We haven’t done a good ol’ fashioned rankings since the start of the season, so the All-Star Break seems like the perfect time to re-examine some of the selections that were made in the initial 2016 set. Obviously things have changed, but given that it’s the middle of July, nobody is surprising us anymore. We know largely who is who and what they bring to the table, while others have dropped off due to positional eligibility. While there’s still room for bounce back or decline, we know where we stand at the season’s midway point.

While these rankings still remain somewhat subjective, based on the individual elements I tend to look at, neither Kris Bryant or Jake Lamb ended up no. 1, so the bias may not have shone through as much as it otherwise could have. Enjoy the rest of your break before the stove starts to heat up.

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People that know me away from the world wide web know that if there’s one thing that I have a soft spot for, it’s super utility types. I have an unabashed love for the guys that you can plug in anywhere and still get a little bit of offensive production from. Ben Zobrist, Josh Harrison, Brock Holt. Love ’em. This is a list that has since grown to include Javier Baez, and while I chose to focus on a member of the Chicago Cubs in my column last week, let’s circle back to the North Side to examine a player that is becoming an intriguing fantasy option each time he finds his way into the lineup. Which is becoming quite a bit of late.

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Back in March, I made some bold predictions, as all RotoGraphs staff do. Some bold predictions I make simply for the sake of being bold. Or for the sake of making a prediction. One of the two. But I don’t have a vested interest in my predictions, mostly because (1) they typically suck and (2) I don’t own many, if any, shares of the subjects of my predictions (because, well, the predictions suck). It’s kind of like not putting your money where your mouth is.

In this case, I absolutely have a vested interest in Jose Ramirez. Chris Mitchell and I both hold a special place in our hearts for him. I’ve come to realize, in my years of watching and loving baseball, that I most appreciate the hitters who are (debatably) underappreciated contact hitters. Victor Martinez. Pre-breakout Daniel Murphy. Nick Markakis. Martin Prado. Reggie Willits???

Speaking of Prado, Ramirez looks like peak Prado right now, and in more ways than one:

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On Monday against Cincinnati, Kris Bryant had a literally historic night for the Chicago Cubs. In smashing three home runs and adding a pair of doubles against the Reds, Bryant became the first player in Major League history to achieve the feat. It was the latest chapter in what has been one of the greatest starts to a career for any player, ever. That doesn’t mean that Bryant’s short career to this point hasn’t been without those who have attempted to disparage it, of course.

Some predicted a sophomore slump could be in the cards for Bryant, pointing to a lack of contact, a high strikeout rate, and a reliance on the big fly as potential causes of such a scenario. Additionally, one of the primary criticisms for those who had insisted in disparaging Kris Bryant had been his inability to find consistent success on the road. And to a very realistic extent, his home/road splits in 2015 certainly did lend themselves to that very trend.

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Patience is certainly a virtue, especially as it relates to fantasy baseball. However, with the hard luck season that Justin Turner had apparently decided to embrace in the first two months of 2016, he likely tested the patience of owners throughout the fantasy landscape. As we approach the end of the month of June, though, his luck appears to have shifted for the better.

Before this 2016 season got underway, Justin Turner would have hardly represented a catalyst for many as they evaluated the offensive talent possessed by the Los Angeles Dodgers. In fact, many had called for him to be supplanted at the hot corner, as he spent the bulk of both April and May struggling, as some poor luck appeared to have got the better of him. But just as the weather in Southern California has heated up, so has Turner, as well as the suddenly upstart Dodgers.

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The worst batted ball in baseball is the pulled grounder. It heads right into the shift, right into the waiting glove. The best batted ball is the pulled fly ball. It soars majestically into the night.

The line between the two is razor thin. Hitters want to get that good wood on the ball and yank it for power, but if they roll over the top at all, it’s the worst idea. That’s why up the middle is the safe idea. You build a safe, solid swing.

But what about the guys living on the razor’s edge? The guys pulling a ton of balls, but pulling them in the air? Maybe they’re doing something that makes their power more believable. They’ve got the best batted ball figured out.

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While the Arizona Diamondbacks continue to trudge their way through a rather difficult 2016 campaign, there are at least a few success stories emerging out of the desert these days. Perhaps no story in the Southwest has had more success accompany it than that of Jake Lamb, who we’ve already discussed among the third base group on one occasion earlier this season. In that post, I listed Lamb as a “viable” option, a label which just feels like an absurd understatement and would lend itself to more disparagement than anything at this point, given what Lamb has turned in thus far in 2016.

His month of June hasn’t quite gotten off to what he may have envisioned after strong April and May stretches, but Lamb’s 2.1 WAR lands him ninth among qualifying players at the hot corner. That mark also happens to come in higher than the one he posted last year, in 148 less plate appearances. He’s reaching base at a rate that is 20 points higher than last year, with a .349 on-base percentage, despite a BABIP that is currently 43 points lower than his 2015 figure, at .301. Additionally, his wRC+ (131), wOBA (.372), and walk rate (11.2%) are all higher than last year. It’s been improvements across the board for Jake Lamb.

What has been most impressive about Lamb, though, has been the ability to make solid contact and generate the power that comes along with that. Lamb’s currently sporting a hard hit rate of 41.3%, which trails only Matt Carpenter among big league third basemen. His ISO, sitting at .264, ranks fifth among third sackers, behind only Nolan Arenado, Manny Machado, Josh Donaldson, and Carpenter. He can thank his new swing, coupled with a quality approach, for the uptick in power, specifically the home runs, where his dozen on the season represent twice as many as he had all of last year.

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone unimpressed with what Lamb has turned in at the plate this season. However, as apparent as his growth at the plate has been, his manager, Chip Hale, has still demonstrated a penchant for sheltering him against left-handed pitching. Lamb has 242 plate appearances on the season, but only 50 of those have come against southpaws. He’s both sat entirely and been lifted against lefty relievers, something that has resulted in Hale drawing the ire of Diamondback fans on more than one occasion. On the surface, it would appear that Hale is making the right decision in sitting his starting third basemen against left-handed pitching. However, with some of the peripheral trends and such a small sample actually existing against them, in addition to the way Lamb has swung the bat all year, it’s getting harder to justify sitting him in those situations.

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It’s not like we need to talk about Jonathan Villar. We have all seen what he’s doing. But when a guy seemingly comes out of nowhere to become a top-10 fantasy player, it’s usually a big deal. What gives? Who cares. We’re here now. Let’s talk about Jonathan Villar.

Villar is on pace to hit 13 home runs, steal 60 bases, and bat .292. That’s 2014 Jose Altuve, but more power and less batting average. We’ll check the validity of all those paces in a second. The middle one is really not open for much contention, though. It took 16 games for Villar to steal his first two bases this year, but he hasn’t gone more than five games since without successfully swiping a bag. With 21 steals in the 45 games since April 23, he’s basically taking an extra base every other day. Billy Hamilton who?

Neither the speed nor power should have caught any of us by surprise. All of it is well-documented, dating back to 2014. Blake Murphy gave Villar his due back then, noting a 10-homer, 30-steal, .250 hitter is “immensely valuable” given the paucity of talent at shortstop. That has obviously changed this year, what with Corey Seager and Francisco Lindor and Carlos Correa and all that jazz. (Despite their presences, Villar still holds his own.)

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Just straight hitting the ball hard has its value, but there is an ideal angle. Hit the ball a million miles per hour into the ground, and you’re Giancarlo Stanton, grounding out to second base on the hardest hit ball so far in the Statcast era. You gotta hit it square.

People smarter than I am have determined that the ideal launch angle is between ten and thirty degrees. That combines the line drive angle (10-25 degrees) and home run angle (25-30), but in fantasy baseball, we’ll take a line drive or a home run, either’s fine.

So if we want to know who’s hitting the ball harder this year, it’s probably best to ask who’s hitting the ball harder in the right angles for success? That will tell us a little about some hot starts that are more believable because of what’s going on under the hood.

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Playing in a West Coast market isn’t always the most pleasurable of tasks. With a majority of games that take place largely after much of the country has gone to sleep, it’s often quite difficult for those types of clubs to generate the type of buzz that those on the East Coast or in the Midwest manage to lay claim to. It’s why so many have gone without noticing the Seattle Mariners’ success this season, and it’s why even fewer have gone without noticing what Kyle Seager is putting together at the hot corner this season.

But Seager has managed to keep himself firmly in the picture as a potentially elite third sacker, as he’s piecing together a mighty impressive campaign for a Mariners squad that is second in the American League West to the Texas Rangers and currently finds itself atop the AL wild card picture. He’s coming off of another solid, if unspectacular year in 2015, as well as being mired in a tough stretch back in April, but could very well be on pace for the best season of his career in a number of respects.

In 2015, Seager slashed .266/.328/.451/.779, with a walk rate that was almost identical to the previous year (7.9% to 8.0% in 2014), and a strikeout rate that managed to dip to 14.3% after an 18.0% mark in the previous year. His .185 ISO ranked ninth among qualifying third basemen, as did his 116 wRC+. While there was a slight regression for Seager almost across the board, with the exception of his K-rate, that could largely be attributed to a BABIP that dipped down to .278. Even so, the regression wasn’t significant in really any respect. Which might make it less surprising that Kyle Seager is currently in the midst of what could be a career campaign in 2016.

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