2024 Fantasy Baseball: Redrafting the first two rounds for the second half

July 1 marks the technical, if unofficial, halfway point in the season. Yup, we’re over the hump now.

And yet, given the peculiarities of this season, it still feels like we’re waiting for things to normalize, particularly with regard to hitters.

There’s been some progress on that front in recent weeks. This table shows how the league environment has played fairer for hitters since June 15 (using 2023 as our standard for fairness).

It suggests that our continued patience with high-end bats will indeed be rewarded and that not every preconception should be upended after only three months of play.

But no doubt, our attitudes toward some players have changed during that time, even at the highest end. One way to measure this is to redraft the first two rounds for the rest of the season, so that’s what I’ve done here. Not surprisingly, the picks are skewed toward hitters since they’ve been the scarcer commodity so far.

Note that these rankings are for traditional Rotisserie leagues (i.e., 5×5 scoring). I address Head-to-Head points leagues further below. 

For H2H points

Round 1
1. Aaron Judge, OF, NYY
2. Shohei Ohtani, DH, LAD
3. Juan Soto, OF, NYY
4. Bobby Witt, SS, KC
5. Jose Ramirez, 3B, CLE
6. Gunnar Henderson, 3B/SS, BAL
7. Kyle Tucker, OF, HOU
8. Freddie Freeman, 1B, LAD
9. Bryce Harper, 1B, PHI
10. Yordan Alvarez, OF, HOU
11. Elly De La Cruz, 3B/SS, CIN
12. Tarik Skubal, SP, DET
Round 2
13. Francisco Lindor, SS, NYM
14. Trea Turner, SS, PHI
15. Jose Altuve, 2B, HOU
16. Rafael Devers, 3B, BOS
17. Zack Wheeler, SP, PHI
18. Corbin Burnes, SP, BAL
19. Mookie Betts, 2B/SS/OF, LAD
20. C.J. Abrams, SS, WAS
21. Julio Rodriguez, OF, SEA
22. Austin Riley, 3B, ATL
23. Royce Lewis, 3B, MIN
24. Marcell Ozuna, DH, ATL