Jake Lamb (AZ) - Jake Lamb continued his sizzling hot season by smashing his 14th homerun of the year in the 1st inning on Monday. As a Fantistics subscriber, you're likely reaping the benefits of our aggressive ranking of Lamb that we shared in the pre-season, and his underlying statistics show no reason to pump the breaks on his progression. Lamb has a tremendous .283 ISO, a measure of a player's raw power, which is supported by an elite 41% hard hit rate. Knowing this, his .279/.364/.553 slash line seems sustainable despite the below average 74% contact rate that he possesses. Looking towards Tuesday, Lamb gets another nice hitting environment as the Diamondback travel to Toronto to take on Marco Estrada. With handedness splits in his favor, Lamb seems like he's still in the conversation as a cash game play on FanDuel, despite a rising price tag to $3,900.
Marcell Ozuna (MIA) - Marcell Ozuna hit two more home runs on Monday night, bringing his season total to 15. The most impressive thing about Ozuna's great power output has been the fact that he has actually hit more homeruns in his roomy home ballpark than on the road this year (9 vs 6). That actually shouldn't come as surprise when you see that his average home run distance is 411 feet and avg homerun batted ball speed is 105 MPH. That type of power plays in any park and Ozuna's home run totals will only continue to grow as the weather heats up all over the league. At just $3,600 on FanDuel, Ozuna remains a great DFS play as he takes on Bud Norris and the Braves. Despite Norris' strong return to the starting rotation, he has historically been extremely homerun prone. Norris has squeaked by in his first 3 starts this year, despite the fact that he has a poor 18% Hard hit - Soft hit rate. I'm really digging a mini-stack of Giancarlo Stanton and Marcell Ozuna tonight.
Trevor Story (COL) - Well it had been about a week since Trevor Story's last home run, so it's only natural that he hit one off Paul Clemens in a slugfest in Miami. Story now has 18 home runs and 40 RBI on the season despite his ugly 34% strikeout rate. Playing his home games in Coors certainly helps him maintain his .288 ISO, but he actually has 4 more homers on the road than at home. The poor 73% contact rate and high 12% swinging strike rate will weigh down his batting average, but the power is legit. With that said, comparing him to fellow rookie superstar Jake Lamb, I'd rather bet on the latter for the rest of the season. Looking at Tuesday's matchup in Yankee Stadium, Story is extremely underpriced on FanDuel at just $2,800. Ivan Nova doesn't give up a lot of groundballs, but Yankee Stadium has a higher RHB home run index than Coors Field since 2013, meaning Story is actually getting a favorable park shift.
Trevor Rosenthal (STL) - Speaking before Monday night's game, manager Mike Matheny gave Trevor Rosenthal a vote of confidence despite his closer's recent struggles. Matheny had a chance to put his money where his mouth was on Monday night when he called Rosenthal in the 9th inning to protect a 3-2 lead. Rosenthal made things interesting, hitting a batter than allowing a basehit, but ending up sneaking out he victory. It was just the 2nd scoreless inning for Rosenthall out of his last 5 appearances and the 1st outing this month where he didn't allow a run to score after allowing a walk in the inning. Rosenthal still has the highest BB% among all qualified relievers and a brutal 38% hard hit rate. For what it's worth noting that Seung Hwan-Oh pitched a clean 8th inning in front of Rosenthal, but it was Kevin Siegrist who was warming up in the bullpen in the 9th inning.
Madison Bumgarner (SF) - Bumgarner pitched 8 strong innings, but ended up being the tough luck loser after allowing allowing a solo home run to backup catcher Erik Kratz. Bumgarner moves to 8-3 on the season and is enjoying the highest strikeout rate of his career (28%), as well as his best contact rate (75%) and second-best soft hit rate (22%). We have seen a shift in the batted ball profile of Bumgarner, with opponents hitting fewer groundballs in favor of more flyballs. Luckily, his HR/FB rate has actually decreased and his infield flyball rate has doubled to 12%. As a result of the improvement to his HR/FB rate, Bumgarner predictably has an xFIP that is over a run higher than his current ERA. While I don't think Bumgarner will finish the year with a sub-2 ERA, I also think that his 3.45 xFIP is also a little high. Bumgarner should continue to pitch like an ace for your teams moving forward, but just expect there to be a little regression from his exceptionally strong 1st 2 months of the year.
