Nelson Cruz, Seattle Mariners - Let's start this one off with the fact that Nelson Cruz's ISO is the 58th best slugging percentage in baseball at .463. He belted another two homers Saturday before being lifted for a pinch runner once the game got too out of hand. He is easily having the best season of his career and 40 homeruns will easily happen at this pace and we may see the now rare 50 burger thrown up by Cruz. He is hitting much better on the road, but that's just by the fact of the numbers as he's still hitting .295 with three homers at home while hitting a ridiculous .395 with 10 homers on the road. He's also cutting down on his strikeouts for the second straight season, all making what may be the MVP of fantasy this year.
Evan Gattis, Houston Astros - Gattis is starting to show why most fantasy analysts were so high on him after being traded to Houston this offseason. He launched his fourth homer of the season and has slowly seen his average creep up to .183, which is still terrible but he is 5-for-17 with three homers and eight RBI in his last five games. The downside to Gattis is he is still striking out in over 30% of his at bats while being hurt by a .203 BABIP. Now while Gattis will never be a high BABIP guy due to his HR and K rates, but .208 is well below his career average of .271. With this hot streak the buy-low window on Gattis is inching closer and closer to being closed.
Dellin Betances, New York Yankees - Congrats to everyone who drafted Betances early this spring as it took until May for him to notch his first save of the season. With Andrew Miller, despite Joe Giraridi's reluctance to give him the title, firmly in as the Yankees closer Betances has been primarily working out of the setup role in the eighth. Saturday though, he pitched 1.1 innings to earn the save and struck out all four batters that he faced. Betances has been on an unbelievable tear after some early season struggles having allowed just one hit since April 17th (8 appearances). He's struck out 19 batters in that span and compared to just two over that same span. He has officially joined Wade Davis as possibly the only two non-closers (Davis when Holland returns) worth owning in any format.
Taijuan Walker, Seattle Mariners - Wow... Walker turned in another horrible outing Saturday as the Astros tee'd off on him en route to their 9th straight win. Somehow despite four errors behind him Walker managed to still have seven of his eight runs be earned. He had improved over every start this year, including 7 shutout innings last time out, but it all seemed to disappear as he allowed 7+ runs in under four innings for the second times this season. Walker's upside is obvious and well know which makes his droppable status iffy as someone would take a flier on him, but he may be worth benching/spot starting until he shows that he can consistently retire hitters. He's being plagued by a .400 BABIP, but even then his FIP still sits in the mid fives so regardless he's not having much success this season.
Trevor Bauer, Cleveland Indians - $8,300 Trevor Bauer is an interesting case for Sunday as he has been excellent this season but a matchup against Toronto in Toronto is not ideal for the righty. His best starts this season have been against Houston and the White Sox twice, while the one time he faced a top offense (KC) he gave up three runs over six innings. He also only struck out two in that start as his K's have slowly declined over all four of his stats. I still like Bauer a lot for season leagues but in daily you might want to look elsewhere if you were considering him.
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