When Michael Conforto only missed a handful of games to begin the year, he looked like an incredible draft-day steal after originally being expected to miss up to a month recovering from shoulder surgery. But as it turns out, that quick return to the field hasn’t come with the results investors were hoping for.

Conforto hasn’t exactly resembled the budding star of 2017, posting a mere .224/.346/.380 batting line with a modest .318 wOBA. He’s slugged a serviceable 10 home runs, but both his .157 ISO and 87.5 mph average exit velocity are the lowest of his career. Perhaps some more recovery time would have been preferred after all?

Luckily, there are some glimmers of hope from Conforto’s recent play. Over the last 30 days, he’s produced a 41.8% hard-hit rate and 41.8% fly-ball rate, a positive sign that the power could be coming around. And while it hasn’t translated to much better results, he’s also displayed a solid .355 xwOBA over that span.

Despite his struggles, Conforto is actually showing the best walk rate he’s ever had (15.0%), and he isn’t striking out any more than usual (25.2%). Although we don’t necessarily expect him to hit for a high average, a somewhat low .276 BABIP might suggest there’s some poor luck at play as well.

Overall, it’s still hard to say whether we’ll see last season’s version of Conforto emerge, but there’s enough here to suggest an improved second half could be in the cards. Maybe it’s not the stellar value we were hoping for in March, but at this point we’ll gladly settle for some incremental improvements.

Now, let’s check in on how some other guys are doing around the league.

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Chris Davis is producing a .239 ISO over his last dozen games

Conforto may not be having a banner season, but he practically looks like an MVP in comparison to Chris Davis.

In fact, Davis has been one of the downright worst hitters in all of baseball, posting the lowest wOBA among qualified batters (.218). The most concerning thing has been Davis’ total lack of power, slugging just seven home runs with a paltry .107 ISO. It’s not like we’re expecting any miracles in batting average, but for the second straight year he’s showing a strikeout rate above 36%. Needless to say, with no power, average, or speed, Davis has brought literally nothing to the table in 2018.

So why are we bothering to bring him up? Well, there’s a sign that maybe, just maybe, Davis could be turning things around. In mid-June, Davis took a 10-day hiatus to work on his swing, and since his return, he’s actually demonstrated some of that long lost power. Across 12 games, he’s posted a .239 ISO, and three of this year’s seven dingers have come over this span. While it’s concerning that the hard-hit rate remains underwhelming (29.0%), he’s hitting a massive number of fly balls (58.1%), which can only help his home run chances. The batting average also remains poor, but a 31.4% strikeout rate is a small step up.

Obviously, we’re hardly out of the woods following a dozen games, and we could very well see Davis revert back to being completely useless. But at the very least, he deserves monitoring in deep formats. Davis is probably going to post a miserable batting average no matter what, but if he can at least get it to a palatable range and regain that consistent power, he’ll have his uses. In a day and age where guys like Yoan Moncada and Joey Gallo are practically universally owned, a poor batting average isn’t the fantasy death sentence it used to be.

Alen Hanson owns a .353 wOBA over 134 plate appearances

Alen Hanson remains available in most formats, but he’s quietly putting up solid numbers while getting regular playing time for the San Francisco Giants. Over 134 plate appearances, Hanson has done a little bit of everything, slashing .280/.313/.528 with five home runs and four stolen bases. He owns a very solid .353 wOBA, and it hasn’t come from completely nowhere, given he was tearing it up in Triple-A too (.491 wOBA).

Realistically, although he’s managed a .248 ISO, Hanson’s track record suggests modest power moving forward. He hasn’t hit a home run since June 6th and posted a meager .124 ISO in the majors last year. He also doesn’t have a terribly noteworthy average exit velocity.

However, there’s some nice speed potential here. Hanson snagged 71 stolen bases from 2015-16 in Triple-A, and already has 10 between the majors and minors this season. While he’s not up there with the elite speedsters, he’s still displaying some above average sprint speed. The one blemish is he hasn’t shown much willingness to draw walks (5.2%), which hurts his OBP potential.

Perhaps best of all, Hanson is getting frequent starts as the Giants’ leadoff man, which is a nice boost to his counting stats. In all, we’re dealing with a limited sample size, so we don’t ultimately know what the upside is, but there’s a lot to like here. And as a guy who plays all over the field, he could have multi-positional eligibility in many formats.

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Kenyatta Storin is a featured writer with FantasyPros. For more from Kenyatta, check out his archive and follow him @kenyattastorin.