Best and Worst of MLB's First Half

The Major League Baseball All-Star break is upon us. It's a good time to take a deep dive into a specific analysis because first-half stats are set for a few days. We'll likely get into something this afternoon that might take us a few days to complete. For now, we intend to point out interesting outliers by looking at the best and worst performers of certain metrics. Loyal readers may find this familiar to an almost identical exercise from last May.

Just like last time, our intention isn't to simply go through stats and list the best and worst. We are looking for something surprising, interesting, or at least mildly amusing.

All stats through July 14, 2013 and exclude non-qualifiers:

Batting...

K%: Norichika Aoki 5%; Chris Carter 36.8%

RBI: Miguel Cabrera 95; Placido Polanco 15

OBI%: Allen Craig 25.4%; Mike Moustakas 5.6%

BB/K: Norichika Aoki 1.50; J.P. Arencibia 0.13

Base Running Runs: Desmond Jennings 5.6; Howard Kendrick -6.3

O-swing%: Marco Scutaro 18.6%; Pablo Sandoval 48.7%

Contact %: Marco Scutaro 95.7%; Pedro Alvarez 64.5%

Double Play%: Domonic Brown 1.5%; Matt Holliday 26.5%

This season, Domonic Brown has come to bat when a double play was possible 66 times. He's hit into just 1 double play.

WPA: Chris Davis 5.16; Mike Moustakas -2.84

OPS: Miguel Cabrera 1.132; B.J. Upton .565

ISO: Chris Davis .402; Elvis Andrus .038

wOBA: Miguel Cabrera .473; Jeff Keppinger and Pete Kozma (tie) .251

TAv: Miguel Cabrera .379; Pete Kozma .209

VORP: Miguel Cabrera 63.0; Jeff Keppinger -8.4

An interesting this about Chris Davis's Isolated Power (ISO) is that he is leading the rest of the field by a lot.

Here are the Top 5 qualified batters by ISO...

Chris Davis .402
Raúl Ibañez .310
Miguel Cabrera .309
Carlos Gonzalez .308
David Ortiz .289

Crush Davis is having a season to remember. Photo credit: http://bit.ly/18YvSLO

***
Pitching...

K/BB: Adam Wainwright 8.67; Jason Marquis 1.11

HR/9: Jhoulys Chacin 0.24; Joe Blanton 1.84

IFFB%: Wade Davis 16.7%; Wade Miley 2.0%

GB%: Trevor Cahill 57.7%; Phil Hughes 29.4%

wFB/C: Matt Harvey 2.13; Joe Blanton -2.86

F-Strike%: Patrick Corbin 70.0%; Matt Moore 51.9%

SwStr%: Yu Darvish 13.3%; Jeremy Guthrie 4.9%

ERA-: Clayton Kershaw 54; Edinson Volquez 155

FIP: Matt Harvey 2.17; Jason Marquis 5.70

xFIP: Matt Harvey 2.70; Jeremy Guthrie 5.07

WPA: Patrick Corbin 3.10; Joe Blanton -3.03

Matt Harvey is worthy of starting the All-Star Game AP Photo/Paul J. Bereswill

Stats from Fangraphs or Baseball Prospectus.