Second Half Hitters
A list of hitters who have performed much better in the second half compared to the first half in each of the last three MLB seasons
Do you believe that some hitters are true “second half hitters”? I think a lot of people do. I’m not sure if I believe it. I think this is probably mostly a random thing.
But just in case it does exist (it’s not impossible), I wanted to find the list of hitters who fit this criteria:
→ Have at least 150 AB in each half of each of the last three seasons
→ Have been significantly better in the second half in all three of those seasons
By “half” here, I mean before and after the All-Star Break. And the measure I used to judge it is fantasy points scored per plate appearance.
Somewhat unfortunately, it’s a pretty short list. And I already did all of the work to get the results, so this post is going out!
It’s a quick-hits post. No further analysis, just the data and some plots I made at Fangraphs.
Alex Bregman, Red Sox
2022: 1.73 → 2.11 (+22%)
2023: 1.74 → 2.03 (+17%)
2024: 1.68 → 1.94 (+16%)
Nico Hoerner, Cubs
2022: 1.76 → 1.90 (+8%)
2023: 1.87 → 2.02 (+8%)
2024: 1.65 → 1.93 (+17%)
Enrique Hernandez, Dodgers
2022: 1.42 → 1.54 (+9%)
2023: 1.46 → 1.64 (+12%)
2024: 1.22 → 1.84 (+51%)
They say this guy just shines in the playoffs. And it turns out he starts shining a bit before the playoffs!
Those are the only three names that have gone up at least 5% in each of the last three. More names show up if we just require the last two seasons. Here they are:
Josh Bell
Dansby Swanson
Spencer Torkelson
Keibert Ruiz
Julio Rodriguez
Alejandro Kirk
Matt Olson
Yainer Diaz
Michael Harris II
Xander Bogaerts
Cody Bellinger
Kyle Schwarber
William Contreras
Francisco Lindor
Lars Nootbaar
Gleyber Torres
Here’s the full list if we get rid of the +5% minimum and just look at hitters who have been at least 1% better in the second half in each of the last three years.
Eugenio Suarez
Enrique Hernandez
Julio Rodriguez
Matt Olson
Michael Harris II
Shohei Ohtani
Xander Bogaerts
Alex Bregman
Cody Bellinger
Francisco Lindor
J.T. Realmuto
Nico Hoerner
Pete Alonso
Carlos Santana
The inspiration for this post came from remembering Julio Rodriguez’s splits.
Another way we could do this is just take 2022-2024 first halves and second halves alone and get total wRC+ for both half, and then see which hitters have done better in the second half in that way.
This could mean that the guys have had a season where they were better in the first half, but over the whole picture, they have been better second half hitters.
I got the first half wRC+ and second half wRC+ values for every hitter who has qualified in both halves from 2022-2024 and put them all together in another data wrapper table. Here it is:
I want to come nowhere close to guaranteeing any of these guys will follow the same pattern that we have seen from them. But it’s fun data to look at during the All-Star Break and maybe you can use it to take some deeper dives into some of the names with the biggest splits here.