David Price
Price's 2016 struggles continued on Saturday, as the Red Sox big off-season acquisition made it just 4.2 innings, allowing six earned runs on seven hits and three walks, while striking out four. Price had been alternating good and bad starts this season, but broke the streak with his second straight rough outing. Price presents one of the more interesting cases in fantasy baseball right now. On the one hand, even after another bad start, his FIP and xFIP are both below 3.00, indicating it's just been a stretch of tough luck leading to the 6.75 ERA. He's striking out 11.54 batters per nine innings, and his .373 opponent BABIP and 54.2 percent left on base rate both scream positive regression. On the other hand, Price's fastball is down 1.73 mph this season from last, according to Brooks Baseball, and Saturday's average fastball was as low as it has been all season. Of course, Price is still throwing over 92 mph and can mix several pitches in effectively. Count me in on still believing in Price, especially since the home plate umpire was pinching Price on the afternoon, really costing him in the three-run fourth, in particular.
Ian Kennedy
Kennedy continued his strong start to 2016 on Saturday, winning his fourth game by going seven innings of shutout ball. Kennedy allowed just four hits and two walks while striking out six. It was arguably Kennedy's best start of the season, and his first scoreless outing since facing the flaccid Twins in his season debut. That debut set the tone for what has been a renaissance for Kennedy, who now sports a 4-2 record with a 2.13 ERA in 38 innings this season. Kennedy has 35 strikeouts in those 38 innings, and has only allowed three home runs this year. Those home runs are the biggest difference when comparing Kennedy's strong 2016 with his poor 2015 season. In fact, per xFIP, which neutralizes HR/FB rate, Kennedy is actually pitching quite a bit worse in 2016 (4.40) than last year (3.70). Of course, the biggest thing for Kennedy is he gets to pitch in Kauffman Stadium now, in front of the elite Royal defense. That's going to almost certainly mean Kennedy will be able to outperform his FIP this year, as the Royals team ERA is currently 31 points lower than their FIP, and Kennedy will be benefitting from it all season. That being said, it's hard to imagine that 2.27 difference between his ERA and xFIP or even the 1.47 difference between his ERA and FIP, but if Kennedy can maintain an ERA in the mid-to-low 3.00s with a decent strikeout rate all while pitching for a strong team capable of getting him wins, he makes for an interesting own in slightly deeper leagues and a must-stream option each time out there in average-sized leagues.
Josh Reddick
Reddick had a monster doubleheader Saturday, collecting seven hits in the two games, and bringing his slash line up to .301/.355/.460 this season, a nice return for his owners. Reddick was the focus of an interesting profile in Sports Illustrated recently, and in the piece, Reddick said that when he came into the league, the player he most associated with was Ichiro Suzuki because Reddick hated striking out and liked hitting for average first and foremost. Of course, most fantasy players think of Reddick's 32-homer 2012 season as his best, but maybe it's not too surprising that most Reddick seasons see that number closer to 20, since Reddick also struck out more than any other season that 2012 campaign. Luckily for Reddick owners, his production elsewhere makes up for a lack of dedication to his power stroke, as the 29-year-old has 26 RuBIns and two steals to go along with the strong BA and four home runs. Reddick's peripherals are as strong as they have ever been so far, as his soft hit ball rate is a career low, he's almost entirely avoiding infield pop ups, and his line drive rate is also at a career high. Reddick is clearly seeing the ball well right now, and deserves to be owned in all leagues at this point.
Kyle Seager
Sound the alarm, Kyle Seager is officially heated up. The Mariner third baseman started the season like Foreigner (Cold as Ice), hitting .139 in his first 21 games, only keeping up any semblance of value with his four home runs over that same stretch. Seager has easily topped his hit total from his first 21 games (11) in the past eight games, however, going a red hot 15-for-33 and stuffing the stat sheet with seven runs, three home runs, and nine RBI. The average is already back to .232 and should only continue to climb as the season progresses. Seager's BABIP is still a well-below-average .221, 64 points below his career rate. Seager has seen a slight drop in line drive rate (18.2 percent), but those balls have been turned into more fly balls (46.6 percent), and, when paired with an increased hard hit ball rate (40.4 percent) may mean we could see Seager top 30 home runs for the first time in a season. Even if that comes with a slight drop in BA, I'm sure owners would take the power boost. Seager has been one of the most consistent commodities in fantasy baseball the last 4+ seasons, so hopefully you didn't abandon him during his slow start.
Daily Fantasy Leagues
Rougned Odor
Odor is now worth a play nearly every day thanks to his true five-category breakout of a season so far. If we choose the admittedly arbitrary cut offs of: 20 runs, 20 RBI, six home runs and four steals, all of which Odor has, the only other guy in all of baseball to meet those standards in 2016 is Bryce Harper. And Odor is hitting for a better batting average than Harper. The 22-year-old stud two-bagger gets a prime match up with Justin Verlander on Sunday, to boot. Verlander has been awful by just about any metric in 2016, and Odor is tearing the cover off the ball right now. He's hitting .330 with five home runs in the last 24 games, and is as likely a McDouble (or smash and dash, if you will) candidate as you'll find outside of Jose Altuve right now. He's great in tournaments because of that ceiling, but with as hot as he is, he's almost a lock to get you some points regardless. Plug him into your roster, and enjoy.
DraftKings: $3,700
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