Jonathan Sanchez - Last night was certainly a contrast in styles, as the efficient Roy Halladay faced off against Jonathan Sanchez, who is anything but. Sanchez got the best of Halladay last night, although his 107 pitches only stretch through five innings of work. Sanchez only allowed three hits but walked five and fanned six in picking up his second win of the year. I've been extremely impressed with Sanchez early this year despite the continuing control issues, as his K rates alone don't completely illustrate the increased deception that he's shown so far this year. Sanchez's contact% against is under 65% so far this year, and he's getting an amazing 32.4% of swings on pitches outside the zone. He is obviously fooling batters at an incredible rate, which I assume is due to a continual increasing trend of reliance on his slider at the expense of his fastball. The control is always going to be an issue to some extent, as even if his results remain the same there will be games like last night that the bullpen can't hold on to, but going back to the about the midpoint of last year I have been extremely impressed with his progress.
Tim Hudson - Tough to figure out what to make of Hudson so far this year, as his fourth straight quality start was marred once again by poor control (and the lack of a win - he's 1-1). On the positive side, Hudson continues to keep the ball on the ground as well as anyone, and his velocity is higher than it has been in years. For the negatives, he's allowing the highest contact% of his career, his control has been worse so far this year than it's been in a decade, and he's been a bit lucky with his BABIP. The negatives seem to outweigh the positives a bit, but to me our projection still looks like a reasonable level of expectation.
Cameron Maybin - Maybin is hitting 7-35 with no walks and 13 K's in 8 games since moving up to the leadoff spot for the Marlins, and while you can look at certain things that Maybin has done is his pro career (HR/FB, minor league BB%, reasonable power numbers pre-age 21, etc.) and forecast some growth....where's the growth? Maybin still swings at everything, still strikes out a ton, still hits the ball on the ground at a tremendous rate...he's the same guy I saw in September 2007 and thought wasn't ready for the majors. The sad thing is that his BABIP is still about 150 points to the lucky side right now, so the pain might not be over yet. There's still potential here, but I'm not a huge fan...I'd let someone else try and harvest it.
Carlos Zambrano - In one of the dumbest managerial decisions that I've ever seen, the Cubs have decided that their best should pitch significantly less. Zambrano was clearly not quite himself to start the year, but he was coming off 2 out of 3 quality starts and 25 K's in 18 innings when the Cubs made the move. I would absolutely, unequivocally NOT cut him unless you are in one of those super shallow Yahoo-type leagues. Last night's start notwithstanding, Carlos Silva and his .178 BABIP (with a LD% of 21.8, leading to an expected BABIP of around .340) are destined for their comeuppance. Zambrano will not be paid $18 million to be a set-up man, he will return to the rotation, and odds are he'll be pretty darn good when he does so. Trying to find the best time to acquire him cheaply...that's what we all should be thinking.
Casey McGehee - McGehee stayed hot last night with a grannie late in the rout against the Pirates, giving him five homers already this year. I've been ready to write him off for a while but there does appear to be a decent amount of intrinsic growth here, as his contact rate and walk rate have been steadily improving, while the power growth (as a 27 year old) isn't completely out of line since he's just plain hitting more flyballs in general. Where there is bound to be regression is in the AVG, as he has maintained a BABIP of .333 despite a LD% of barely over 10%. Still, the remainder of the stat line look very sound, and I'm feeling more comfortable with our forecast for him by the day.
