Trea Turner (WAS) - Since being released from Dusty Baker's rookie purgatory, Trea Turner has been arguably the Nationals best offensive player. The rookie notched three more hits and two more runs on Friday night and now has an impressive .324/.343/.537 slash line with 3 home runs, 17 RBIs, 13 stolen bases and 26 runs scored in 31 games played. Turner's plate discipline remains a work in progress (4 walks to 27 strikeouts), but with slightly better rates in the minors, there's hope that this area of the game will come around eventually. Right now his OBP is getting artificially boosting by a BABIP of .380, a number that's really high and will be difficult to sustain, even after considering his elite 41.5% hard hit rate. Turner is priced appropriately across the industry for DFS on Saturday ($4,000 on FD and $5,000 DK), but he remains a key component of any Nationals stacks as Washington challenges Tyrell Jenkins.
Christian Yelich (MIA) - Christian Yelich went 3-for-4 with his 14th homerun of the season. At the risk of sounding crass, we told you so. While the stolen bases haven't quite translated from last year, Yelich now has double the number of home runs he hit in 2015, which is exactly the number where Fantistics projected him during the pre-season. As we pointed out then, Yelich's batted ball speed and hard hit rate were a big reason for our projected increase and those two factors appear to be the driving force behind his actual results this season. Without Giancarlo Stanton, the Marlins desperately need a power hitter in the middle of their order. We've now seen 4 homeruns from Yelich in the month of August, making it conceivable that we could see him hit 20 before the end of the season. Yelich's 106.8 BBS on homeruns is elite and his 39% hard hit rate is 6% better than last year. Oh, did we mention that he's also finally hitting fewer groundballs (although, he's still primarily a groundball hitter). He's a fun play on FanDuel tomorrow at $3,500. At $4,800 on DraftKings, he's a bit harder to fit in cash games.
Corey Seager (LAD) - Corey Seager stayed white hot on Friday night by going 2-for-4. In the month of August, Seager has played in 15 games and has hits in all but 3 games and has recorded multiple hits in 8 games. Seager is slashing a healthy .311/.363/.530 on the season. With 21 home runs, Seager has already met our lofty pre-season projections for him and he looks to be in great position to shatter this number. Stop listening to experts who shun you for drafting rookies. Rookies have greater performance variance, yes, but having them on your roster will immediately improve his chances of winning your league. He's an interesting tournament option for DFS on Saturday when he faces a left-handed Brandon Finnegan, so he doesn't get the split advantage, but he gets a tremendous park shift and he's on a hot streak.
Gerrit Cole (PIT) - Gerrit Cole had a mixed bag of results on Friday after he pitched into the 7th inning against the Marlins. Cole finished with a no-decision and finished with a line of 6.2IP, 12H, 3ER, 5K, 2BB. The most discouraging part of that line is the 12 hits, which is the second time in a row that he has allowed that number of hits. Cole has been allowing more contact this season (83% this year vs 79% career), but the good news is that his batted ball quality metrics have remained largely unchanged. All of Cole's pitches have lost effectiveness this year, but his slider has been particularly ineffective with a pitch rating of -0.63wSL/c vs 1.11 last season.
David Dahl (COL) - David Dahl led off Friday's game with his 4th home run since being called up on July 25th. While he has quieted down a little since his torrid start, he's still slashing .341/.394/.593. Dahl wasn't a huge power hitter in the minor leagues, instead, he made more of impact as a base stealer. Interesting, Dahl has yet to swipe a back with the Rockies. Dahl has always been a decent hitter for average, but it's worth keeping in mind his .448 BABIP is exceptionally high and when it comes down, it'll be difficult to support such a stellar batting average mark considering his 28% strikeout rate. Coors Field is certainly a nice benefit, but I caution owners not to get overzealous about the power output.
