5 Slumps that are about to End

Also known as the buy-low list, here are five players who are either slumping right now or have been slumping all season, and the reasons why their slumps (hopefully) won't last. Some players are just second-half guys, for whatever reason.

1. Mark Teixeira -- If you have played fantasy baseball at all in the past few years, you know what Teix is capable of doing after the all-star break (which is coming up on July 12). In 2009, he hit .313 after the break and raised both his on-base and slugging percentages significantly. In 2008, the first- and second-half differences were even more dramatic -- he went from batting .271 to .366; slugged nearly 200 points higher (.656 vs. 484) and raised his OBP from .373 to .464. Now is the time to make a play for Teix -- and you are hoping his owner can't take another day of his .230 average so far this season.

2. Derrek Lee -- Lee had an enormous second half last season; and while he is only batting .233 right now (not nearly as good as the .280 first half he posted last season), he posted a .336 average with a .656 slug and .436 OBP after the break in 2009. His current BABIP (Batting average on balls in play) is just .275 -- well below his career mark of .321. So, has Lee just been a bit unlucky this season, or has his career turned the downhill corner? My guess is the former. Buy.

3. Mark Reynolds -- Reynolds has improved in the second half in two of the last three seasons, and his career second-half batting average is 10 points higher than first-half. He is another player whose BABIP this season is way below his career mark (currently he is at .271, and his career number is .333). Give his second-half improvement in past years, I would expect his luck to change.

4. Jorge Cantu -- After a red-hot start to the season, Cantu has been plugging along at a snail's pace in the RBI and batting average department. He is batting .210 in June with just 9 RBIs -- just for comparison's sake, he had a .311 average and 23 RBI in April. And yeah, his slugging has fallen dramatically in that span, from .567 at the end of April to the .432 it stands at today. The good news is that Cantu improved slightly in the second half in 2009, and I think a shake-up a the helm in Florida is going to spur him on for the second half this year. This one is more of a gut-feeling pick than the others that are based more in numbers; however, Cantu's BABIP is 21 points below his career average -- so there's that.

5. Adam Lind -- It is much more difficult to predict players that haven't been around all that long. His career splits indicate that he is a much better second-half player, but most of that was determined by the enormous season he posted last year. So what is Lind, who has a .205 BA, just 9 HR and 34 RBI doing wrong? Well first of all, he just may have been pressing -- really hard -- in the first half, trying to reproduce the magic of last season. Toronto has tried to ease the pressure by moving Lind down in the lineup (this week), and he responded by hitting his first homer since May. Cito Gaston says Lind and fellow struggling teammate Aaron Hill (who was moved to sixth in the order) will stay down there until they get hot. His BABIP is .244 so far as opposed to the .323 he had last season -- there must be some middle ground to be had here. It might be risky, but it is probably a cheap enough chance to take.

Honorable Mention: Matt Wieters -- I can't use the numbers to back me up, since he is only in his second season, but his second half last year was awesome. He is only hitting .203 in June, so his slump is for real -- let's see if his second half last year was too.