"May 2008" Monthly Archives - Page 2

Doug Mathis: Mathis will get a start on Tuesday in Minnesota. He was pitching decently in Triple-A; 3.55 ERA, 5.9 K/9, and a 2.0 BB/9. Without the high K’s, he will need to exhibit good control for success, but even...

Jose Bautista Bautista was sitting on the bench yet again on Saturday. With the Pirates 12th in the NL in team OPS, you’d think they could use a guy with a .915 OPS in the month of May. Sure, Bautista...

Jesus Flores - Flores has jumped right into the Nationals' void at catcher with a modest five-game hitting streak, including a couple more singles last night against the O's. Rule V picks are tricky to project, because they always lose...

Josh Hamilton- TEX- Hot- Hamilton led the way for a Texas offensive onslaught last night, going 5-for-5 with 2 homers, a triple, a walk, 5 RBI, and 4 runs scored. The 13 total bases was one short of a franchise...

Masa Kobayashi secured his second save yesterday afternoon as he replaced Rafael Betancourt in the ninth inning after Betancourt loaded the bases with just one out. Kobayashi threw a wild pitch to Mike Sweeney, which allowed Jack Cust to score,...

Jay Bergmann – Bergmann threw 7 innings of shutout ball yesterday picking up the win. He impressively struck out 9 along the way, while walking just 2. This start might come as a surprise because entering the game Bergmann had...

American League 3 Matt Wieters BAL C A Turns 22 next week and with an OPS greater than 1.000, he belongs in AA. 13 Jeff Clement SEA C A- He's not hitting, but the M's will be patient with him....

Daniel Cabrera- BAL- Hot- Is Cabrera finally for real? He pitched his 7th straight quality start, raising his record to 4-1, allowing 3 runs on 10 hit in 7 IP while striking out 3 and walking NONE. Of his 103...

Pedro Martinez - So you're hanging on to Pedro, hoping to salvage a little fantasy life from the aging star at some point this season. The good news is Pedro's hamstring strain is recovering nicely and its looking like he's...

First Pitch - May 14, 2008 - Value Picks Welcome to the Week 7 edition of "Value Picks."  Can you believe its already mid-May?  With most fantasy leagues playing on a 22-week schedule before beginning fantasy playoffs, Week 7 means...

Masa Kobayashi showed that Cleveland might have at least one guy who can get 3 outs in the ninth inning as he secured his first save last night against the Athletics. Kobayashi has been pretty solid this year coming out...

Big variances between a pitcher’s ERA and XERA can help identify buy low and sell high targets. A low XERA and a high ERA usually means good skills but some bad luck in the form of low strand rate and/or...

Scott Olsen: Thanks to an 81% strand rate and a .171 BHIP%, it looks like Scott Olsen has turned a corner, 4-1 with a 2.63 ERA in 8 starts. However his underlying numbers tell the real story, 4.0 K/9, 3.5...

Nelson Figueroa- NYN- Cold- Figueroa was pounded by the Nationals yesterday, allowing 6 runs (4 earned) on 5 this and 5 walks in 5 IP while striking out 4. The walks continue a pattern of control problems for Figueroa, who...

Cliff Lee is incredible. I mean, I am seriously astounded by how knockout awesome this guy has been in his first 7 starts. I wish like hell I drafted him now. But enough of my wishes, let’s get to the...

Nick Swisher - We're all waiting for Swisher to turn the corner, but he has yet to really break-out of his early season slump. Whenever he posts a multi-hit game and looks like he's about to put his season back...

Hunter Pence: Pence extended his hitting streak to 9 games on Sunday while effectively carrying the Astros offense against the Dodgers. Pence drove in 2 and scored another 2 accounting for 4 of the Astros 8 runs with a 3-4...

Milton Bradley: You know who Milton Bradley is? He’s the hot chick with the crazy eyes, I’m convinced. I mean think about it, let’s draw some parallels between scoping out the waiver wire and scoping out the bar. So you’re...

Shawn Estes Estes will take over the fifth starter role for the Padres this week, making his first start on Tuesday in Chicago. Make sure you activate any and all Cubs hitters for this one. Should Estes somehow survive this...

Derrek Lee blasted his 9th HR of the season yesterday afternoon as he continues his bid to hit 40+ bombs in 2008. Lee’s totals now read 9/25/.322 and his indicators right now are pretty similar to those in his 46-homer...

Jose Contreras – Contreras has somewhat bounced back from last season’s disaster. He picked up his third win last night, pitching 7 innings of one run ball to lower his ERA under 4. Contreras has been better this year, mainly...

Jeff Francoeur Frenchy’s mired in a 5-31 slump that’s dropped his average to .263. Despite the slow start there are some legitimate reasons for optimism surrounding Francoeur. He’s improved his EYE up to .50, largely thanks to a significant drop...

Gavin Floyd: Despite flirting with two no-hitters this year, there is not much to get excited about when looking at Floyd’s skill set, 4.3 K/9 and a 4.1 BB/9. His high FB% of 53% is going to lead to big...

Nick Markakis- BAL- Hot- Since his last multi-hit game on May 2nd, Markakis had been in a 1-for-15 slump that had shaved 28 points from his batting average, dropping it from .284 to .256. He got half of that back...

Joey Votto - Votto was locked-in against the Cubs on Wednesday, turning the power hat-trick of 3-HR (and a SB), and improving his seasons numbers considerably in just one day. The talented Reds first baseman saw his FPI rise from...

American League 30 Austin Jackson NYY OF B+ 23:17 K:BB and 82% CT% are fine, but where's the pop? 0 HR in 125 at-bats. 43 Jose Tabata NYY OF B Discipline issues and batting just .232. Is 8-for-15 in last...

Unfavorable Matchups, American League Joe Mauer Minnesota (6 for 15, .400 CS%): 4 against Texas (Ian Kinsler, David Murphy), 3 against Detroit (Carlos Guillen, Curtis Granderson) Kurt Suzuki Oakland (7 for 20, .350 CS%): 3 against Tampa (Carl Crawford, BJ...

Grady Sizemore – Sizemore had a monster 2006 season in which he had an amazing 92 extra base hits, an average of .57 extra base hits per game. Sizemore was solid last season, but even in that year and so...

Doug Davis: Less than a month removed from surgery to remove a cancerous thyroid, Davis threw a simulated game on Monday and is expected to make the first of two rehab starts on Saturday. The two rehab starts will give...

We’re back with another edition of Wednesday’s Value Picks! As we’ve mentioned before, every Wednesday we’ll go digging for diamonds in the rough that is the Free Agent Pool. While many of the selections in the past have been geared...

Delmon Young - One of the biggest Delmon Young supporters I know asked me yesterday about including him in a deal, so the time may very well have come to put the full-court press on his owners in your respective...

Scott Podsednik- COL- Hot- Sure, he went 0-for-4 last night and lost 35 points off his batting average to go from .343 to .308, but Podsednik is showing signs of bouncing back from an essentially lost 2007 season. His average...

First Pitch - "Sabermetric Tuesday - The Setup Man" Good morning and welcome to the Fantasy Week 6 edition of "Sabermetric Tuesdays."  I've had a thought in my head for quite some time, but haven't had a chance to accumulate...

In our continuing series on player recommendations, today we take a look at the pitchers who are deviating from their projected production. Please refer to the Batters article for an explanation of the terms used such as FPI (FPI^ =...

Robinson Cano - Cano bottomed out and turned it around this weekend. As of Saturday, Cano's average had dropped to .150, OBP .213, 2 HR, and 7 RBI. On Sunday, his swing looked good and seemed to be right on...

Dan Uggla: I’ve noted in the past that I’m not a big Uggla supporter because of the negative impact he can have on your batting average, but I also noted Uggla’s a traditionally slow starter who heats up in May...