Fantasy Baseball: 5 Hitters Who Must Build Off a Strong Second Half

Nicholas Castellanos, 3B, Detroit Tigers

The Detroit Tigers had a disappointing season -- it's hard to put any positive spin on a 64-98 record -- but they also experienced quite a bit of frustration. Despite posting the highest team hard-hit rate in baseball (37.4%), their 97 wRC+ was firmly in the middle of the pack.

One of the guys who dealt with these frustrations in the first half was third baseman Nicholas Castellanos. His 41.1% ground-ball rate was a little high, and while his 32.6% fly-ball rate could've been better, the 26.3% line-drive rate he produced wasn't too shabby. It looks a whole lot better when it's accompanied by 49.6% hard-hit rate and just an 8.5% soft-hit rate.

Despite those gaudy batted-ball numbers, though, Castellanos hit just .248/.313/.433 in the first half, leading to a 95 wRC+. Not terrible, but slightly below average and not nearly as good as one would hope for when looking at the peripheral stats.

His BABIP didn't improve much in the second half (.310 before the All-Star break, .316 after) and his hard-hit rate normalized (37.6%), but Castellanos watched his triple slash improve to .299/.329/.553 to go along with a 125 wRC+.

One big difference between was that his ground-ball rate dipped down to 33.6%, with his fly-ball rate being the main beneficiary (43.6%). It would've been even better if the infielder's walk rate didn't see a steep drop off (7.8% to 4.2%), but he at least managed to cut his strikeout rate nearly 10 percentage points in the process.