Didi Gregorius (SS) NYY - Gregorius, fresh off a 337/368/535 month of June, had two singles, a double, and a steal in the 5-0 loss to Chicago Wednesday. He's showing more power than ever before, although it isn't really backed up by the distance or hard contact data, but more importantly he's showing a massive increase in his contact rate which is helping prevent his notoriously poor BABIP from killing his AVG once again. Despite being ignored in many formats, Gregorius has moved up to the #14 ranked SS as of Tuesday night, making him a clearly viable option in just about all formats. A 15/10 year with a helping AVG seems fairly likely.
Dylan Bundy (SP) BAL - It's not often that you'll see any of us write about a long reliever, but Bundy isn't your typical mop-up man. The Orioles appear to be slowly stretching out the 23 year old, as two of his last three outings have been over 55 pitches, and with just two SPs with ERAs under 5.22, the rotational need is evident. The stats don't look great for the season as a whole, but his velocity has bumped up more than 1 mph since 6/1 (up to just over 96), and his line for his last 6 outings looks like this: 14 1/3 IP, 11 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 4 BB, 19 K. All 7 outs that he recorded on Wednesday came via the strikeout, illustrating just what sort of potential we are talking about here. A move to the rotation would likely result in some growing pains, but the upside here is sizable, and he should be preemptively picked up in deeper leagues right now if you have the room.
Marcus Stroman (SP) TOR - Stroman allowed 2 runs on just 3 hits against the Royals over 8 innings Wednesday, walking 1 and fanning 6 for the second consecutive start. I think he may legitimately be improving here as we enter the summer months, as his velocity keeps creeping up start by start, while he's walked 0 or 1 in 5 of his last 6 outings. Especially when you see the FIP ERA under 4.00 coming into Wednesday's contest, I feel pretty positively about Stroman's ability to provide value as a back-end SP in the second half, and if he's really going to be throwing 94-95 again, there's some upside from that level as well.
Nick Franklin (2B/OF) TB - Franklin has suddenly started playing most of the time for TB as he joins Brad Miller in the "failed Seattle prospects looking frisky" portion of the TB lineup, and after a 1-3 performance Wednesday he's hitting 303/395/455. We are admittedly in small sample size-land here, but almost every underlying indicator looks very positive through his first 14 G: soft and hard contact rate, chase rate, and LD rate. There is power and speed potential with Franklin, who has 16 HR and 12 SB in just 115 G at AAA the past two years...the contact rate is the issue. If he can maintain the level he's shown through his first few weeks with TB, he will be worth a MIF slot in most formats.
Tyler Naquin (OF) CLE - Naquin had a pair of singles and a walk in the 12-2 loss to the Tigers, and he's hitting 320/383/578 on the year with 19 XBH in less than 150 ABs. Sure, there's likely going to be a bit of AVG regression, but the 42.3% hard contact rate and the 401 ft avg HR distance speak well for the power numbers. Naquin is certainly playing well enough to justify a roster spot in all formats, and I think most of this performance is genuine talent.
