Slow starts happen to everybody, even superstars.
In 2026, Fernando Tatís Jr. went from five homers in the first half to 20 after the All-Star break, and Alex Bregman more than doubled his first-half home run total in 160 fewer plate appearances.
Nolan Arenado, Jeremy Peña, and Jackson Merrill also flipped the script down the stretch. Let’s talk about these five MLB second-half breakouts from 2026 that stood out to me, and what changed for each of them.
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5 MLB Second-Half Breakouts From 2026
Fernando Tatís Jr., San Diego Padres
First Half: .277/.340/.374 line, 5 homers, 19 doubles, 35 RBI, 45 runs scored, 23 steals in 416 plate appearances
Second Half: .307/.385/.610 line, 20 homers, 13 doubles, 48 RBI, 51 runs scored, 15 steals in 288 plate appearances
Tatís’ inclusion has to be the least surprising of all. I mean, it’d be a crime if he somehow didn’t make it on here.
It’s not as if the right-handed slugger wasn’t making headlines throughout the start of the season. Unfortunately, it was for the wrong reasons. This is a dude who has a 40-homer campaign under his belt and has catapulted himself toward the top of the Padres’ all-time home run leaderboard…and he didn’t hit his first homer of 2026 until May 30.
But Tatís was still hitting the ball hard. Through the end of May (245 plate appearances), he posted a 38.0% hard-hit rate. His 21.2% line-drive rate looked healthy, but it came with a 25.5% fly-ball rate and a 53.5% ground-ball rate.
Hitting home runs is already hard. It’s even harder when you’re putting the ball on the ground that often. Luckily for the Padres, he turned things around in a big way through the remainder of the regular season.
Over his final 459 trips to the plate before the playoffs, Tatís raised his fly-ball rate nearly 10 percentage points to 35.1%, and his hard-hit rate went up to 42.6%. And, as you can see from the splits above, the homers came in bunches.
Alex Bregman, Chicago Cubs
First Half: .241/.336/.359 line, 9 homers, 15 doubles, 41 RBI, 45 runs scored in 431 plate appearances
Second Half: .303/.384/.626 line, 19 homers, 18 doubles, 52 RBI, 47 runs scored in 271 plate appearances
Bregman was essentially the centerpiece of Chicago’s offseason haul last winter. Signing a five-year, $175 million deal will do that. But heading into the All-Star break, the grizzled veteran with tons of postseason experience was having a hard time finding his way at the dish.
The third baseman started to find his footing in July. His .825 OPS that month was a big step up. He hadn’t finished a month above .721 before that. But then he took things to another level over the final two months.
Bregman posted an OPS above 1.000 in August and September, which included 17 homers, 12 doubles, 46 RBI, and 35 runs scored in just 48 games.
Something that probably helped along the way is that he handled breaking balls much better this season.
For the Boston Red Sox in 2025, he posted a .635 OPS against sliders and a .533 OPS against curveballs. But for the Cubbies, those numbers jumped to .872 and .789, respectively.
Nolan Arenado, Arizona Diamondbacks
First Half: .243/.317/.414 line, 12 homers, 17 doubles, 40 RBI, 45 runs scored in 347 plate appearances
Second Half: .272/.351/.558 line, 18 homers, 8 doubles, 46 RBI, 35 runs scored in 252 plate appearances
Who had Nolan Arenado posting a 30-homer campaign on their 2026 bingo card? I certainly didn’t, but it was nice to see the 35-year-old have a resurgence in the desert.
He finished the year with an .806 OPS, 30 home runs, 25 doubles, 86 RBI, 80 runs scored, and a 3.4 bWAR across 152 games for Arizona. Across 2024 and 2025 combined with the St. Louis Cardinals, he posted a .697 OPS with 28 homers, 41 doubles, 123 RBI, 118 runs scored, and a 4.0 bWAR…in 259 games played.
Arenado was productive for most of the year, but nothing quite matched what he did in September as the D-Backs were fighting for a playoff spot. Check out his monthly splits:
- March/April: .763 OPS, 5 homers, 17 RBI
- May: .844 OPS, 2 homers, 10 RBI
- June: .554 OPS, 2 homers, 7 RBI
- July: .803 OPS, 5 homers, 16 RBI
- August: .763 OPS, 7 homers, 15 RBI
- September: 1.154 OPS, 9 homers, 21 RBI
A change of scenery did the trick for the 10-time Gold Glove Award winner. He’s under contract for one more season as part of his nine-year, $275 million deal, so we’ll see what kind of encore he has in store for us.
Jeremy Peña, Houston Astros
First Half: .287/.347/.426 line, 6 homers, 9 doubles, 22 RBI, 35 runs scored in 216 plate appearances
Second Half: .270/.307/.516 line, 16 homers, 10 doubles, 34 RBI, 47 runs scored in 267 plate appearances
It was hard for anyone in Houston to make headlines while Yordan Alvarez racked up eye-popping numbers. But Peña did a good job putting together a strong second half as the Astros won an American League West division that seemingly nobody wanted to win.
The biggest difference between Peña and the rest of the dudes on this list is that he actually racked up more plate appearances in the second half compared to the first half. Some of the counting-stat jump came from volume, but his slugging percentage climbing 90 points shows the power surge was real.
He suited up for just 112 games in 2026 after never playing fewer than 125 in a season. Even so, Peña managed to record his second 20-homer season — his first since he was a rookie in 2022 — and tied his single-season career-high mark with 22 taters.
His final line (.802 OPS, 22 homers, 19 doubles, 56 RBI, 82 runs scored, 12 steals, and 3.7 bWAR) is even more impressive when you consider the start he endured.
Through Peña’s first 46 plate appearances of the season, he posted a .653 OPS with no homers, no RBI, five runs scored, and one stolen base. Sure, it was only 10 games. But he played in just 23 games through the end of May, so he essentially lost a month of action early on. It’s hard getting into a groove in the batter’s box when that happens, but he eventually figured things out.
Jackson Merrill, San Diego Padres
First Half: .219/.278/.350 line, 10 homers, 15 doubles, 38 RBI, 43 runs scored in 392 plate appearances
Second Half: .304/.339/.569 line, 16 homers, 11 doubles, 49 RBI, 43 runs scored in 272 plate appearances
I try to limit myself to one player per team when making these observations. But sometimes, I can’t help myself. I mean, come on…look at the difference in Jackson Merrill’s splits between the first half and the second half!
Between Merrill, Tatís, and others, it’s easy to see how the Padres went from posting a 48-48 record before the All-Star break to sporting a 43-23 record following the Midsummer Classic.
The 23-year-old outfielder improved his OPS by 280 (!) points between these two periods. If you look at his monthly breakdown, it’s like a switch flipped once the calendar turned to July.
Through the first three months of the season, he didn’t enjoy a month with more than three homers, 15 RBI, or an OPS above .640. But over the final three months, he registered at least four homers, 17 RBI, and an OPS above .850 in each month.
The improvements are clear as day when looking at his batted-ball profile, too. Here’s what it looked like through June 30:
- Line-drive rate: 20.3%
- Ground-ball rate: 40.5%
- Fly-ball rate: 39.2%
- Soft-hit rate: 15.9%
- Hard-hit rate: 35.7%
And here’s how it looked from July 1 through the end of the regular season:
- Line-drive rate: 25.7%
- Ground-ball rate: 32.3%
- Fly-ball rate: 42.0%
- Soft-hit rate: 8.0%
- Hard-hit rate: 45.6%
After finishing 2026 with a flourish, these dudes now have to carry that momentum into next season. Which of these hitters do you think will have the biggest 2027? I’m most intrigued to see how Fernando Tatís Jr. progresses from what he did over the second half of this season.
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