Potential Post All-Star Break Outfield Risers

Happy All Star Break, everyone! I love the Fantasy Baseball grind but its nice to get a little respite here from obsessing over every bat AB while guys on my bench go to town. Not that I ever do that, I always have the right guys starting, and I barely follow the box scores.

OK, I’m kidding.

It is a great time to take a step back, though, and see where we can improve our rosters for the home stretch. And hey, maybe some guys we already have will improve in the 2nd half. In order to look forward here, I am going to look backwards. Barrels were designed to quantify what type of hits typically produce home runs. Namely, it’s a specific mix of launch angle and exit velocity. So far in 2025, total homers are 51.3% of total barrels, and on a player to player basis, their home run output correlates 78.1% to their barrels. So a typical player will have about half as many homers as barrels. Obviously, there are outliers as ballparks and weather conditions vary, pulled barrels produce the most homers, etc. Some guys like TJ Friedl and Isaac Paredes have mastered the art of the non-barrel homer.. But for the player pool at large, it’s a pretty good indicator. All things being equal, a guy with a lot of homers per barrel might be a little fortunate, especially if there’s no obvious explanation that we can point to going forward. Likewise, players with few homers/barrels may have gotten a little unlucky. I wanted to highlight 5 outfielders in that latter group and dive into them to see if maybe we can expect (really hope for) some mean reversion when the games resume.

Jarren Duran

8 homers, 29 barrels

The Red Sox outfielder was an overall Fantasy superstar in 2024 with 21 homers, 34 steals, 111 runs, and a .285 batting average. Those 21 homers came on 47 barrels, which was lower than league average but likely about right for a lefty playing in Fenway. If he converted homers to barrels at the same pace in 2025, he’d have 13 bombs instead of 5. 

When you look at everything else, he’s a very similar hitter this year to last year. Here’s his statcast page in 2025

And here’s 2024

His Barrel%, EV and HardHit% are all up modestly. His contact skills are down ever so slightly, and his sprint speed has not budged. He has 16 steals this season on 21 tries, so down slightly in both attempts and success rate there. But he’s really very similar to his 2024 self. A 20 homer, 30 steal season remains absolutely in reach. In a strange way, he seems almost an afterthought in Boston. The Red Sox have younger, shinier prospects all over the field now. Duran popped relatively late, so he’s 28 years old already, Plus Pete Crow-Armstrong has exploded into this steals-power space in an insane way.

Brenton Doyle

7 homers on 26 barrels

Doyle had a family tragedy this spring, so clearly some form of mean regression on the baseball field is the least of his concerns. But he’s pretty much the same player that popped in 2024, yet his stat line looks more like the 2023 version. He’s batting just .201 with 33 runs, 30 RBI’s and 9 steals vs. .260, 82 runs and 72 RBI’s and 30 steals in 2024. 

But like Duran, nothing much has actually changed. A 35% K%  was a big issue in Doyle’s rookie campaign, but he dropped that to 25.4% in 2024 and nearly identical 26% this season. His Barrel%, EV, and HardHit% have all improved. The only notable area where he regressed is his Launch Angle Sweet Spot%, where he’s now 44th percentile, vs. 81st percentile in 2024. 

Now, don’t expect a return to his 2024 pace. He often batted leadoff or 3rd last season, whereas now he’s nearer to the bottom, and he sits some days. Also, the team context is, of course, atrocious. Fewer PA’s and no one on base will just destroy any hope of good counting stats. But he remains a 96th percentile sprint speed guy, and his xBA of .243 is significantly higher than his current batting average, and probably a realistic level for him. 20/20 on the season with a .240-.250 average the rest of the way sure feels realistic.

Jackson Merrill

7 homers on 23 barrels

Well, I wish I wrote this ahead of Saturday as the Padres CF popped two bombs off Zach Wheeler. Maybe that’s the start of a rebound, as he’s had a pretty weak Fantasy followup to a monstrous rookie season. Merrill has had 2 IL stints and he’s hitting .263 on the year with just 1 steal, after batting .292 with 16 steals and 24 homers on 52 barrels last season. 

He’s a great candidate for 2nd half improvement if for no other reason than he’s a potential 5 category contributor batting in the middle of a good lineup. There are some warning signs, though. His Whiff% has gone up from 20.5% (73rd percentile) to 27.3% (30th percentile) while his EV has declined from 90.4 to 88.6. Despite all that, his xwOBA of .362 this year has barely budged from .369 last year. I’m cautiously optimistic here, though I would like to see him start running a bit more.

Adolis Garcia

12 homers on 34 Barrels

Everything about the Rangers offense has disappointed this season, including their home ballpark, which has played as the stingiest Run and Home Run environment in MLB this year. But that looks a bit like small sample size randomness, as nothing has actually changed; it’s a retractable roof that stays shut in the scorching summer heat. It ranks pretty neutrally over the last 3 seasons as a whole.

So maybe Adolis’s mean reverts a bit along with his park? His 13.4% Barrel% is roughly his career norm, and his 92.9 EV marks a career high, as does his 18.9 LA. He’s a career .238, so he’s never been a batting average asset, but his 24.7% K% would be his best ever over a full season. He’s at .234 this year, though xBA pegs him at .254. 

The overall bad Texas offense has suppressed his counting stats. He only has 33 runs in 91 games, just ugh. On the plus side, he’s somewhat of a steals asset again as he has 9 already, so he could get to 15 or so. And he’s on a bit of an upswing already. He took a mental break at the end of May, and since his return June 3rd, he’s hit .270 with 5 homers, 4 steals, and 28 RBI’s. 

Bryan Reynolds

10 homers on 27 barrels

I faded Reynolds in drafts, but only because he had a similar profile to all sorts of guys who came cheaper. I like to have a couple of these plus power and chip in speed guys in deep leagues. 25-10-80-80 with an ok batting average really plays.

Well, about that. Reynolds has hit just .225 with a K% that has ballooned to a near career high of 27.2%, up from 22.5% last year. His Whiff% is an alarming 29.7% (10th percentile). That’s all bad, but it looks like he’s attempted to trade contact for power and getting some odd results. His Bat speed has gone from 70.2 MPH in 2023 to 71.6 in 2024, up to 72.5 this year. Meanwhile, his Contact% numbers have barely budged (73.6% to 72.9% to 73.5%). At the same time, he’s now at 91.5 EV and 10.8% Barrel%, the former is a career high and the latter his 2nd best ever.

More power with identical contact sounds good, but yet his results are kind of lousy, what gives? Well, on one hand, he’s hitting with a career low 6.4 LA, which you would think produces a higher batting average at least. But more likely than not, he’s just had crazy bad luck on batted balls. His xBA of .271 is virtually identical to his .270 from last year and is exactly his career mark. And his Barrel rate his lifted despite his increased worm burning. He plays in a tough hitter park, but he hit 24 homers in both 2023 and 2024 on 49 and 45 barrels, respectively. 

A little better luck and Reynolds should hit his customary .270 going forward, and maybe gets to his annual 24 homers. He only has 3 steals, but last I checked, you need to get on base to run, so he could steal get to his usual 10. The counting stats…..well, thanks Pirates.