Melky Cabrera - Another 0-5 on Sunday dropped Cabrera to 8-34 with 1 HR for the month of May, dragging his season line down to 264/314/309. That's a putrid performance from a LF, particularly from one that is a notorious negative in the field and on the bases. This has been one of those curious cases where the player in question is making contact at an elite level (91.2%), and even hitting a decent amount of line drives (20.6%), but the FB rate has cratered and the BABIP is a bit on the unlucky side. Melky is with his 6th team in 7 years, which is in itself a less than positive sign, and this year's performance to this point reads a lot like his one season in Atlanta. The funny thing is, coming into Sunday he was hitting 351/410/419 against RHP....it's still mostly singles, but at least its some production. This is the third straight year that he's had significant split weakness against LHP, so I think you may be at the point where you have to treat him as a left-handed bat now, sitting him in daily or weekly play where appropriate. This isn't a complete collapse in my estimation, just an interesting route for the beginning of a decline phase to take.
Alex Colome and the TB rotation - Colome is no longer temporarily in the rotation, he's quickly becoming someone that the Rays will have to lean on. Tampa suffered awful news over the weekend, as it looks like Alex Cobb is out for most of the next two seasons, while Drew Smyly is likely out for at least the rest of 2015. That leaves Archer, Odorizzi, Karns, Colome, and someone to be named in the Tampa starting group. As Steve mentioned a few days ago, the increased velocity differential between Colome's FB and change combined with an increased reliance on his curve have given him four pitches that are grading as positive (above average) currently. An increased GB rate is a major positive as well, and while he has been pretty fortunate in his two starts with balls in play, there's still quite a bit of upside potential here. He faces a fairly hot Yankee offense on Monday, but at just $6100 on FanDuel he's one of my favorite four pitchers on the slate for the price. I believe him to be worth a speculative add in most formats, while Cobb can be dropped in most formats (including some dynasty formats....two seasons is a long time to hold a roster spot). With Smyly I'd likely drop him in most formats as well...a labrum tear is rarely pitched through successfully, but the situation isn't quite as certain as Cobb's.
Marcus Semien - Semien went 3-4 with a pair of homers off of Felix Hernandez in the 4-3 loss to Oakland Sunday, bringing his 2015 line up to 307/353/488. Semien doesn't really project to have quite the power or speed that he's shown thus far, but he's hit line drives at over a 20% clip in each of his three partial seasons, and he's continued to improve both his chase rate and swinging strike% by fairly large increments each year. From what I've seen from him this year, I believe that we can expect a bit more AVG and a bit less pop than we initially forecast over the winter, but frankly I'm more confident of the better AVG than the less pop. I wouldn't have been sold on him as a sure starter at SS in standard-sized leagues pre-season, but I'd be on that bandwagon now, and he's still just 24.
Jesse Chavez - Chavez was marginal on Sunday against the Mariners, giving up 4 runs but only 7 baserunners over 6 2/3 innings, fanning 7. He's amassed 24 IP, 9 ER, 9 BB, and 23 K's over his four starts in the rotation, which is pretty serviceable for a 5th starter if you ask me. There's been a slight velo bump, an increase in swinging strike%, and a very low LD rate that point in Chavez's favor in 2015, but to me he's still a guy that'll give you roughly a league average ERA with an above average K rate, meaning that he likely should be owned in most formats.
Brian Dozier - Dozier continued his hot hitting on Sunday, leading off the game with a homer to account for the only hit off of starter Danny Salazar. Dozier has reached base 15 times over the last 8 games, and he's increased his ISO to .195 in the process. He's continued to increase the amount of hard contact that he makes this year, something that should enable him to approach 20/20 territory again, but I wouldn't be surprised if we've seen his best in both HR and SB. His contact rate is off quite a bit here in the early going as well, which will make it hard for him to get out of the .235-.245 range in AVG that he's posted since he arrived in the majors. All in all he's still a very solid 2B that remains both at peak and a likely top-8 player at the position, but he is often overrated, and he has less upside and more downside than many expect.
