Of the many benefits of a 162-game season, players have ample opportunities to make adjustments. One bad month — or two — doesn’t paint a complete picture.
Already, we’ve seen a number of players hit their stride after the All-Star break, shaking off a slow start. For some, whose clubs are still deep in the postseason hunt, those second-half surges have come at the most opportune time. Suddenly, they’re playing outsized roles for contending teams with legitimate playoff aspirations.
Here are five players experiencing a bounce-back second half, with a closer look at the underlying changes driving their revival.
All stats below are through play on Thursday. Each hitter is listed with his first- and second-half wRC+, a park-adjusted measure of offensive performance that, like OPS+, is based on a league average of 100.
Matt Shaw, Cubs
First-half wRC+ — 60
Second-half wRC+ — 212
The Cubs didn’t acquire a premier third baseman at the Deadline (though super-utility man Willi Castro offered some insurance), effectively giving Shaw another opportunity. A first-round pick in 2023 out of Maryland, Shaw made this year’s Opening Day roster, only to be sent down to Triple-A in mid-April. When he came back up in May, he didn’t exactly tear the cover off the ball: Among 253 hitters who took at least 200 plate appearances before the All-Star break, only five posted a lower wRC+ than Shaw.
So, in what is now a four-week sample following the break, Shaw has more or less produced the same offensive output as Shohei Ohtani (206 wRC+). Wait, what?
The big change here is that Shaw began to hunt pulled contact, lifting the ball in the air. It’s the easiest way to slug, and it’s also a tactic that the majority of his teammates have embraced. Shaw has finally joined the party, in a big way.
Since the break, his pulled airball rate is among the highest in the Majors. There’s real intent behind this — he’s catching the ball much farther out in front of his own body, which allows him to drive the ball to the pull side. After homering only twice in the first half, Shaw has already clobbered eight home runs since the break, three more than any other Cubs player.
Below, you can see Shaw’s intercept point — the purple dot — as well as the location of all his base hits in the second half.
Shaw’s Attack Direction — which measures the horizontal direction that the barrel of the bat is moving at the point of contact — has gone from 7 degrees oppo in April to 8 degrees pull in August. As a right-handed hitter, that means Shaw’s barrel is now traveling towards left field at contact, rather than right field. That’s helped him, too.
We’re not saying that Shaw is going to keep producing like Ohtani. But it’s clear that he’s changed his approach for the better.
On July 30, Contreras hit two home runs against the Cubs — snapping a rather stunning homer-less drought that spanned more than six weeks. Then, he homered the next day. This past weekend, he bopped three more home runs.
This isn’t a coincidence. An All-Star in 2024, Contreras had a bat speed (74.7 mph) in the 86th percentile, fueling a 23-homer campaign. But to start the 2025 season, Contreras was swinging far slower: His year-to-year bat speed decline (-1.5 mph) is the seventh-largest among qualified hitters. By June, he was swinging the bat slower, on average, than at any point since the second half of the 2023 season, when Statcast bat tracking data was first available.
Over the last few weeks, Contreras is back to swinging the bat as hard as he did last season.
After Milwaukee traded for veteran catcher Danny Jansen at the Deadline, Brewers general manager Matt Arnold reaffirmed to Contreras that he’s still “the guy.” Since the All-Star break, he’s swinging — and looking — like it.
Contreras said his power surge isn’t a result of mechanical changes or a new approach, and the metrics agree — he hasn’t changed his stance or messed with his swing path. It’s worth noting, then, that he’s been playing through a fractured finger since May, and while it still hurts, he’s learned to tolerate it better. That Contreras is swinging the bat hard again is pretty good evidence to that point.
Jarren Duran, Red Sox
First-half wRC+ — 103
Second-half wRC+ — 163
Duran didn’t have a bad first half, but he was roughly a league-average hitter, which was at least a little disappointing after his fantastic ‘24 campaign. But over the last few weeks, Duran looks more like himself, partially because he’s doing something completely different at the plate.
Duran has never pulled the ball with any consistency. In fact, in June, he explicitly told MLB.com’s David Adler, “I’m not a pull hitter.” But in August, Duran is on pace for the highest single-month pull rate of his career (min. 20 batted balls).
That didn’t happen by accident. Duran is catching the ball much farther out in front than he was earlier this season, and at any point since the initial release of Statcast bat tracking metrics in July ‘23. In August, his intercept point is 36.4 inches in front of his center of mass.
What has this led to? Well, looking at the spray chart of Duran’s hits in the first half (left) and the second half (right), we see that he’s using the one part of the field that he didn’t use before the break.
With all of this mind, Duran’s surge makes more sense. Pulling the ball with 86th percentile bat speed is a good recipe for power — even if it’s not of the dead-pull variety. It becomes less surprising, for example, that he recently clobbered a 446-foot home run in Minnesota, the longest of his five-year Major League career.
Andujar didn’t exactly profile as a high-impact bat when the Reds acquired him from the Athletics at this year’s Deadline. To date, he’s never quite managed to replicate his rookie season, when he finished as the runner-up to Shohei Ohtani for the AL Rookie of the Year Award. Since 2018, Andujar has managed just one season — 2023 — with an OPS north of .700.
Earlier this month, Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall said that Andujar “fits as a middle-of-the-order bat against lefties.” Maybe he’s onto something here. Andujar always hits lefties — he’s strafed them this year, with a 1.050 OPS — but we’re talking more about the first part. He’s looking the part of a certified slugger.
Last week, Andujar told Charlie Goldsmith that he just tries to “hit it hard,” and his hard-hit rate in his brief time with the Reds is comically high.
This isn’t exactly sustainable, but Andujar’s new approach might be. He’s always hit the ball out in front, except now he’s making contact even farther in front of his own body than he has in the past. That’s allowed him to access higher bat speeds, helping him hit the ball harder to the pull side. In a small sample size, he’s more than doubled his pull rate from July to August, up to 45.0%.
Everything is interconnected, and it’s propelled Andujar to a torrid start with the Reds.
Kyle Manzardo, Guardians
First-half wRC+ — 102
Second-half wRC+ — 198
Only six qualified hitters have a higher wRC+ since the All-Star break than Manzardo, who endured a prolonged slump earlier in the season. What gives? Well, here’s what Manzardo had to say about his recent success, back on July 30.
“I’m just seeing the ball deep, trying to stay in the middle,” Manzardo said. “Not trying to do too much to the straight pull side and just attacking pitches over the plate.”
This is particularly interesting, because it stands in contrast to everyone else in this story. Typically, players with elite bat speeds can afford to let the ball travel deeper, because they can still get the barrel around in time to drive the ball. That’s not Manzardo, whose bat speed is in the 28th percentile.
But here’s the thing: When Manzardo says he’s seeing the ball deep, he’s really just seeing the ball a bit deeper than he has previously. Manzardo still owns one of the shallowest intercept points in baseball, catching the ball farther in front of the plate than the vast majority of hitters — even if he’s become a little less pull-oriented insofar as the timing of his swing (his Attack Direction).
On the other hand, it’s clear that Manzardo is attacking pitches over the plate, and he’s punishing these pitches at a prudent rate:
That’s been a huge development for the Guardians, who have started the second half 17-8, boosting their postseason hopes behind a revived offense (seventh in team wRC+).
