Justin Masterson - Masterson scuffled again last night, walking five in six innings and allowing four runs for the second straight outing. He seems to be finding the adjustment to the majors rather difficult, but some of that is masked by a .209 BABIP thus far. His minor league numbers are not all that impressive, and there aren't many major league pitchers where nearly every pitch is in within seven mph of each other like Masterson's have been in the bigs, so I would be surprised if he doesn't struggle a bit more going forward.
Nick Swisher - Swisher clubbed two homers yesterday to finish June at 315/402/630, a far cry from the pathetic performance that we witnessed in April and May. His contact rate is up, his LD% is up, his K's are down, yet his stats don't show these improvements at all just yet, so I'd expect a bit more good stuff from Swisher the rest of the way. If his owner isn't paying attention he's still a decent "buy low" candidate.
Greg Smith - 19 flyouts in a game? Seriously? I'm not sure I've ever seen that, as Greg Smith bounced back with his first quality start in over a month by pitching a complete game four-hitter against the Angels. This is the third time the Angels have seen him this year, but they still weren't able to do much with his steady supply of changeups to the outer half of the plate other than hit popups and lazy cans of corn. I still believe that Smith's ERA will continue to rise as teams figure him out...he walks too many men and allows way too many flyballs to keep an ERA below 4.00 consistently. Last night's outing might be enough for me to start shopping him again.
Brett Gardner - Brett Gardner led off and played LF for the Yanks yesterday, going 0-3 and swiping a bag in his debut. The owner of a minor league OBP of .385, Gardner draws a bunch of walks, hits some singles, and steals a bunch of bases while playing excellent defense. Using Luis Castillo as a comp is probably somewhat fair, although I think Gardner has slightly more power but will hit for a slightly lower AVG than the Mets' 2B at similar ages. Gardner is likely to play on a fairly consistent basis, so if you need some steals he's a reasonable acquisition, but his ceiling is pretty limited.
Ian Kinsler - Kinsler topped off a torrid June (362/419/672) with his 43rd extra base hit of the season and 21st of the month, extending his hitting streak to 14 games in the process. He has cut both his walk rate and K rate this season...basically the only real growth we're seeing is in the power department, which you might expect at age 26. Obviously this level of ISO brings him from a solid 2B to a near-elite one, and it isn't all home cooking either, as his ISO is .238 on the road (albeit with an AVG 100 points lower than at home). I don't consider him to be one of the better "sell high" candidates...I think most of this growth is for real.
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