James wrote to me and asked whether Berkman of Fielder will have a better second half of the season. You know, I have absolutely no idea. I can tell you that Fielder has dominated the first half of the year, which was a surprise to me, and Berkman had a power outage. James also asked about viable trade options since he is in need of a stud pitcher. So let’s take an objective look at the two players with these two stat lines:

Fielder - .278 Ave, 11.6 BB%, 22.7 K%, 19.1 LD%, .279 BABIP, .326 ISO
Berkman - .266 Ave, 16.5 BB%, 22.5 K%, 18.5 LD%, .300 BABIP, .180 ISO

These stats show that the two have hit about the same this year, except in the power category. Fielder’s .326 ISO is third in the league, and Berkman’s is below .200 which says that he is not a power hitter. OK, that is the obvious observation. So what about going forward. Here are the same stats as career averages:

Fielder - .274 Ave, 9.8 BB%, 22.6 K%, 19.7 LD%, .300 BABIP, .248 ISO
Berkman - .301 Ave, 15.8 BB%, 19.7 K%, 20.8 LD%, .325 BABIP, .257 ISO

Berkman provides a greater sample size then Fielder, but there is enough here to help determine the answer to the question. With Berkman being a career .300 hitter, I can definitely see his average climbing, and being higher then Fielders by the end of the year. With the rise in batting average I can also see the power numbers gaining for Berkman. The key question is, will Berkman hit more homeruns then Fielder, and hit for a better average? I suspect that they should hit about the same. Fielder will be walked more during the second half of the season, and I can see him hitting 20-25 homeruns. I can see Berkman hitting for a better average, and posting 15-20 homeruns during the second half.

So what about trade value for either of them? It is tough to determine which pitcher to go after. There are some obvious choices like Jake Peavy and CC Sabathia. But what about Cole Hamels or Daisuke Matsuzaka? If you were to decide to trade Prince Fielder, then I would start with Johan Santana, or Jake Peavy, and then work my way down from there. He has proven to be the best player over the first half. Berkman may be able to get Mutsuzaka, which is who I think would be the best choice, but pitchers like Dan Haren, Chris Young, John Maine, and Cole Hamels would be solid options and good value.

I wish that I had the problem of having both Berkman and Fielder. If I needed to deal one of them for pitching, I would trade Berkman, because Fielder still has a ton of room for growth. In addition, Berkman can bring a solid option, and even get you a pitcher that is still improving this season like Zambrano is. The key to a trade is getting good value, but also getting a player that is still going to improve during the time that you own him.