Jon Garland - Garland rattled off his fifth straight quality start last night, holding the Tigers scoreless over 7 1/3 innings while allowing four hits and three walks against five strikeouts. More walks and fewer K's, Garland's lot in 2008 thus far, are not generally a prescription for success, but Garland's 2008 is mirroring 2005 a bit in the sense that the opposition are stranding more baserunners than they normally do against him. His BABIP is a bit lower than normal, and that combined with the timing of the bad pitches is making him a bit lucky thus far. Sell high? Sure.
Bobby Crosby - Perhaps Crosby has finally gotten to the undervalued point again, as he is posting the lowest K rate of his career along with the highest LD rate. Usually you'd expect a big power surge, but an abnormally low number of his flyballs have been leaving the park, something that is a bit incongruous as hard as he is hitting the ball in general. The 16 doubles should give you a good indication of where you would expect his HR numbers to move in the coming months. He is definitely someone that I'd expect you could get cheaply after his struggles the past few years.
JD Drew - Drew has been hitting for no power so far this year, and he also has his highest K rate since his 38-AB rookie year. At age 32 and with all of those injuries in his past, I am a bit concerned. Both his walk rate and his ISO have declined for four straight years including this one, and his stat line for this year is being propped up by a .365 BABIP that probably won't last. I might look to sell high here.
Orlando Cabrera - Maybe Cabrera is finally pulling out his slump, as he is now 8-16 with three doubles in his last four games after picking up four hits yesterday against the Indians. One thing that concerns though is that Cabrera, perenially one of the toughest players to strike out in the league, is striking out (by a full 2%) more than he has in any season in his 11 year career. He is 33 now, so if his bat is slowing down that's one of the first places you'll see it. I would expect some bounceback to continue here, as his BABIP is in the .260's, but I think the decline phase of his career is well underway.
Michael Aubrey - Michael Aubrey has been starting at 1B for the Indians against most right-handers of late, limiting Ryan Garko's playing time substantially. It's hard to tell what Cleveland has with the former 1st round pick, since Aubrey hasn't played more than 100 games in any season since being drafted back in 2003. He also hasn't hit with much authority at any level above A-ball, so it's hard to get very excited about a couple of homers hit in his first few games up. It's eminently possible that the missed development time is catching up now, and that he'll be a viable big league 1B, but I think it's much more likely that he's just another small-to-mid conference college player that could hit with an aluminum bat but not with a wooden one. He merely bears watching for the time being, and I still think Garko is the better player.
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