We’re approaching the end of June, which means the second half of the season is just around the corner. Now is the time when hot starts can turn into career years, and cold streaks can become lost seasons. It’s when rookie stars emerge and big trades go down. And it’s when most fantasy owners figure out if they are contenders or pretenders in their leagues.

So let’s jump into some burning questions. As always, if you’ve got some questions of your own, just shoot me a message on Twitter.

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Which players would benefit most from a deadline deal?
The MLB trade deadline is still five weeks away, but in competitive fantasy leagues, it’s time to start stashing players who could get a big value boost from a deadline deal. The first place to look is closers-in-waiting.

White Sox closer David Robertson has been the most likely closer to be dealt for months, and if the Nationals don’t pay up someone else probably will. With Nate Jones out of commission with elbow issues, Tommy Kahnle (and his 15.25 K/9 rate) has emerged as a priority add whether you own Robertson or not. Braves closer Jim Johnson has been effective and is signed to an affordable two-year contract, but if they deal him like they traded Jason Grilli last year, Arodys Vizcaino has the skills to be an excellent ninth inning man. Royals closer Kelvin Herrera has also long been rumored to be dealt, but between his struggles and his two-year contract, the Royals may opt to hold him until the offseason or next year’s deadline. If Herrera is dealt, however, set-up man Joakim Soria could inherit the closer role, although he could be traded himself. Justin Wilson, A.J. Ramos, Bud Norris, and Raisel Iglesias are other closers who could conceivably be dealt, so Alex Wilson, David Phelps, Cam Bedrosian, Drew Storen, and Michael Lorenzen are other arms that could find their way to saves in the season’s second half.

Some struggling AL starters could also see a modest value boost from a trade to the NL, including Sonny Gray, Jose Quintana, and Alex Cobb.

Can Aaron Judge win the Triple Crown?
As we speak, Judge is the number one player in standard 5×5 roto leagues. His 23 home runs are tops in baseball, his 53 RBIs are six behind Jake Lamb for the lead, and his .335 batting average puts him 12 points behind Buster Posey for the batting title. Not bad for a guy who went 282nd overall in fantasy leagues this spring.

People have been calling for regression for Judge for quite awhile now, but it hasn’t happened yet. In fact, June could easily end up being his best month so far. Judge is a huge guy who hits the ball as hard as anyone, so at this point, it’s not a stretch to say that he has as good a shot as anybody to league the league in both home runs and RBIs.

The one place where regression does seem inevitable, though, is batting average. Judge’s .431 BABIP is the highest in baseball, and it’s simply not sustainable even though he’s making hard contact nearly half of the time he puts the ball in play. His 29.3 percent strikeout rate is just outside the top-10. He and Mark Reynolds (who plays half his games at Coors) are the only two hitters in the top-40 in strikeout rate that are hitting over .300. Judge hit .270 at Triple-A in 2016, and that is probably a fair over/under for the batting average his owners can expect from here on out.

What’s the matter with Manny Machado?
While Judge was being selected 282nd in fantasy drafts, Machado was going eighth on average. Yet Machado currently ranks 273rd (135th among hitters) in 5×5 roto value, according to Baseball Monster, while remaining relatively healthy, making him the single biggest bust in fantasy leagues through the first half of the season.

Machado’s power and run production numbers are on pace to fall short of his 2015 and 2016 totals, but the biggest drag on his fantasy value is his lowly .214 batting average. His 21.4 percent strikeout rate is up about four percent from last year, which doesn’t help matters, but an even bigger factor is that his .227 BABIP is 76 points below his career average. His hard contact rate is actually up this year, to a more-than-respectable 40.7 percent, but the problem is that very few of those hits are line drives. Machado’s 13.4 percent line drive rate is tied for the second-lowest in baseball, joining Kyle Schwarber and Mike Napoli, who are struggling even more than Machado in the batting average department.

Fangraph’s Andrew Perpetua recently wrote that Machado’s issues with launch angle are most likely due to random variation, which could certainly be the case. It’s also possible that a small mechanical issue is to blame. Regardless, Machado is a young superstar with multiple elite seasons on his resume, so he’s an obvious hold in keeper leagues. In single-season leagues, it would be unwise to sell low on him, because his average is sure to rise and the power should be there. But his owners should be prepared for the possibility that he hits for a bit lower average than we’ve come to expect because of fewer line drives and more strikeouts.

Can Mike Zunino possibly keep this up?
Zunino is hitting .385 with eight home runs in 15 games in June, so no, he probably can’t keep that up. But given the sorry state of the catcher position for fantasy purposes, two hot weeks have already vaulted Zunino up to eighth in 5×5 value among backstops. So he needs to be taken seriously in leagues of all sizes.

Even during his scorching June, Zunino is striking out at a 34.5 percent clip (he’s at 38.7 percent for the year), so he is not going to be a help in batting average in the long term. That said, Zunino’s hard contact and line drive rates are both up significantly this season, so if he can continue to make quality contact he shouldn’t be as severe a drain on batting average as years past, despite the high strikeout rate. And the power here is legit. He hit 22 home runs in 438 at-bats in 2014 and 12 homers in 164 at-bats last season (albeit with batting averages hovering around the Mendoza line), so his recent homer binge isn’t totally unexpected.

Among all positions, catcher is the one where it might be worth chasing a hot hitter, rather than sticking with a name brand who just isn’t producing. As Zunino has proven, a short hot streak can give you more production than three months’ worth of stats from many other players at fantasy’s weakest position.  

Is it time to chase Chase Anderson?
Anderson is quietly putting together a very nice season for the Brew Crew and fantasy owners, with a 2.92 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, and 8.32 K/9. In June he’s been even better, posting a cool 1.30 ERA and 0.76 WHIP across four starts. Yet Anderson is still available in almost a quarter of Yahoo leagues, and the price probably isn’t too high to acquire him on the trade market.

Anderson’s BABIP and left on base percentage are both better this year than his career numbers, but not outrageously so. His main area for likely regression is with the home run ball, as his 7.4 percent HR/FB rate is the fifth-best in baseball and well below his career rate. The number is particularly concerning when you consider that he is also among the top-20 in fly ball percentage. As a result, his xFIP is an uninspiring 4.30.

That said, Anderson’s strikeout and walk rates are both a bit above average, and he’s also doing a decent job of limiting hard contact, so he shouldn’t completely fall off the map. Just don’t expect the sparkling numbers to last.

Can we trust Fernando Rodney now?
Here we go again. Rodney hasn’t given up an earned run since the end of April — a dominant streak spanning 17 appearances. Of course, Rodney was so bad in April that his ERA still sits at a bloated 4.73.

This is one player where we don’t really need to dig into the peripherals; Rodney is who he is at this point. He strikes out a lot of hitters. He walks a lot of hitters. He can look completely dominant one moment and completely washed up the next. Last year, he had a 0.31 ERA in 28 appearances with the Padres, and a 5.89 ERA in 39 appearances with the Marlins. The year before, it was a 5.68 ERA in 54 appearances with the Mariners and a 0.75 ERA in 14 appearances with the Cubs. His career ERA sits between these two extremes at 3.73.

If you’re a Rodney owner, you should enjoy the good times while they last, with the recognition that he may be unusable later in the season. And if someone is willing to give you a more reliable closer for Rodney, I’d probably pull the trigger while he’s looking unstoppable.

Which Rockies starting pitchers should I own?
In years past, my answer to this question in standard leagues would be “none of them”. But it’s hard to find reliable starting pitching these days, and some Rockies hurlers are doing well enough to merit real consideration, especially for their road starts.

My favorite Rockies starter to own is Tyler Chatwood, because of his dramatic home/road splits. This year, he has a 6.39 ERA and 1.71 WHIP at Coors, but a 2.41 ERA and 0.99 WHIP on the road. Last year, he had a 6.12 ERA and 1.64 WHIP at home, but a 1.69 ERA and 1.11 WHIP on the road. In other words, Chatwood has pitched like an ace on the road for the last year and a half. There’s real streaming value there.

The Colorado starter with the best numbers so far is Jeff Hoffman, who sports a 2.25 ERA and 0.94 WHIP through five starts, while striking out more than a batter per inning. But Hoffman owners should be aware that only one of his four good starts this year has come at Coors Field — I’d only use him in road starts for now. German Marquez was annihilated in his first start of the season, but actually has a solid 3.08 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, and 8.9 K/9 since then, so he also deserves consideration away from home.

Kyle Freeland boasts a 3.42 ERA and has actually been slightly better at Coors than on the road, but his high WHIP and low strikeout rate should leave fantasy managers skeptical. And while Antonio Senzatela has also been solid at Coors, he only has one good start in his last seven, so he should be off limits for now in the vast majority of leagues.

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Andrew Seifter is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Andrew, check out his archive and follow him @andrew_seifter.