Fantasy Baseball: 5 Hitters Who Must Bounce Back After a Tough Second Half
Ben Gamel, OF, Seattle Mariners
Ben Gamel seemingly came out of nowhere to give the Seattle Mariners top-notch contributions in the first half, highlighted by a red-hot June that included a 161 wRC+ and .407 wOBA for the month. The outfielder accumulated 283 plate appearances prior to the All-Star game and slashed a healthy .323/.379/.449 with 4 homers, 29 RBI, and 42 runs scored.
But then, the second half brought him back down to reality in a big way -- over his final 267 plate appearances, Gamel hit .227/.262/.376 with 7 homers, 30 RBI, and just 26 runs scored. His advanced stats took an equally precipitous drop, as his 127 wRC+ from the first half fell to 68 in the second half, while his wOBA went from .357 to .271.
Something that was awfully telling about these two halves of play was his BABIP -- after posting a .422 mark prior to the All-Star break, it dropped all the way down to .263. These were the extremes (the league average in 2017 was .300), so he'll end up regressing back to the mean, right?
Only if he improved his batted-ball numbers. The below table shows how his line-drive rate (LD%), ground-ball rate (GB%), fly-ball rate (FB%), hard-hit rate (Hard%), and BABIP transformed throughout the season.
| 2017 | LD% | GB% | FB% | Hard% | BABIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Half | 24.9% | 40.2% | 34.9% | 30.0% | .422 |
| Second Half | 18.9% | 49.3% | 31.8% | 28.9% | .263 |
While his BABIP was due to come down anyway, it could at least be explained by a high line-drive rate, one that ranked among the top 15 in baseball during the first half (his line-drive rate in Triple-A was 25.0% before getting promoted, too).
