1. Wandy Rodriguez (SP - Astros) - Wandy Rodriguez landed on the 15-day DL yesterday after finding fluid in his elbow. The diagnosis sounds pretty bad, but Wandy was still able to throw a side session and only experienced slight discomfort when he threw the breaking ball. The MRI showed no structural damage either. Still, the Astros are going to be careful and place him on the 15-day to make sure no further damage occurs. Wandy has been on fire lately too, throwing 5 straight QS and posting a 2.25 ERA and 1.18 WHIP for May.
2. Jonathan Sanchez (SP - Giants) - Make that four straight quality starts for Sanchez. He hurled 7.0 strong innings on Saturday, allowing just 2 hits, 4 BB, and striking out 8 while giving up 2 ER. He didn't factor into the decision, but it did drop his ERA to 3.38 and WHIP to 1.27. When I think about Sanchez, I think about two things: high strikeout rates and the hope that one day his BB rates will come down. Heading into 2011, Sanchez had posted the following K/9 rates: 8.94, 9.75, and 9.54. This year, he's at 9.98. That's an incredibly consistent level for an extended period of time with a slight increase in K's this season. As for the BB, it is unfortunately consistently high, showing no signs of coming down anytime soon (which then keeps his WHIP high despite 2-hit performances like yesterday). Using the same time period as we did with K's, his BB/9 rates have been 4.27, 4.85, and 4.47. This year, he's at 4.78. Sanchez has been able to "get away with it" by posting high LOB% of 67.5, 72.6, 79.5, and this year's 72.8%.
3. Greg Dobbs (3B - Marlins) - Sometimes playing the hot-hand is the best way to a quick win in head-to-head leagues. Greg Dobbs is carrying a hot bat right now for the Marlins, going 14-for-34 in his last 9 games with 4 multi-hit games. He's owned in about 15% of all leagues and doesn't really hit for power (just 2 HR this year), but he's posting an unbelievable average right now at .359 through 117 AB and is barely being looked at by fantasy owners. This will normalize in due time, but in the meantime, if you're desperate for a 3B addition, you can ride this hot streak for a few more days / another week.
4. Brian McCann (C - Braves) - There's a reason why Brian McCann is always at (or near) the top of draft boards for catchers. When others go on the DL, get moved around the league, or go into extended slumps, McCann emerges as a consistently solid hitting catcher with power. In my book, that makes him the top fantasy catcher over the last 5 years. Sure, Mauer has won batting titles out of the position, but has also gone into deep DL stints. And while McCann, like any catcher, has had some time on the DL, he has also consistently produced 20+ HR 4 out of the last 5 years, has steadily hit them at a 22.0-28.0 AB/HR clip, an .825-.850 OPS, and has mostly hovered somewhere between .270-.300 from an average perspective.
5. Zach Duke (SP - Diamondbacks) - Watch Duke's ownership sky-rocket today as he hurled a gem in his first outing of the 2011 season. Duke went 7.0 innings and allowed just 3 hits and 1 BB while recording 4 K's and the W. It was his first start of 2011 after breaking bones in his hand during spring training. While this was certainly an impressive start out of the gate for Duke, we have plenty of backup statistics to know this won't last long (unless he had some sort of freak Henry Rowengartner injury that we didn't hear about). Here's a rundown... over the last 5 years with the Pirates, Duke has a 4.80 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, a K/9 of 4.6, an average against of .310, and an opposing OPS of .827. We could continue to dig deeper into the stats, but you get the idea. Yesterday was nice and if you pitched him, you're a braver man than me. I don't see this lasting very long.
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