Latroy Hawkins, Colorado Rockies - Despite picking up the win after allowing the go ahead run in the ninth, Hawkins has strung together a couple of poor outings as he has allowed runs in each of his last three appearances. His ERA has now jumped all the way to 4.41 with an FIP at 4.48, so factors outside of his control can't be attributed to the climb. He has been able to make hitters chase pitches (37%) but his lack of strikeouts combined with a 35.6% FB rate is concerning, especially with Coors Field being his homer field. It's starting to seem that he was simply over performing over the early portion of the season and now teams are starting to catch up with him. Adam Ottovino has been superb out of the Rockies pen and he may get the next shot at saves should Hawkins continue to struggle.
Matt Adams, St. Louis Cardinals - Matt Adams hasn't delivered in the HR category like owners were hoping when they selected him, but he has still been a valuable first baseman triple slashing .308/.320/.467 over 44 games. He hit his third homer of the season Tuesday and upped his RBI total to 15. Adams has been helped by a nice .371 BABIP and a 25% LD rate, put the power drop is curious as he is hitting more fly balls than his career average. With an increase in line drive and fly balls, shouldn't the homers and extra base hits follow? The homer was his first since April 30th, and his first homer came on April 15th so there have been some large lulls between each. Hopefully the homeruns are going to come soon, making him an interesting buy low target in hope he takes off in the summer months.
Doug Fister, Washington Nationals - Fister picked up his first win in a Nationals uniform with seven innings of two run baseball while scattering six hits. He's now turned in back to back quality starts after getting roughed up in his first start and is looking like the excellent pitcher they traded for in the offseason. He's now dropped his ERA to under four but his FIP is still a higher than desired at 4.82. Considering though after it being north of 11 after his first start, shaving almost seven runs off of it in just two starts is very impressive. Fister owns a 15:1 K:BB so far and as his HR% begins to normalize (17.4%) we will see his ERA and FIP continue to drop.
Justin Upton, Atlanta Braves - Justin Upton launched his 12th homer of the season and drove in three runs to bring his total to 25 on the season. He has homered in each of his last three games and has picked up a hit in four of his past five. While Upton is having an excellent season there are two areas of concern as the season continues. The first being the combination of his 30% K rate and his 17.3% LD rate, both of which are the career high/low respectively in each category. With Upton hitting mainly grounders and fly balls, his BABIP will likely take a drop at some point. He is also hitting .375 with nine homers at home vs. .179 with three homers on the road. In reality they even out but the consistency of home and away would be nice for owners in H2H leagues.
Wilin Rosario, Colorado Rockies - Rosario launched his fourth homer of the season during a 2-for-4 game where he drove in three runs. His ISO currently is almost 30 points below his career average, but it is very nice to see him go deep in just his second game back after being out with a hand injury. The hand/wrist injuries can often linger and zap the power from players, but it seems Rosario has recovered fully and will return to his starting catcher role. He has been much better this year at putting the ball in play, striking out in just 14% of his at bats. Right now he has a 59 groundball rate, but as the season progresses we'll see him start to hit more fly balls as he is currently 10% below last season for his FB rate. Barring injury, he has the power to hit close to 20 homers even after missing time with his hand injury.
Josh Sperry - @jsperry1991
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