At 34, Miguel Cabrera is certainly at the age where a dropoff wouldn't be unexpected. His .266 average would be the worst of his career – his rookie season is the only one even close – and his isolated slugging percentage (.183) would be the worst of his career to boot. Given the elevated power numbers around the league, this points to a pretty steep decline.
Don't buy it. Cabrera's strikeout rate is up a tad, but a 20.9 percent K-rate is hardly cause for alarm, given how positive all of his other indicators are. He's sporting a 48.8 percent hard-hit rate and 27.9 percent line-drive rate, two signs that he's hitting the ball about as well as anyone in baseball. He might be a diminished version of himself, but that diminished version should still be one of the best hitters in the league.
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Masahiro Tanaka, SP, Yankees
There's one glaring issue for Masahiro Tanaka, and that's keeping the ball in the yard. He has allowed 21 homers in 97 2/3 innings, after giving up 22 in 199 2/3 a year ago. For that reason, his 4.90 FIP suggests good times may not be in his future.
However, historically, Tanaka has allowed a home run on about 15 percent of his flyballs allowed; this season, that number is 3.84. Everything else pretty much looks like you would expect, with Tanaka striking out more than three batters for every walk, while picking up groundballs at a healthy rate. He's allowed just three runs of his last three starts, so the turnaround may have already begun. Buy it.
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Manny Machado, 3B, Orioles
Manny Machado is having a similar season to Cabrera, putting together his worst season to date, despite nearly all signs pointing in the right direction. He's hitting just .215/.283/.418, despite sporting a career-high 38.6 percent hard-hit rate. Even beyond that, Machado is a proven elite hitter, and unless he's dealing with some kind of undisclosed injury, there really isn't any reason to think he's just lost it. Buy the talent.
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Jose Quintana, SP, White Sox
For four years before this one, Jose Quintana was a model of consistency, posting an ERA between 3.51 and 3.20 each season, with nearly identical peripherals across the board. That has all changed, as he has watched both his strikeout and walk rates reach career-high points, with his ERA similarly jumping up to 4.45, the highest it's ever been. We've already seen Quintana turn things around, posting a 1.78 ERA in the month of June, and he should be a lot closer to that than to his 5.00-plus mark from the first two months. He's not a star, but Quintana is a much more reliable pitcher than he has appeared to be so far.
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Matt Carpenter, 3B, Cardinals
Like Machado or Cabrera, the batted-ball data points to Carpenter having a much better season than his low-800s OPS suggests. A career .279 hitter with a .322 BABIP, Carpenter is hitting just .231, with a .248 mark on balls in play. He isn't striking out any more than normal, is hitting for plenty of power, and is still walking plenty. When those hits start dropping? Well, he hit .298/.420/.568 last year before the break. You'd be crazy to give up on him.
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Jeff Samardzija, SP, Giants
Samardzija has an ERA below 4.50 in just one of the first three months of the season, despite posting a 3.41 FIP for the season. He's having trouble keeping the ball in the yard, which couldn't come as much of a surprise given his history. However, his 16.7 percent HR/FB rate is even higher than his career 11.6 percent rate, so there's plenty of room for that to come back to Earth. I'd bet on it.
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Kyle Schwarber, OF, Cubs
Schwarber was probably a bit overhyped coming into the season. He had never proved he could really hit lefties in the majors, but was still being drafted high, despite one half season with a .246/.355/.487 line. He wasn't bad in 2015, but he was more of a risk than his price showed. What we saw in the first half of this season was pretty much the worst-case scenario for Schwarber. As a top-100 pick, he was too risky to rely on. Now? You might be able to trade for him without giving up much of value – if he's even owned in your league! At that price, Schwarber's upside is all that matters.
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Marco Estrada, SP, Blue Jays
Over the last few years, Estrada has been one of the most unconventional pitchers in baseball, excelling at keeping runs off the board despite his middling peripherals. That's because he was able to keep hits to a minimum, posting a BABIP below .240 in each year. This year, he looks a lot more conventional, and a lot worse for it, with 9.80 K/9, but also a .325 BABIP and 5.17 ERA. What regresses first, the BABIP or the strikeout rate? I'll bet both come back to Earth, but it still makes sense to expect Estrada to be more like the mid-3.00's ERA pitcher he's been moving forward.
