Travis Wood - Travis Wood picked up his fifth quality start out of seven by shutting out the Pirates over seven innings last night, walking one and striking out four. I certainly wouldn't have expected Wood to be the lefty coming up from the minors and making noise for the Reds this year, but a closer look at his performance shows that, while there are some positives (namely the BB:K ratio) there are clearly some areas where luck is vastly in his favor. His .219 BABIP is about 140 points below where you'd expect it to be, and for a guy generating the primary portion of his outs through the air his HR/9 tally is awfully low. Small sample size can give you a lot of flukes like this, and while Wood may very well be a decent back-end rotation candidate, he's far more likely to have a ERA closer to 4.00 than 2.25 come year's end.
Jake Westbrook - Westbrook was dominant last night for the Cardinals against Houston, generating 10 GB outs versus only 1 FB out in a 6 IP, 2 ER stint. He walked one and fanned seven, and I think that he is an obvious pickup in most formats for one simple reason: he's moving from the AL to the NL Central, which is almost like moving to AAA. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see an ERA under 4.00 and a handful of wins for Westbrook during his two months as a Cardinal, which is certainly worth a look in most formats.
Chris Denorfia - Denorfia has been playing most of the time of late in San Diego, but the 30 year old with a minor league line of 292/365/431 in 2630 AB's isn't likely to maintain an ISO of .164 playing in Petco Park. I much prefer Will Venable the rest of the way now that his back seems to be straightened out, but we will see if the Padres agree. As far as what I actually think will happen instead of what ought to happen....I would guess that Ryan Ludwick will be starting every day. Hairston and Denorfia (RHB) will likely split time with Venable and Gwynn (LHB) until one of them wrests some time away with a hot streak. For the past two or three weeks that's been Denorfia, but Venable has been picking up a decent number of XBH in very limited playing time the past few weeks, so I'd expect him to start gaining more time shortly. He's the one with the most upside of the four, followed by Hairston.
Jim Edmonds - The brittle veteran continues to hit when both available and called upon, two things that unfortunately haven't happened enough for the Brewers this year. He's still posting an OPS over 200 points higher than sinkhole Carlos Gomez, and he's producing enough in part-time work that he's worth a spot in deeper formats. His LD% is higher than during his 2002 campaign with the CArds in whic he hit .311, so if anything the AVG could be expected to climb a bit more, and his power seems to have suffered little from the 18-month layoff. In short, he's a great part-time player.
Brandon Phillips - Phillips is scorching the past seven days, batting 10-26 with 8 runs, 7 RBI, 4 XBH, and 2 SB to bring his 2010 line up to 288/345/465. Phillips has been steadily improving his plate discipline since joining the Reds in 2005 (his contact rate and walk rate have both improved consistently) but his power and speed have been gradually dwindling away since 2006, and at age 29 he already looks like a guy that is exiting his prime. With HR/FB and SB% rates that are consistently on the decline, Phillips (although he remains a solid choice up the middle at present) definitely looks like a player that could be shopped while he maintains decent value this offseason.
