Elvis Andrus - Elvis Andrus homered twice in his 3-for-4 effort on Saturday. The homers were his seventh and eight of the season which now gives him a career high in homers along with his 68 RBI, which is also a career high. Andrus is having his best offensive season hands down with a 110 wRC+, even if it's not necessarily his best fantasy season as his stolen bases aren't quite at the numbers he used to be at. The power increase has come from a dramatic impact in his approach going from 20.9%, to 31.8% and then 28.4% FB rates. For next year I don't know that I'm going to own Andrus anywhere because I think he's a declining talent despite being just 28 for almost all of next season.
Nelson Cruz - Nelson Cruz homered for the second straight game and now sits a single homerun shy of his third straight 40 HR season, after never hitting more than 29 in a season before signing with the Orioles. In 2014. His ability to hit a homerun on what should be an unsustainable rate based on his FB% is really what has allowed him to succeed in Seattle. In 2015 he homered on 30% of his fly balls which is a video game number, and then he followed that up with a close 24% this season. The batting average isn't quite where it was last year but a .40 drop in BABIP can do that to you.
Miguel Sano - Miguel Sano hit homer #24 on the season (in just 108 games) Saturday, which if you want to do the math it puts him on a 34 homer pace for 150 games. 34 bombs would tie him for 14th in the league. Sano is one of the elite power hitters in all of baseball, and if he can improve on his average at all (.240) he could be a bon-a-fide fantasy stud. Looking at his batted ball charts his LD% dipped this season while seeing an increase in FB% which is good for him but his HR/FB% also dropped by 6% so if we can see his LD% tick up a little more maybe we can see a .260-.270 average from him in the future.
Trey Mancini - Trey Mancini went deep again on Saturday which puts him in rare company with Trevor Story and Carlos Quentin as the only players in MLB history with homers in each of their first three starts. He's yet to hit a since since being called up with a double being his lone non homerun hit. Mancini has shown some power potential in the minors with a 20 homerun season last year and he also had 20 homer exactly before being called up to the majors this year. While Baltimore is loaded offensively, the team could be looking to replace Mark Trumbo come next season (free agent) and Mancini could be one of the people who gets the look to replace him.
Rick Porcello - Rick Porcello picked up win number 22 Saturday with 6.1 innings of three run ball against the Rays. Porcello struck out nine against a single walk as his incredible surprise season continues. The odd thing about Porcello's crazy season is that there isn't anything all the different compared to his last few seasons despite a severely decreased BABIP and a HR/FB% that has plummeted as well. This makes me a bit nervous about Porcello going into next season, but the Boston offense is so good that it can help make up for any crippling shortcomings of the Boston staff.
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