With some downtime on our hands, I thought it'd be fun to peruse the leaderboards for the last calendar year, spanning the second half of 2014 and the first half we just wrapped up, and compare them with the leaderboards from the end of 2014 in our pertinent roto categories.

Let's start with home runs. In 2014, only Nelson Cruz reached the 40 plateau:

Only half of that group has retained a spot after chopping off last year's first half:

Giancarlo Stanton is just ridiculous. He left in late-June spotting the league about three weeks and he still has an MLB-high 27 home runs right now. Joining Cruz and Stanton on both lists are Mike Trout, Jose Bautista, and Chris Carter.

J.D. Martinez is probably the biggest surprise on the list. Through the first 60 games, he was pacing toward a 28 HR, 73 RBI, and .258 AVG season with 87 R and 6 SBs (same as last year, in fact). I think that was more or less in line with what most expected. To that point, I didn't have any complaints about Martinez. As a Tigers fan who watches their games daily, I thought Martinez was pretty legit last year. My expectations for him this year was a .250/30 kind of season. I found the power to be real, though not .238-ISO kind of real. I figured a .190 with a .200 in reach if he's really real.

Over the last calendar month, Martinez has put another .238 ISO season into play thanks to a blistering .471 ISO that includes 15 HRs in just 113 PA. Martinez has three streaks of three-games-in-a-row with a home run as well as a three-homer game in New York against the Yankees. His OPS is 1.234 and 19 of his 37 hits during this run have gone for extra bases. Hilariously, this run would pace out to a 94 HR, 200 RBI full season.

After another half season of seeing Martinez, I feel completely confident that he's no worse than a .190 ISO-level player with real potential to maintain his .200s-level production. Only 28 qualified hitters had a .190 or better ISO last year and they hit an average of 29 HRs with Yan Gomes' 21 being the lowest and of course part of that is because his playing time is stunted as a catcher.

There are currently 52 players with a .190 or better ISO, that is up from the 41 at the All-Star break last year. We saw just 68% of those players hold on, but even if there is the same attrition rate this year, we will still have 35 hitters reach the threshold. While that would be an improvement on 2014, it would still be the second-lowest total since we had just 35 in 1993.

Some potential power surgers in the second half include Brandon Belt, Jorge Soler, Justin Bour, and Andrew McCutchen.

Belt quietly hit nine homers in the first half. It's mostly quiet because nine isn't that many, but he is crushing the ball and wouldn't need much to get hot power-wise. His 41% Hard hit rate is a career-best. Unfortunately, his 33% flyball rate is a career-low. He is at 39% in his five years combined with a high of 44% twice. If he can continue to hit the ball this hard while adding even some loft - he doesn't have to get all the way back to 44% - then he can have a mid-teens power output in the second half.

Soler shoulda been in Cincy! He coulda been going toe-to-toe with Joc Pederson as the league's most electric rookie. Instead, injuries have limited him to just 57 games and he's managed just a .388 SLG when playing including four home runs. He is still pummeling the ball like he did in 97 breathtaking (OK, maybe I'm overstating it with breathtaking) PA a season ago, but the results haven't followed. A .376 BABIP isn't to blame as his hits are falling, but the excess in that BABIP has come on groundballs so the damage is limited.

His .306 BABIP on grounders is well above the .243 league average. Even more so than Belt, Soler is a little loft away from a huge run of power. Jason Collette recently taught us the rarity of a 20-HR second half and even with that knowledge in tow, I believe Soler can add his name to that list. I'd  probably put him down for a 14 in a projection, but 20 is realistically in reach if he catches fire. I realize that virtually any guy in the majors can be good if "he catches fire", but the point of highlighting these four guys is that they're already close and maybe just a single tweak or some good old fashioned luck can propel them to a massive second half.

Bour has steady stayed under the radar thanks to being stuck at first base. He's only played in 61 games, too, so his totals aren't flashy. He has 10 HRs and 27 RBIs in 188 PA. The top 15 playing time earners at first base have averaged 350 PA. If Bour was up there in playing time, he'd be looking at 19 HRs and 51 RBIs, good for fourth and 10th. If the raw totals don't get you, the rate stats should because that's where he shines.

He has a .232 ISO, eighth among the 42 first basemen with at least 150 PA. His 132 wRC+ is 13th at the position, ahead of Jose Abreu, Chris Davis, and Edwin Encarnacion. One thing holding him back is that he does platoon. He hasn't shown the ability to handle lefties at all so far so he loses playing time there. He makes a great corner infield option, especially if you have a star at first base already.

McCutchen might seem obvious because of the name value, but you'd be surprised how many people still reference his slow start as if it hasn't been completely reversed by two and a half months of excellence. Cutch isn't starving for home runs with 12, but his skills have been worthy of more. At least one for sure as Justin Upton robbed a certain home run from him recently. His HR/FB rate isn't some crazy outlier at 11%, but it's below what these skills should normally yield. His career mark is 12% and he had a 14% rate with this nearly identical batted ball profile. These skills could generate more home runs than we saw in the first half despite 12 fewer games (Pittsburgh has 74 left).

This is a situation where Jason's column impacts me. I'd be inclined to casually suggest that Cutch could pop 20 in the second half, but realizing the rarity of it now puts projecting into a better perspective. Yes, Cutch could pop 20, but it strikes me as a pretty unlikely outcome for him. Blasting 20 second half home runs isn't just a 40 HR season pace, but often 45+ depending how many team games are left and then who knows if they are going to miss some of them.

In terms of trying to acquire these four in hopes of capturing a power boost, I'd be looking at Belt and Soler as the potential big volume surgers who could be pushing that 20-mark down the stretch. If you're in the bottom quarter of the power standings, these two might be worthy candidates to acquire at less than market value of a full-blown slugger like Martinez or Todd Frazier. I'd be eyeing Bour as a CI replacement if my power needs were more modest because his platoon issues will curb the volume. Maybe I'm mid-pack or upper third so I want to stabilize the power at my weakest positions as opposed to needing that big bopper like Bour's teammate Stanton.

Cutch is for the team who is going out and trading their prime arms to address their offensive needs. Even a repeat of Cutch's first half for your Zack Greinke or Sonny Gray would be fine, but you're buying a superstar player who could also deliver that transcendent MVP-level second half that propels your offense up the standings. You're not necessarily buried in power or any of the offensive categories, but you need help and who better than someone working his way toward a 22 HR, 103 RBI, 88 R, 9 SB, and .295 AVG season so far? That's considered a down half for him, too.