I'm going to have my standard weekend recap on Monday morning, but after that, we've got four straight days with no real baseball action, so it's a good time to hit the reset button. I've already got my second-half sleepers, breakouts, and bust picks for you here, but that's only 30 players – I'm sure you've got questions about plenty of others, and this is your chance to get them answered.
So send your biggest, toughest second-half questions my way at [email protected] with the subject line "Ask FFT" to be featured in a mailbag newsletter next week. We'll also have some All-Star break content for you next week, plus Scott White's mid-season top prospects update, and more to help you get ready for the second half of the season.
For now, send those questions in, and let's get to what you need to know from Thursday's action around MLB:
Friday's waiver targets
Michael Busch, 1B, Cubs (62%) – Boy, when Busch gets hot, watch out. Busch's season-long OPS dipped as low as .766 in early June, and was still down below .800 11 games ago, which makes it awfully impressive that he's back up to .853 after this recent run. In the past 10 games, Busch has homered three times, and while he didn't go deep Thursday, he did hammer a couple of doubles during a 2-for-4 day that also included a walk, three runs, and two RBI. Busch has struck out just five times in the past 10 games and is hitting .400 in that span with eight extra-base hits, and while we've seen how quiet the bat can go when he gets cold, the overall still looks pretty good for Fantasy.
Tyler Stephenson, C, Reds (46%) – It feels like catcher is in a decent spot right now overall and Stephenson's hot play of late is part of that. He really struggled in June but was still making plenty of contact, and he's really turned it on in July, with four homers in his past three games. That has his season-long OPS up to .770 after Thursday's two-homer showing, and the underlying numbers suggest he should remain a pretty productive hitter for a catcher. It's not the most exciting profile in the world, but a catcher who can hit 18 or so homers without killing your batting average is worth using in two-catcher leagues, and even some one-catcher formats.
Brandon Pfaadt, SP, Diamondbacks (72%) – I don't think Pfaadt is especially underrostered at this point, but if you wanted to add him where available, I don't think that's a terrible idea, especially in points leagues. He still seems prone to the occasional blowup that has kept his ratios inflated, but Pfaadt's ability to consistently pitch deep into games – 14 of 19 starts with at least six innings – is pretty notable for points leagues especially. He had the sweeper and fastball both working in this one and his velocity was up significantly, which is worth noting moving forward.
Aaron Civale, SP, Brewers (47%) – We don't often expect pitchers to improve after leaving the Rays, but the Brewers clearly saw something in Civale they felt they could mold in trading for him last week. Through two starts, he has 14 strikeouts in 11.1 innings of work, and Thursday's was one of his best of the season, as he limited the Pirates to just one run over 6.1 innings in a tough-luck loss. Civale went with a more balanced approach Thursday, throwing his cutter, sinker, sweeper, and curveball between 16% and 32% of the time, and it worked out for him. I'm not sure there's much more than fringe starter upside here – but if he can pound the zone and avoid hard contact like he did Thursday, there's some appeal here.
Jesus Sanchez, OF, Marlins (14%) – Sanchez has had pretty tremendous underlying numbers all season, but it was hard to get excited about it because it still just wasn't showing up consistently in games. That's starting to change lately, as Sanchez is now hitting .357 since the start of July after a two-double performance against the Astros Thursday. He had three homers in his previous seven games, too, so this wasn't just a one-game thing, either. Sanchez still really can't hit lefties, which limits his overall appeal, but he also has an elite 93.6 mph average exit velocity and 52.1% hard-hit rate and should at least be very useful in daily-lineup leagues where you can get him out of the lineup when the Marlins have lefties on the schedule.
Masataka Yoshida, OF, Red Sox (49%) – We tend to think of free-swinging types as being especially streaky, but Yoshida's contact-forward approach has led to plenty of inconsistency in his brief MLB career so far. He struggled mightily in June, hitting .200 despite just seven strikeouts in 55 trips to the plate, and he actually fared much better in July despite nine strikeouts in 39 plate appearances. Maybe he's just swinging harder? Yoshida went 3 for 4 with a homer and four RBI Thursday, and his only out came on a 108-mph line drive that had a .630 expected batting average. Yoshida's whole profile would be a lot more appealing if he ran a bit more, but he should be a solid source of batting average, with some run and RBI upside in a Red Sox lineup that looks pretty formidable these days.
