With just over half the season in the books, let’s review the performances and fantasy contributions of the preseason top hitting prospects that have made it to the Majors so far this season. Depending on your league size, format, and competitors, top prospects are often hot commodities on draft day, sometimes going for inflated prices that are difficult to break even on. So let’s see how this year’s crop has done. Note that many of these hitters remain in small sample size territory, so I won’t constantly repeat that caveat in each blurb.

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It’s been nearly two months since I last reviewed the hitter xwOBA underperformers and overperformers. So let’s check back in as we head into the second half of the season. These lists are good starting points for buy low and sell high names, so let’s dive in and determine whether each does indeed fit into those buckets.

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American League

Angels

• Over the last week, Christian Moore hit .182/.240/.591 with 3 HR. On Wednesday, he moved up to bat second.

• LaMonte Wade Jr. (54 OPS+) started in five of the last six games. Read the rest of this entry »

Below are the latest playing time changes for position players in the past week. Welcome back, Chandler Simpson!

Similar to yesterday’s exercise where I compared starting pitcher Stuff+ grades in June to earlier in the season, let’s flip over to hitters and review average bat speed. I have no idea how stable it is during the season, so I was curious if I would even find meaningful bat speed gains and declines this month versus in the period ending in May. Sure enough, I did! So let’s review the most dramatic average bat speed gainers and decliners in June compared to the previous months of the season.

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Now that almost 50% of the season is in the books, it’s a good time to check in on baseball’s top hitting prospects from a projections-based perspective. You can see the preseason list here and last year’s midseason list here. Those articles also feature more methodological detail if you want to read more about the projections process. Briefly, the projections capture prospect performance across the (non-DSL) minor and major leagues in recent years, making use of aging curves, major league equivalencies, league environment adjustments, park factors, regression, and more, to project peak (late-20s) prospect performance in the majors. They do not capture scouting, defense, or amateur performance. Starting this offseason, they also capture bat speed, which was made available for a decent handful of prospects this spring training.

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American League

Angels

• With Jorge Soler banged up (back), there has been some player movement. It doesn’t matter because the guys buried at the end of the lineup aren’t good and aren’t regulars. Read the rest of this entry »

American League

Angels

• The second base circle jerk could be over with the promotion of Christian Moore. I’m guessing third base will continue to be a revolving cast of characters. Read the rest of this entry »

There are all kinds of reasons big leaguers get demoted to the minor leagues: roster crunches, injury rehab, and, of course, poor performance. Even for a weekly internet blogging fantasy baseball player, all these transactions are difficult to follow. Yet, many expert fantasy players follow them like a hawk follows a mouse running in an open field, and it gives them an edge. If there were a tool that could detect demotions, great performance during the demotion, and improved performance at the major league-level, we’d all have more time to do what we really care about: watch more baseball!

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Here are the latest significant changes in projected position player playing time, highlighted by Kyle Teel getting the call to the majors.