Daisuke Matsuzaka - Matsuzaka has now allowed only one run in his last 17 1/3 innings after shutting the Twins down completely into the eighth last night, helping the Sox to a 1-0 win. That said, I'm still concerned over a sizable number of things regarding his 2008 campaign. Put simply, a .257 BABIP, an 80% strand rate, and a 4.7% HR/FB ratio will paper over a lot of sins, but none of those three things are likely to be sustained for any great length of time. Matsuzaka's control has been awful this year, with 5.67 BB/9 to this point, and his strikeouts are down a bit as well. The only things that are better are his W/L and his ERA (in addition to his AVG against, of course), and I hope we've all been around here long enough to know that 9 times out of 10 if that's all that has improved it isn't going to stick. I would absolutely consider selling high on Matsuzaka, understanding fully that he isn't awful, just likely overvalued.
Scott Baker - I'm a big Scott Baker fan, so needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed his dominance of the Red Sox through seven shutout innings last night. Through 13 starts this year, Baker has only allowed more than three runs once, and that was back in April. As an extreme flyball pitcher he's going to have his longball issues, but his phenomenal control will go a long way toward mitigating that, and the steady increase in his K rate since 2005 bodes very well for him. His extremely high strand rate (83%) is the only black mark against him right now, which isn't enough to diminish my enthusiasm for his prospects.
Jason Varitek - Varitek's performance is cratering in almost every facet of the game, almost as if he turned into a pumpkin upon his 1250th game in the bigs. Varitek is now 6-63 since mid-June, and we really should have seen some of this coming, as his K rate and BB rate both jumped substantially last season, a normal sign of an aging hitter starting to decline. There is little to suggest, other than simple variation around the mean, that Varitek will offer anything close to his former level of production for any length of time the rest of his career. It's tough to drop a starting catcher in most formats, but finding a Plan B instead of hoping for a resurgence is the tact that I would take.
Torii Hunter - Hunter had a big night last night with two homers, but I'd be a bit cautious with him going forward. I don't have a leaderboard in front of me for this sort of thing, but Hunter is swinging at pitches out of the zone more than anyone else I've seen this year (nearly one-third of the time). Pitchers, taking note of this, are throwing pitches in the strike zone to him 5% less than they have in the past, leading to statistics like "one walk in the last month" for Hunter. He's also striking out more in the past two months than he has since his first year or two in the bigs, and he turns 33 next week, so it isn't like he's still on the uphill side of things. Color me concerned.
Wes Bankston - Bankston has started his major league career out with a bang, going 9-23 with 4 extra-base hits in his first six games with Oakland, including a double and a homer last night to help the A's to a 4-3 win over the Mariners. Bankston was a highly touted prospect with Tampa Bay a few years back, but hasn't hit at all the past few seasons partly due to horrific plate discipline. As pitchers start to figure this out I'd expect him to see fewer and fewer pitches in the zone, and his adjustment period is likely to be painful, particularly with the lack of other power threats besides Jack Cust in the Oakland lineup. I'd expect more Kevin Maas than Albert Pujols here.
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