Hisashi Iwakuma - That's 6-7 in QS for Iwakuma after a 7 IP, 1 ER outing against Toronto yesterday, and since that 7th start was a 5 IP, 2 ER, 11 K performance against the Astros it's safe to say that Iwakuma has been a major positive in every outing so far in 2013. Sure, sooner or later the BABIP is going to normalize and the strand rate will likely drop a bit. If he keeps throwing like this, that's still going to mean an ERA down near 3.00, and with very impressive ratios to boot. He also has an offense that might crack the top-20 this year, which is, sadly, a sizable improvement. I remain a huge fan, and consider him a must-start across the board.
Torii Hunter - Four more hits for Torii Hunter yesterday in a 17-2 drubbing of the Astros, and the 37 year old is now hitting .361 for the year. It's been a strange year for Hunter, who is posting career extremes in a number of categories that you would typically find to be nearly mutually exclusive. First, Hunter is seeing a career-high percentage of fastballs batting in front of Cabrera and Fielder, as you'd expect. That is resulting in a career-best contact rate and K rate, also as you'd expect. What is interesting, however, is that those fastballs are often out of the zone, but Hunter doesn't seem to care. He's seeing a career-low number of pitches in the strike zone to this point in 2013, and his chase% is by far a career-high in response, as he's offering at 41.4% of pitches outside of the zone this year. His GB% is at a career-high, which along with his advancing age helps illustrate why his ISO is currently at a career-worst. Finally, his BABIP is a whopping .420 despite an LD rate of 19%. My expectations, as long as Hunter remains in the #2 slot in the order, are that Hunter will continue to have a solid year in AVG although he's clearly unlikely to continue this pace with such a high GB%, but with the power and speed rapidly deteriorating I imagine that his value is likely higher than it ought to be right now, and as such I would definitely view him as a "sell high" candidate.
Alexi Ogando - Ogando tossed his third straight quality start yesterday to move to 3-2 on the season. He hasn't been quite as good as I expected so far this year, throwing at fairly significantly diminished velocity (1.8 mph slower than 2011 on both FB velocity and SL velocity) with less control (BB/9 +1.0 in 2013). He has flashes of brilliance in virtually every outing, so I'm not sure it's really anything physical, but there hasn't been a ton of in-start consistency to this point. I love his upside, but to this point he's outperforming his peripherals pretty significantly. I still would be perfectly happy with him as a back-end starter in all formats.
R.A. Dickey - Dickey's transition back to the AL continues to be a difficult one, as the 38 year old was touched up for seven runs in six innings yesterday by the Mariners to drop to 2-5 on the year. He still likely isn't 100% despite a clean MRI earlier this week, but it's more worrisome to me to see that he's throwing fewer pitches in the zone than he has at any other point in his career. Obviously with a knuckleball pitcher it isn't quite as simple as just throwing it where you want, but Dickey had shown fantastic control the past few years with the Mets. The GB rate has continued to drop as well, adding further downside to the mix. His contact rate is still very solid, the K upside is still there, but overall this isn't a very promising profile right now. Pitchers moving from the NL to the AL always seem to have at least some trouble, and with good reason as they're typically facing 9 legitimate hitters instead of 8, but there's even more to this with Dickey and I hope it's just a minor injury issue instead of a complete collapse. Dickey's upcoming schedule isn't awful (@TB, SF, TB), so he's tough to bench unless you have very solid alternatives.
Alcides Escobar - Escobar singled and swiped a bag yesterday, giving him 7 steals in as many tries this year to go along with hits in 12 of his last 13 contests. He's actually hitting a bit lower than expected with an excellent LD rate of 22.7% only resulting in a BABIP of .295 to this point, and a ridiculous chase% of over 40 hasn't prevented him from posting a career-best contact rate thus far. He's going to steal bags and steal them effectively, and he's showing more pop this year in his age-26 season than he ever has before. All in all, he appears to be turning into a very solid SS, worthy of a start in just about all formats.
