Marlon Byrd- Over the last two seasons, Marlon Byrd has become a very acceptable source of power as a 2nd or 3rd outfielder for fantasy owners. While you would expect that Byrd's power would decrease with age, it has actually nicely stabilized at 37. His 43.3% fly ball rate and .228 ISO are in line with his averages from 2014, and he appears set to have his third straight 20 plus home run season. He isn't truly an elite asset, but he should have sufficient value to remain a mixed league starter for the remainder of the season.
Curtis Granderson- The Grandy man hit his 11th home run of the season on Wednesday. The Curtis Granderson of old is clearly gone, but he has found a bit of power of late. He has two home runs this week. He has a 40% fly ball rate and a 13.2% HR/FB rate, which is in line with his last two seasons. While this doesn't really paint the picture of the Granderson that hit 40 plus home runs in 2011 and 2012, he can safely be relied upon to hit approximately 20 home runs in 2015.
Jacob deGrom- Jacob deGrom has followed up his rookie of the year performance by proving that his success was anything but a one year wonder. With a 25.6% K Rate, he has hit elite level strikeout rates, and his ground ball rate is in line with his numbers from 2014, which is good news. Overall, deGrom is an elite option, and he has a terrific match-up against Brewers. Even with paying top dollar, he is a great option for daily fantasy on Thursday. Fanduel Salary- $10,800.00
Adrain Gonzalez- After starting the season on fire, Adrian Gonzalez has been disappointing with his power production over the last two months. Gonzalez has only managed five home runs through May and June after hitting 8 in April. It's tough to predict that Gonzalez will find another power boom like he did in April again this season. While he should be a solid bet to hit another 12-13 home runs the rest of the season, it is unlikely he will eclipse the 30 home run mark, which will be his 5th year in a row failing to hit that power marker. A-Gone is a fine player the rest of the way, but you just can't expect his power production to rival what he was doing in April.
Addison Russell- Addison Russell has shown fair power for a middle infielder in his first 200+ plate appearances of his career, but fantasy owners should be concerned about whether or not his offensive success is sustainable over the long term. Russell is striking out at 31% clip throughout his early major league sample, which is clearly too high to sustain any sort of acceptable batting average. The only thing keeping his average in a reasonable range is a .355 BABIP, which is high even for a player with solid speed. While it's never easy to generalize that a player will "regress" to the league average on BABIP, it is a safe bet that .355 is unsustainable. When combined with Russell's K Rate, I'm thinking that his batting average could drop substantially. In keeper leagues, he is worth holding onto, but in redraft leagues, I'd be shopping around for a replacement for Russell.
Today's National League Player Blog is brought to you by Nicholas Rossoletti. You can follow Nicholas on Twitter @NRoss56
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