First-Half wOBA vs OOPSY’s Rest-of-Season Projections

As we enter the heat of the post-All-Star break summer, it is a natural point for both reflection and action for our fantasy squads moving forward. This chart plots first-half wOBA against OOPSY’s rest-of-season projection (RoS); the pitching chart will be coming soon. It is a useful way to see the discrepancy between how some hitters have performed and what OOPSY expects for the rest of the season, and to discuss why regression is being projected, and in some cases why it isn’t, across the league.

The OOPSY wOBA projection for the rest of the season lies on the vertical axis, and the wOBA from the pre-All-Star break split is on the horizontal axis. A player falling below the line is projected to regress or not sustain their current offensive output, and above the line, the model is projecting an improvement in their production. When you hover on the dot, you can see the results so far and the projection. I also included BABIP and ISO, as these seem to be good indicators of where the production or lack of it is being projected from.

The common denominator among the players with the largest drop in the OOPSY RoS projections is what the model sees as a potentially unsustainable BABIP. This is why I have color-coded the dots based on their BABIP so far.

Tristan Peters, while not featuring at the top of the chart, has the biggest drop in his wOBA from his results so far this season, primarily due to his first-half .354 BABIP, paired with a modest .177 ISO, resulting in his wOBA dropping by 71 points. This is a similar story for Otto Lopez, who actually featured in my hitters-getting-lucky piece. Though he has not dropped off in his output since then, to his credit.

Blaze Alexander, TJ Rumfield, and A.J. Ewing are the same story, all with an ISO below .180 but a BABIP of .320 or higher. Alexander’s .396 BABIP to go along with just a .127 ISO seems particularly unsustainable.

As a kind of counter to the high BABIP equating to second-half regression, Nick Kurtz, Riley Greene, and Elly De La Cruz all carry first-half BABIPs as high as anyone on the drop list, .375, .381, and .352, and yet OOPSY projects them to fall by only nine to twelve points of wOBA, rather than as high as seventy points. The difference is that these three hit the ball hard enough and consistently enough that the high BABIP is largely earned and is not expected to regress as steeply.

Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, by far the biggest name on this list is legit MVP candidate Pete Crow-Armstrong. With a 57-point regression to his wOBA projected for the rest of the season, his ISO and BABIP are expected to come down to .202 and .312, respectively. Similarly, Walker and Contreras are both enjoying excellent seasons, but are also not projected to sustain their output. Worth noting, the RoS projections are still saying they will continue to have productive years, because they hit for real power, just not to quite the same level.

By contrast, Ben Rice’s projected drop doesn’t come from his high BABIP. Rather, his .320 ISO is almost impossible to hold across a full season. Again, nothing to worry about really, despite featuring as one of OOPSY’s biggest decliners.

The bounce back list is filled with established hitters with average to well below average first halves that OOPSY expects to correct. The likes of Raleigh, Guerrero, Riley, and Henderson would have been very early-round picks in drafts that have fallen well below expectations. Your belief in their ability to turn it around is up to you, but OOPSY projects an uptick in overall offensive output, although that is not hard, given the seasons some of these names have had so far. But Cal Raleigh having the same projected wOBA as PCA seems like it could be a stretch, as we sit here in mid-July. Only time will tell.

Given the profile of these names, I wanted to look further into some deeper candidates who OOPSY projects to improve on their first half.

Colton Cowser is an interesting streamer name to watch for the rest of the season. While not being predicted to put up crazy numbers, his performance so far as a platoon bat has been underwhelming, with just an 86 wRC+ to daye and a significant projected uptick the rest of the way. With his wOBA projected to jump from .293 to .331, he could be a good name to watch out for in certain favorable matchups against right-handed pitchers as the season moves on.

Jo Adell and Teoscar Hernández were two more names that stood out from a power perspective, if support is needed in power categories. OOPSY takes Adell’s ISO from .151 to .214 and projects 11 more homers to add to his total of 13 the rest of the way, while other projection models have it as high as 15. Similarly, Hernández’s ISO projects to take an even larger jump from .144 to .209 with 12 more homers, and could be a good name to keep an eye on as the season progresses.

The largest projected declines tend to be driven by unsustainably high BABIPs without matching power, while many of the biggest rebounds come from established hitters whose underlying skills remain intact despite disappointing production. The more useful reads, though, seem to be the exceptions. A high BABIP is only a warning when the contact underneath it is soft, as Kurtz and Greene’s projections show. And in Rice’s case, even power alone may not be enough to hold his production. Which big-name hitters turn their seasons around this summer will surely be one of the stories of the second half, perhaps eclipsed only by which of them don’t.