Clay Buchholz - That's six straight quality starts, six straight outings of at least seven innings, and six straight wins for Clay Buchholz after another strong outing yesterday against the Jays. It's curious that his swinging strike% is declining for the sixth straight year while his K rate has jumped to a career high, but with batters swinging less than 40% of the time against him he's getting a ton of called strikes. A .248 BABIP has been pretty helpful as well....about 80-85 points below expected. Buchholz is a solid mid-rotation starter for me, so if someone is willing to pay more for this scorching start, I'd be inclined to let him go.
Chris Nelson - Nelson is coming to the Yankees for either cash or a PTBNL, giving him some instant value in an injury-riddled Yankee offense. It remains to be seen just how much of Nelson's value was due to the rarified air of Colorado, but the 27 year old at least warrants a roster spot in deeper formats right off the bat, as the Yanks have very little available to play 3B right now.
Tom Milone - The soft-tossing Milone has had a gigantic jump in K rate this year, enough so that he's gone from a spot-starter to a solid back-end rotation member in my eyes. His control has always been good enough that his WHIP will typically be somewhat helpful, and the A's have a solid supporting cast this year to boot. The big leap in swinging strike% illustrates that this K rate increase is likely no fluke.
Scott Diamond - Diamond picked up his third straight quality start with a very solid 6 IP, 2 ER performance against the Tigers to even his record at 2-2 on the season. Diamond has had a sizable velocity drop this year, which is certainly a bit worrisome, but his excellent control and solid GB rate have allowed him keep his ERA down under 4.00 despite his typically poor K rate. The Twins hardly ever seem to have real aces, just a collection of #4 and #5 starters that they put in some sort of order, and Diamond is no exception. The lack of ability to generate empty swings keeps his ceiling right about here, and there will be plenty of 5 IP, 11 H outings in there as well when balls in play don't find gloves, and as such I prefer to avoid pitchers of this style.
Lorenzo Cain - Cain tripled and singled yesterday against the Rays in a 9-8 win, bringing his line back up to 329/383/463 for the year. The AVG is a bit inflated by a favorable BABIP, but the 27 year old is a breakout candidate this year nonetheless. As Walter highlighted last weekend, a vastly improved chase rate has fueled much better contact for Cain this year, and we all know there is some intriguing power and speed at his disposal. He could certainly be a 15/15 guy, but with this improved contact rate, a batting average close to .300 could also be in play.
