As we move into the dog days of summer we called upon the resident gurus to take up pens and pencils, keyboards and abacuses and put together our annual mid-year positional rankings. The rankings in the table below are the composite rankings of our staff, and for each position a couple of us will profile some risers, fallers, and names to know.

Riser: Addison Barger, Toronto Blue Jays (Preseason: 45, Current: 10)

The biggest mover on our list, and deservedly so, is Addison Barger. The Blue Jays’ combination third base/outfielder caught some notice after hitting 26 home runs across three levels in 2022, but then fell off the radar with an unimpressive performance in 2023 which was likely due to an elbow injury.  His 2024 season was split between Triple-A Buffalo and Toronto, and while his minor league statistics showed promise, he couldn’t hit his weight in 225 plate appearances at the major league level. This year he’s had a breakout season, combining good bat to ball skills with power to produce a .262/.316/.498 slash line with 16 home runs to date. The secret to his success, in addition to the 87% in-zone contact rate, is that he hits the ball very hard. Only twelve qualifying hitters have a hard hit rate higher than Barger’s 54% and that list includes the names you would expect, Aaron Judge, Kyle Schwarber, and Romy Gonzalez among others. Fantasy managers would like to see a higher walk rate (6.7% this year) but that’s not his game. That aside, the only challenge to keeping him in our top ten third base list will be the impending move to the outfield. I can’t find a single fielding metric where he ranks in the top twenty for third base and a permanent move to the outfield is imminent.

Faller: Josh Jung, Texas Rangers (Preseason: 14, Current: 17)

I did not have Josh Jung spending most of July in Triple-A Round Rock working on his game on my bingo card, and neither did you. But after he posted a slash line of .232/.279/.364 with a wRC+ of 79 through the end of June, that’s exactly what happened. And if I had predicted that, I certainly wouldn’t have said he’d come back and hit .382/.447/.647 with a wRC+ over 200 in his first ten games back in the bigs. There is so much to unpack just looking at this year – since his return to the Rangers his hard hit rate is 65% and he has a BABIP of .500, clearly unsustainable but telling that something changed for the better during his time in the minors and it will be interesting to see how the rest of the season unfolds.

Looking back at the past three years, I am having trouble finding the reasons for the drop-off from his above-average 2023 to demotion-worthy 2025. Usually there’s something in the underlying statistics to pick up on, but Jung’s deep stats look very similar year to year. There has been a drop off in BABIP from .340 in 2023 to .312 in 2025, but that’s still about normal and a little less luck shouldn’t explain all the regression. He’s never walked at a high rate, so even with a career high 6% walk rate this year, his OBP isn’t getting a boost even though his batting average is still a respectable .252. His 2025 hard hit rate of 44% is lower than 2023 (47%) but higher than last year (39%). His contact rates are the highest of his career. In short, other than barrel percentage, there’s nothing that says he should have been doing as poorly as he was early this season. I’m buying the bounce back, in fact he was dropped in one of my shallower leagues and I’m glad I snapped him up. He may be falling a bit in our rankings right now, but my advice is to hold him if you have him, and make some offers if you think other managers are ready to move on.

Player to watch: Sal Stewart, Cincinnati Reds (Preseason: 42, Current: 32)

Even though it would not be correct to say that Sal Stewart is overlooked, I still think he’s poised to surprise a few people in the next few years. Stewart was the 32nd player drafted in the 2022 draft, played at Single-A Daytona and High-A Dayton in 2023 and spent all of 2024 in High-A. He began this year in Double-A Chattanooga and hit well enough to earn a promotion to Triple-A Louisville last month. His calling card is his hit tool, he’s hitting over .300 this year and has an overall contact rate over 80%, with swinging strike rates under 10%. Here’s an interesting small sample statistic, in 64 plate appearances after his promotion to Triple-A, his contact rate on pitches out of the zone is an eye-popping 79.5%. That’s Stephen Kwan territory. Stewart isn’t hitting a ton of home runs, but he’s a line drive hitting doubles machine and his .305/.372/.494 slash line is impressive. If he stays with the Reds, playing home games in Great American Ballpark will boost the home run totals. There are questions about his fielding and the way the Reds move players around the field, there’s no guarantee he’ll remain at third base, but his hitting skills will make it difficult to keep him out of the lineup.

(Drew Klein)

Riser: Eugenio Suarez, Seattle Mariners (Preseason: 24, Current: 6)

We all should have seen this coming, right? I mean Eugenio Suarez did hit .307 with 20 home runs, 53 RBI, and 51 runs scored in 65 games after the all-star break last year. But even still, 31 first-half home runs in 2025? 78 RBI? I’m not sure we could have seen THAT coming. Over the past 12 months, Suarez has shown that he has plenty left in the tank, and while he will spend the rest of 2025 in Seattle rather than Arizona, and he will be a free agent in 2025, there are no signs to suggest that the slugger is anything other than who he has been for much of his career: a somewhat streaky, perennial 30 home run, 100 RBI threat who won’t hurt you too much in average and OBP. At a veteran-heavy position, Geno remains as steady as they come.

Faller – Mark Vientos, New York Mets (Preseason: 8, Current: 15)

Mark Vientos broke out for the Mets in 2024, belting 27 home runs in just 111 games to firmly entrench himself in the starting lineup in Queens. In fact, the Mets seemed to have so much confidence in him that this past off-season Vientos was poised to take over for Pete Alonso at first base before Alonso decided to return to the Mets as a free agent. This year has been a different story for the 25-year-old slugger, as he has battled injuries and played out an uneven season thus far that has seen him hit .236 with just 7 home runs in 76 games.

Much of Vientos’s underlying data looks roughly similar to what it was a year ago, with the exception of his barrel rate dropping from 14.1% (91st percentile) to 7.8% (40th percentile). Statcast uses park factor data to identify a stat they call “xHR”, or the number of home runs a player would have hit if park data were neutralized. Per xHR, Vientos hit 6 more home runs than expected between the regular season and playoffs in 2024, suggesting that he was somewhat fortunate with the longball last year. That seems to be backed up by his 26.5% HR/FB rate last year, which is down to 9.6% so far in 2025. xHR also suggests Vientos has gotten a bit unlucky so far this season, estimating that he has hit 2 fewer home runs than expected on the campaign.

What does all of this mean? Well, that Vientos seems to be trying to find some consistency in the big leagues, and that it may take another season or two before we know who he is as a major leaguer. Add in the fact that none of the other Mets youngsters have taken the reigns convincingly at the hot corner, and there is still plenty of intrigue and upside looking ahead to 2026 and beyond.

Player to watch – Brooks Lee, Minnesota Twins (Preseason: Unranked, Current: 29)

My player to watch in the second half of 2025 is Twins infielder Brooks Lee. A once-heralded prospect, Lee made his debut in 2024, putting up a relatively pedestrian stat line of .221/.265/.320 in 50 games. Lee joined a crowded infield in 2025 as well, but the 24 year old got his chance at the hot corner, filling in for the oft-injured Royce Lewis, while also covering second base at times in the first half of the season. After the Twins fire sale at the trade deadline, Lee seems poised to get a long look at shortstop to close out 2025, which should provide him with his first chance to play in the big leagues without feeling like he is a bad week, or another player returning from injury, away from losing his job. Lee showed a discerning eye at the plate throughout his minor league career, and has managed to keep his strikeout rate below 20% in the big leagues in 2025. Despite not being known for his power, he has also belted 10 home runs on the season in just 93 games this season, and I would expect his walk rate to tick up as he continues to get more comfortable in the majors. I’m not planting my flag here for a breakout second half, but there is more than enough intrigue here to keep an eye on Brooks Lee to close out the 2025 season.

(David Gofman)