-drive rate, and fly-ball rate all got worse when we compare his performance before and after the All-Star break.
What did improve, though, was his contact rates on balls outside the strike zone (O-Contact%) and inside the strike zone (Z-Contact%). He used that to improve his quality of contact, which is evidenced in the table below that compares his soft-hit rate (Soft%) and hard-hit rate (Hard%).
| 2017 | PA | O-Contact% | Z-Contact% | Soft% | Hard% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Half | 329 | 70.1% | 89.5% | 20.3% | 30.1% |
| Second Half | 297 | 80.3% | 91.6% | 15.6% | 35.9% |
We don't necessarily want his aggressiveness on balls outside the strike zone to increase, but Bregman's overall chase rate of 25.8% is already solid and better than his 2016 mark (27.2%). He was still able to create more damage on those particular offerings based off his quality of contact numbers, which is also supported by an ISO that went from .163 in the first half up to .221 in the second half.
