Brad Penny- LAD- Hot- In 14 starts this season, Penny has only twice failed to throw the quality variety. There is a good chance that he will make it 13 of 15 tonight in Toronto. After that things are going to start to get dicey. Over the past few seasons Penny has gone from a pitcher who heated up as the season progressed to one whose performance heads south as he gets deeper into the season. Last year the bottom dropped out as he went from being on the All Star team with a 10-2 record and 2.91 ERA to having a record of 6-7 with a 6.25 ERA the rest of the way. This was his second consecutive year of post-All Star Game decline. Look at him as a "sell high"candidate.
Austin Kearns- WAS- Hot- Kearns' 1-for-4 made him 9-for-26 in his last 7 games. Of course, last night was at RFK Stadium and the previous 6 games were in AL parks. Kearns has been absolutely killed by his home park this season. His average is only .205, compared with .305 on the road. Oddly enough, he has a higher homer ratio in Washington, hitting 3 in 122 at bats as opposed to 2 in 141 at bats outside the Nation's Capital. That still may be a relic of his home field impact, however. Kearns may have messed up his power stroke in an attempt to overcome the pitcher-friendliness. At this point, if you own Kearns for his help in average, you should still sit him when the Nationals have a home stand.
Derrek Lee- CHN- Hot- Lee is 10-for-19 in his last 6 games (including Sunday's almost complete day off). His power stroke is still missing, especially on the road where he has yet to hit a homer. Will a few days off courtesy of the MLB office (after his appeal is heard, of course) help Lee rediscover his power? It looks doubtful at this point. Lee has enjoyed some good luck (as measured by a .321 BHIP) this season and this may be masking a return more towards the production of his 2003-2004 level, with lesser power. If you look at his Fantistical Player Charts, his monster 2005 campaign just jumps out at you as the "one of those things just doesn't belong"(to put it in Sesame Street terms.) If that had been his first year with the Cubs, I'd be more inclined to expect a return to that form, as it would reflect his change from pitcher-friendly Florida. But it wasn't a direct effect of changing home parks. That came the year before and Lee posted extremely similar numbers to his last year at Dolphins Stadium (or whatever it was called back then.) That looks more like his norm and this season seems more in line with his norm minus the effects of last year's broken wrist (taking the high BHIP into account.)
Josh Fogg- COL- Caution- Fogg is one of those Colorado pitchers that you might consider if you have daily transactions and can put him on your roster only when away from Coors Field. On the road this season he has posted a 3.89 ERA while going 2-2 in 7 starts, as opposed to 6.66 and 0-3 at home. There are a couple of factors that should lead you to stay away, though. Of his 21 runs allowed outside of Colorado, four are unearned, so his WHIP of 1.53 is more indicative of the quality of his outings. Also, Fogg has a tendency to fade in the second half, so his usefulness in any case is probably coming to an end.
Craig Biggio- HOU- Hot- Once again it looks like I am serving as a personal motivator for a big league player. Last Tuesday I wrote a blurb saying, basically, that Biggio was washed up and hanging on to get his last 20 hits to reach 3000. In the week since then he has collected half of the hits he needed to get to 3000 and has collected at least one hit in each of his 6 games in that span, even going 1-for-1 as a pinch hitter. Sure he went 1-for-6 yesterday and has a couple of 1-for-5s in the stretch, but he also has two 3-for-5 games to go 10-for-27 overall. With 3000 in sight, Biggio seems to be catching a second win. I don't know how long it will last, but my pronouncement that he has no fantasy value was at least a week premature.
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