With the second half underway, our fantasy baseball analysts each picked one player to target in trades and one player to try to move off their roster. Here’s the full breakdown of two buys and two sells worth considering right now.
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Fantasy Baseball Trade Advice: Second-Half Moves (2026)
Buy: Eugenio Suarez (3B – CIN)
Suarez has a well-established track record as a career second-half performer. For his career, he hits .255 after the break compared to .237 before it, and the power numbers show an even bigger jump, with his ISO climbing from .203 in the first half to .234 in the second half and his slugging percentage rising from .440 to .489. Last year was an exception to that trend, but only because a midseason trade sent him to one of the league’s worst hitting ballparks, which masked what should have been another strong second-half power surge.
The early signs this year point in the right direction. Suarez already homered in back-to-back games this past weekend, and he’s healthy again after dealing with a wrist issue earlier in the season, giving him a rested, clean runway into the second half. He’s also a known streaky hitter, which fits the profile of someone who can get hot in a hurry once he locks in. There’s an added trade-market wrinkle here too: Suarez looks like a strong candidate to be dealt before the deadline, and as long as that destination isn’t the pitcher-friendly park he struggled in last year, almost any other landing spot should be a neutral-to-positive change of scenery. A reunion with a division rival looking to add a bat as a buyer wouldn’t be a shock either.
Buy: Wilyer Abreu (OF – BOS)
This isn’t a traditional buy-low, since Abreu has actually been hot over the last several games. He was one of our analysts’ favorite preseason picks, went through two or three months of merely average production, and now looks like he’s turning a corner. His season line already looks solid: 15 home runs, six stolen bases, and a .264 batting average, with a lowered strikeout rate.
The case gets stronger looking at the data since June 1st. Abreu has been the single best player on his team by WAR over that stretch, coinciding with his team’s 13-game winning streak, and he’s done it despite a depressed BABIP sitting around .240 during that window compared to roughly .300 for the season, suggesting real bad luck rather than a change in underlying skill. The exit velocity data backs that up: his average exit velocity has climbed to 91 miles per hour since June 1st, up from around 90 for the season, and his barrel rate over that stretch ranks 12th-best in baseball at 15.9%, well above his roughly 13% season-long mark. His expected batting average over that same window sits around .245, meaningfully higher than what his actual results have shown. With his team potentially adding more offensive pieces around him and his trade price still relatively low given how briefly the hot streak has been visible publicly, now looks like the right window to buy in before the price catches up to the underlying trends.
Sell: Jake McCarthy (OF – COL)
McCarthy is having a strong season by the numbers, currently ranked inside the top 50 outfielders on a major platform, with 10 home runs and 17 stolen bases and a hot recent stretch. But context matters here. His teammates have posted strong numbers across the board this year, a sign that a lot of value on this roster is inflated by playing half its games at altitude, and the belief is that several players on this roster could be traded if they hold real value at the deadline.
McCarthy’s own home-road splits make the case clearly. His batting average holds up reasonably well on the road, dipping from .320 at home to .285 away, but the power collapses away from his home park: seven home runs at home compared to just three on the road, an ISO of .267 at home versus .153 on the road, and a slugging percentage of .545 at home compared to .438 away. He’s also currently hitting leadoff, an ideal spot for accumulating runs and stolen bases. If he gets traded, there’s no guarantee he keeps that lineup spot, and his power profile on the road already looks a lot closer to what he’d likely provide in a new, non-Coors home park. Between the park-inflated power numbers and the batting-order uncertainty that comes with a likely trade, now looks like a good time to sell while he’s thriving in a full-time role at altitude.
Sell: Seiya Suzuki (OF – CHC)
Suzuki’s season line looks solid on the surface: 15 home runs, a .273 batting average, and decent counting stats, a line that’s actually fairly comparable to Abreu’s season aside from stolen bases. But the underlying skills tell a more concerning story. His barrel rate has fallen from an elite mark near 16% last year to under 10% this season. He’s getting the ball in the air more and still trying to pull it, but with a much lower hard-hit rate to show for it, and both his average and max exit velocity are down significantly, now sitting around 89 and 112 miles per hour respectively. His strikeout rate also remains high.
Since June 1st specifically, Suzuki has actually been the beneficiary of good luck rather than a real breakout, posting the seventh-highest BABIP in baseball over that stretch at .372. Even with that batted-ball luck working in his favor, he’s managed only eight home runs and zero stolen bases since June 1st, with solid but unspectacular runs and RBI totals propped up more by lineup context than his own individual form. With his team’s direction at the deadline still unclear and Suzuki dealing with injury issues of his own this year, there’s real risk of a correction once that BABIP normalizes, with his expected batting average sitting closer to .250. Given his name value is still high, now looks like the window to sell into the good performance before a likely cooldown, ideally in exchange for a more well-rounded return.
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