Ervin Santana SP (LAA) - When playing in daily fantasy leagues, it always helps to know your weather, and with the wind projected to be blowing out to RF in Cleveland combined with some other factors I like my Indians' LHB today. Those other factors would be Santana giving up a .784 OPS on the road in his career (.705 at home) and a .779 OPS to LHB (.704 to RHB). On top of that, Santana is giving up 1.68 HR/9 this year thanks to a 18.4 HR/FB% that today's wind is unlikely to help bring down.
Carlos Santana C (CLE) - Santana has been very disappointing this year, hitting just .218/.338/.332. I think there is a buy low opportunity here. For starters, Santana's average has dipped over 20 points from last year despite maintaining the same contact rate and EYE and raising his LD rate by 5 points. In terms of power, there is no reason not to expect Santana's ISO (.114, career mark of .190) and HR/FB% (8.3%, career mark of 13.4%) to revert towards his career averages over the season's second half. Santana is not making any less solid contact than previously (20.5 LD rate, career best 8.3 IFFB%). His chase rate is of 22.3% is right in line with his career mark of 21.8%, and his contact rate on these pitches is exactly the same as last year. That is important because it means Santana's power is not falling off due to swinging at bad pitches. I see no reason here not to expect a rebound.
Edwin Encarnacion 1B/3B (TOR) - This is another twitter request. In fact, the tweeter referred to Encarnacion as Drew's boy in reference to fellow analyst Drew Dinkmeyer's love of Edwin. Well, I have to share this love as all last season I told owners to be patient with Edwin as the power would come. Edwin has enough patience (9.9 BB%) to keep pitcher's honest, and he has a surprisingly good contact rate (84%) for a power hitter, which is enabling his average to remain high. Edwin is also following in fellow teammate Jose Bautista's footsteps by generating an extreme amount of loft (51.3 FB%) which is giving him every chance to post the stellar power numbers he currently has. There is going to be some drop off in BA for Edwin (.249 current singles average, .224 career mark) and likely power (17.9 HR/FB%, 12.5 career mark), but there are enough skills in place for Edwin to hit around .275-.280 with 15-20 homers over the second half. In other words, expect a slight step back in his pace but what is currently happening is not a fluke.
Denard Span OF (MIN) - I was asked on Twitter about Twins' leadoff hitter Denard Span, and I hate to be boring with my response but just expects Span to keep on doing what he is doing, nothing more and nothing less. Span, rest of season, will be a decent source of RS (look for 40+), steals (10+) and batting average (.270+) offering little to no help in the power categories. His biggest attribute in my eyes is there is not a lot of risk in projecting those numbers. Span has a .82 EYE (career mark of .80), gets on base consistently (9.4 BB%) and has enough pop (.111 ISO), compared to some other speed only outfielders, to at least stabilize his BA. Span is boring because he doesn't have the straight steals upside of say a Juan Pierre or Jarrod Dyson with regular playing time, but his makeup allows us to fairly easily predict his performance and not be surprised by a large variation one way or the other.
CJ Wilson SP (LAA) - Going through the ERA leaders, I noticed that CJ Wilson who is ranked 7th amongst qualified pitchers with a 2.33 mark has a heck of a gap between his ERA and FIP (3.55). I would definitely expect some regression here. Since joining the Angels, Wilson's skills have reverted back to his 2010 form and not last season's. This can be seen easily by looking at his 3 year numbers in K% (20/22.5/19.6) and BB% (10.9/8.1/10.8). Currently an extremely low BABIP (.247) and high LOB% (77.5%) are masking these step backs in skill, but as they normalize owners would be wise to expect a 2nd half ERA in the mid 3's rather than the top 10 ERA Wilson is currently sporting.
