Miguel Montero - Montero doubled and homered yesterday as he continues to heat up slowly after a miserable first two months of the year. Montero went through a similar pattern last season before breaking out in mid-June en route to a season that was only slightly subpar on the whole, but this year he is underperforming even more substantially, and at age 30 you have to wonder about early decline as a catcher. Montero is on his third straight increase in GB rate, compounding the slightly declining raw power, and his contact rate is suffering for the second straight season as well. To compound the issues, his BABIP has been very unfortunate this year at .276 despite a 21.4% LD rate. Basically, it looks like there is some decline here that has compounded by bad luck, and while I do expect Montero to continue to push his numbers upward much like he did last season, he is gradually sliding down the catcher rankings toward the bottom tier of the #1 catchers for me.
Jacob Turner - Turner continues to impress, going the distance against the Padres last night and allowing one run on seven hits with one walk and seven K's. He continues to post very solid numbers in swinging strike%, chase%, and velocity while the walk rate and GB rate remain improved. Still owned in just 11.4% of ESPN leagues, Turner looks more and more like a solid pickup to me in most formats despite the low K rate and weak supporting cast.
Matt Cain - Cain tossed his fifth straight quality start yesterday, limiting the Rockies to just three hits and a run over 8 innings in Colorado, walking one and striking out five in a no-decision. Cain has been great lately as his control has improved tremendously, but my skepticism hasn't lessened all that much. Cain has made a habit of outperforming his peripherals since his second full season in the league, and sooner or later your stuff degrades to the point where that situation flips. I'm not sure Cain is to that point yet, as his K rate this year is his best since his rookie season, but as the LD rate keeps rising while the BABIP keeps dropping I can't help but think that he's going to have trouble producing at more than a mid-rotation level going forward. The problem there is that his value is usually perceived as significantly greater than that, so he's rarely a good acquisition target.
Starlin Castro - Castro finally picked up HR #4 yesterday, almost two full months after hitting his third of the year. He's still hitting just 233/267/330 as he remains outside of the top-20 at the SS position. There isn't a lot to add here, as despite some improvement in his contact rate over the past few weeks he just strikes me as a player who is pretty disinterested right now. There have been other instances of this sort of thing: Hanley Ramirez at the end of his Miami tenure comes to mind, but Castro looks even more lethargic than I remember with Hanley. He came out Wednesday after his first game out of the lineup in a year and a half claiming that he was "starting the season over", and he is 6-19 with a double, homer, and a steal (and only one strikeout) since then. His sort of talent doesn't just disappear, so I'm inclined to believe him when he alludes to the fact that he is going to commit himself again. I expect him to be worthy of a starting SS spot in nearly all formats the rest of the way.
Francisco Liriano - Liriano was dominant again yesterday, throwing his third straight QS while holding the Brewers to one run over six innings to move to 7-3 on the year. Liriano generated over 14% swinging strikes again yesterday while posting a 3:1 GB:FB ratio, two items that have been huge factors in his success this year. He's allowed two runs or fewer in 8 of 10 starts while allowing only 4 runs apiece in his two poor outings, so there haven't really been any major hiccups in his resurgence to this point. I like everything that I'm seeing from him thus far, and have no issues holding onto him instead of trying to sell high.
