The All-Star break has come and gone, and it is back to the fantasy baseball grind. The second half is a great time to make up points in the standings as many check out throughout a long season or even have some of their attention on fantasy football. No matter where you are in the standings, there is still plenty of time to make up ground, so don’t give up.

I have provided you with Quick Grades for the shortened week for hitters that will hopefully help you kick off a strong start to the second half of the season.

The Quick Grade Series

Each week, I will provide breakdowns of hitters with a grade range from 40 to 100. Think about a school grade (90-100 being an A, 80-89 equaling a B, 70-79 = C, and so on). Grades are weighted based on several different factors that I discuss below.

This week covers games for the week of Thursday, July 21, through Sunday, July 24.

You can find the Week 14 Quick Grades here.

How It Works

We established that each hitter would have a grade based on four categories that would land them a total score between 40 and 100. Each of the four categories will are graded from 10 to 25, which lands us at that total score. Here is what goes into it:

• Games Played – Let’s start simple. The more games played in a week, the more stats a player can accumulate. Maximizing plate appearances for fantasy baseball is huge. If the player you roster has seven games versus a different player having five games, it is a no-brainer. If a team is scheduled to play seven games that week, the team’s hitter will get 25 points. Six games earn a hitter 23 points, and five games drop you down to 20. If a team is set to play more than seven games in a week, that player will get 27 points for games.
• Ballpark Factors – Is a hitter playing four games in Coors? What about three in Oakland? These things matter. We will use the FantasyPros park factors to help us out there. I have created an algorithm that gives each ballpark a score from 10-25. Then factoring in how many games a hitter plays where each week, a score of 10-to-25 is given.
• Matchups – Does a hitter have strong splits against a left or right-handed pitcher? What if they face three lefties this week with a poor split against lefties. We factor that in.
• Projections – Finally, we will factor in projections. I will update using FantasyPros projections and scale them down to a weekly projection. It is not perfect, but using projections with the other factors can help project how a player might perform.

Hitter Grades (7/21-7/24)

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Chris Clegg is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Chris, check out his archive and follow him @RotoClegg.