Martin Perez - Perez is a guy that few are talking about just yet, and there may be a bit of prospect fatigue about him as he's been on the top-10 lists for the Rangers for 4-5 seasons. Perez has excellent stuff that he has struggled to harness over the years, walking 3.67 per 9 during his minor league tenure, but that number has been steadily moving down the past few seasons. His K rates have been low since reaching AAA, but for this year at least that's a misleading number to some extent, as he is generating a swinging strike rate of over 10%. He's also showing a velocity uptick this year of about 1.5 mph on his fastball, which is a very sizable jump. All those little things add up to a guy that I'm very intrigued by right now, particularly in light of the fact that he's managed to hold three top-half offenses to three runs or fewer in his three starts for Texas thus far. Definitely worth a speculative pickup at the minimum in formats of moderate depth or greater.
Matt Moore - See, the problem when you're cherry-picking data for analysis is that it necessarily makes a ton of assumptions regarding the information in question. Many people are concerned about the low GB rate and, more importantly, the lower swinging strike% for Matt Moore this season. Looking at his last two starts, Moore has generated 37 swinging strikes over 221 pitches while posting a GB rate of over 50%. It's easy to look at the downward trend of all of Moore's peripherals this year and forecast doom, but the fact remains that he has excellent stuff and that the control is really the last hurdle for him. Any improvement there will indeed hoist him into the ace category that we all have expected of him since day one. I am still positive on Moore despite plenty of cogent arguments to the contrary.
Brian Dozier - Dozier singled, doubled, and walked last night against the Yankees, picking right up where he left off from his 257/389/514 June. Dozier has drastically improved both his walk rate and his swinging strike% this year, although the latter isn't reflected in his K rate because he's swinging at far less pitches in total. His power is the biggest area of improvement this year, seemingly jumping into the 10-15 HR range, and it's only been partially offset by a relatively poor year on the bases (6/12 thus far, 0 steals in June). He's probably at the fringe of an 18-team league starter right now, making him also at the fringe of a 12-team starting MI. I'm not sure there's much upside here in anything but AVG really, but another 20-30 points there would probably make him a pretty clear lower-tier starting option in many leagues, and with his LD rate hovering around 20% for the past two years that is certainly attainable.
Leonys Martin - Martin is impressing more and more by the day, as the new CF in Texas has hit in 14 straight games, scoring 12 runs and going 8/8 on the basepaths over that stretch. Martin is showing elite speed and a touch of power to go along with a solid AVG buoyed by a 22.4% LD rate, and he's quickly become a must-start in all formats. There is still a bit of power upside here in my opinion.
Johnny Giavotella - Giavotella went 3-4 with a double Sunday in his first game as the starting 2B in KC this year. Giavotella has been one of "my guys" for a few years now, hitting well over .300 at AA and AAA with a bit of power and speed to go along with tremendous control of the strike zone, but every time he's come up to the majors everything has evaporated. He'll be 26 next week, so the time is now for him to start fulfilling his potential to be an adequate starter at the 2B position. He is capable of giving you above-average production in AVG and OBP to go along with 10-15 HR power and roughly the same level of SB potential, and the bar isn't all that high at 2B to become a viable starter in most formats. I think Giavotella is worth a speculative add in many leagues already, and is certainly worth starting right off the bat in deeper formats.
