Scott Feldman- HOU- Stats- Feldman finished his season Wednesday. He ended up with a 3.74 ERA, the third time in the last 4 seasons he has posted a sub-4.00 mark. The 5.09 he had in 2012 definitely looks like an outlier, especially considering that his FIP that year was 3.81. His 2011 season was significantly shortened due to injury, so it shouldn't necessarily count for much. However, Feldman has put up back-to-back seasons of 180+ IP so those should be a better indication of how he might perform in 2015. Don't necessarily expect him to produce similar numbers, however. Whereas he was very unlucky in 2012, just the opposite has been true the past 2 seasons. His FIP last year was 4.03 and it was 4.11 in 2014. Feldman's K/9 has also continued to drop. In 2012 it was 6.99, fell to 5.54 in 2013 and landed at 5.34 this season. Feldman will be 32 at the start of the 2015 season. He is likely to continue a downward trend in performance that luck can't be counted on to mitigate.
Michael Brantley- CLE- Hot- Brantley is working on a 15-game hitting streak heading into the last weekend of the season. He has multi-hit games in 11 of those contests. The .467 average in this stretch has boosted his season mark to .329. Brantley also has joined the 20/20 club during this streak. A .481 BABIP has certainly helped him and has raised his season mark in that department to .335. Between that good luck, this being his age 27 season and a sudden increase in power, it would be wise to not depend on a repeat of these numbers in 2015.
Daniel Norris- TOR- Rookie- Norris made his first major league start yesterday. He was on a pitch count target of 50-60 and ended up throwing 59 pitches in 3.1 IP. Of those, 29 were strikes, so he wasn't at his sharpest. Norris allowed 2 runs on 1 hit and 2 walks while striking out 1. Norris had appeared in 4 games in relief this month after being called up and ends up with 4 Ks in 6.2 IP, far below his K rate in the minors across three levels, where he struck out a total of 163 batters in 124.2 IP. Norris remains the Blue Jays' top prospect and his low performance level in his brief time in the majors may be attributed to fatigue. He only pitched 90.2 IP last season. Norris' velocity dropped this season. That will be something to look for in the spring before deciding how much fantasy impact he will have.
Adam Jones- BAL- Hot- Before May 7th Jones had only hit 1 homer for the season. He hit 2 that day and ended up, after hitting one last night, with 27 homers so far the rest of the way. His HR/FB% in this span was 17.9% heading into last night. It's not as high as the 19.9% Jones posted last year but still decent and enough to figure that the first month of the season was an outlier and Jones will produce at his usual pace next season.
Neftali Feliz- TEX- Caution- Feliz has 12 saves on the year. He picked up a win in relief when Adrian Beltre hit a walk off homer in the bottom of the 9th after Feliz entered the tie game in the top of the inning and allowed a walk before finishing the inning. He has only blown 1 save but is not looking like the same pitcher he was before Tommy John surgery. Feliz's 2.05 ERA is well below his FIP of 4.92 and his 5.87 K/9 is a far cry from the 9.22 number he posted when he closed for the Rangers in their first World Series season of 2010. Keep a watch on him in the spring to see if he just needs a little more recovery time from the surgery or if he has been extremely lucky since being thrust into the closer role and no longer has the skills to compete at his prior level.
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