Tom Milone - Milone tossed his sixth straight QS Wednesday, holding the O's to 1 run on 5 hits over 7 innings, walking 2 and fanning 5 to move to 5-1 on the year. Sure, his peripherals look pretty ugly from a full-season standpoint, but much like Kendall Graveman there has been a noticeable change since his return from the minors. Basically, he's cut his walk rate in half and raised his K rate by almost 50% during his second stint with the Twins this year, and he's done it while raising his velocity by over 1 mph. While with Graveman I believe most of the improvement to be real, with Milone my enthusiasm is tempered a bit. Milone still has a GB rate around 40% and is in the strike zone less than 40% of the time, and that doesn't begin to take into account the strand rate and BABIP concerns (Milone has proven to be one of those "Tommy John clones" that consistently outperform their BABIP, but not to this level typically). I believe that he's improved enough to become a roster option in most formats, but he's still more of a streaming candidate than someone like Graveman, whom I would trust a sizable portion of the time at this point.
Preston Tucker - Tucker has completed the first 3/4 of the series against Cleveland with an 8-13 line that includes a homer and a double, and while the stocky lefty doesn't offer any upside in speed like the other Astro OFs, he's already managed 15 homers between AAA and the majors this season, so you know there's some 20-30 HR potential there. He's playing every day in a friendly park, and he's been producing at a clip that is at least solid.....he certainly deserves a look in deeper leagues at the very least. To this point he's struggled with breaking stuff much like most kids when they first get to the bigs, but the raw tools make me think that could prove to be at least an adequate hitter for both average and power going forward...the trick will be keeping the playing time in a system that seems to get more crowded by the minute.
Ubaldo Jimenez - Jimenez continued his stretch of solid pitching Wednesday, bending consistently but not breaking over five shutout innings against the Twins. He did need 110 pitches to get through those five and allowed 7 hits and 3 walks against 5 punchouts, however. Jimenez hasn't allowed more than 3 ER since late May, and his GB rate, swinging strike%, chase rate, and most significantly his BB rate are all improved from 2014. I believe that I'm a bit biased against Jimenez, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'm not sold that he can even maintain his SIERA of 3.39 going forward. His LD rate is up above 25%, which makes his BABIP of .303 a bit suspect, and his strand rate of nearly 79% is on the high side as well. Add in the fact that his percentage of pitches in the strike zone hasn't increased by nearly as much as you'd expect for the walk rate to have been cut in half, and I'd expect that number to move up by perhaps as much as 1.00 over the second half as well. If you tally all the positives and negatives, I'm of the opinion that Jimenez can maintain an ERA in the mid-3.00's for the second half if he continues to pitch with these peripherals, which still likely makes him a very rosterable option for most of us....I'm just not of the opinion that he is someone to be counted on as consistently as it might appear at first glance.
Brad Miller - Miller walked twice and swiped his 9th base of the year on Wednesday, and while his 2015 season hasn't been the breakout year that some (including me) hoped it would be, he's still the 15th ranked SS to this point, which makes him a MIF option in standard leagues even at this level of performance. Over the past two weeks he has continued to pull the ball less and less (his pull percentage has declined in each month thus far), and during that time he's gone 15-41 with 4 2B, 2 HR, and 3 SB while walking 3 times and striking out only 7. There's obviously a lot of potential with a SS that hits line drives over 20% of the time and is a clear 15/15 threat, so for me Miller is a guy that I would try to keep rostered in most formats.
Rougned Odor - Odor singled and scored twice on Wednesday, giving him hits in 10 of his last 11 games. He's 25-70 (.364) with 5 doubles, 3 homers, and 4 steals since coming back from the minors, and most importantly he has 5 walks and 9 strikeouts over that span. He's made a dramatic improvement in his chase rate since his early season struggles, and in addition to all these positives, let's keep in mind that he's just 21 years old. I am still a huge fan for the long-term, and I think that he will continue to provide value in just about all formats for 2015 as well.
