Carlos Beltran (OF) NYY - Beltran homered for the third straight game Wednesday, giving him 16 on the year and the 3rd highest ISO of his career. His avg HR distance isn't all that great (383 ft.) for the number of homers that he's hitting, but that's typical of many of the Yanks with that home park. Health will likely be an issue going forward, and he's really not likely to continue this sort of power production to begin with, although he will likely still be solid in that area. Beltran is still a solid OF4 for me, but the likelihood of him hitting the DL at some point is rather high.
James Shields (SP) CWS - Shields had the kind of debut that we were all dreading, allowing 7 runs on 8 hits (3 of them homers) to the Nationals in 2-plus innings. The 34 year old was already in steep regression before moving to the tougher league and a much tougher park, dropping 2.3 mph off his fastball over the past two years and sporting his worst hard contact since 2010 and his worst chase rate since his rookie year of 2006. I can't see this ending well, and I would go so far as to say that I wouldn't own him in standard-sized leagues.
Doug Fister (SP) HOU - I'm as amazed as you are, but Fister shut the Rangers down over 6 innings Wednesday to move to 4-0 in his last 7 starts. He's 1/3 of an inning short of 9 straight quality starts right now, despite fanning less than 5 1/2 men per 9 innings. I don't expect this to continue for much longer despite the extended run that he's had....he simply doesn't miss bats often enough, and that .252 BABIP is likely about 70 points low. He's been pitching like an SP4 for over a month now, and if you can get that sort of value for him I'd deal him in a second.
Chris Tillman (SP) BAL - Tillman bounced back from a couple subpar outings to stifle the Royals over 7 1.3 innings, scattering 8 hits and striking out 9 without walking a batter. Tillman generated 19 swinging strikes from a team that doesn't whiff much, and that alone shows you the biggest improvement in his game this season. His breaking pitches have been significantly more effective this season, helping him bump that swinging strike% nearly 3 points. The peripherals suggest some regression of the negative sort may be on the way, but I believe that Tillman will still retain back-end SP value in just about all formats.
Josh Donaldson (3B) TOR - Donaldson singled, tripled, and homered Wednesday against the Tigers, raising his slash line to 255/367/518 on the year. It may seem like a bit of a disappointment, but the underlying stats show you that Donaldson is playing even better this year than last. The walk rate has climbed more as pitchers are avoiding the strike zone with him in even greater numbers than before, yet he's still managed a LD rate of over 23% and a hard contact rate north of 40%, both career bests. I expect the numbers to continue to rise as the year moves on for one of the best bats in the game.
