Matt Carpenter was 1-for-4 last night, and has been one of the more interesting cases so far this season. He has an impressive 9 HR, but a .226 average nearly 60 points below his career average. A lot of that transformation is due to a higher number of flyballs, nearly 48% of contact, which is 10% higher than his career average. If that trend continues, we could see Carpenter break the 30 HR mark for the first time this season, though that's anyone's guess. His surface numbers don't look great, but he'll be a solid CI option the rest of the way, albeit unspectacularly.
Robbie Ray dazzled last night with a CG SO in his best outing of the year. Entering last night, Ray's only blemish was his walk rate, which sat at 4.35 per 9. Most encouraging last night aside from the fantastic swings and misses, he didn't walk a single batter. At just 25, there's a real lot to like about Ray. He's having a career year, partly by setting a career high in SwStr%; look for more great results going forward. A lot of folks didn't trust Ray coming into the year because of his lack of control, but you should trust him going forward.
Giancarlo Stanton hit his third home run in the last five days last night; it was his seventh straight game batting out of the #2 hole. This is great for his fantasy value; while he may see a decline in RBI, he should be getting a handful of extra AB before yearend, which should result in some more roundtrippers. Stanton looks to be poised for a career year, or at least close to it. His K% is down to 22.6%, nearly 6% below his career average, and he's setting a career high in contact rate. His 2014 wRC+ of 161 will be tough to match, but he'll certainly be closer to that than his 2016 results for sure. Enjoy.
Zach Cozart connected with his 6th and 7th home runs of the year last night as he continued his career year. Cozart sports a wRC+ over 165, which is nearly double his career rate. Cozart has certainly made some improvement to his game, but I'm not betting on anything remotely close to his current stats to continue. He's certainly shown more patience at the plate, as he's walking nearly 13% of the time vs. less than 6% for his career, but he's been very fortunate on balls in play as his BABIP is over 120 points above career norms. At age 31, we usually don't see these kinds of transformations. Your best bet is to deal him while his value is high if you can find a believer, I'm just not one of them.
Tyler Anderson entered yesterday with a 5.40 ERA, and saw it increase to 5.85 as he allowed 6 ER over 5 innings against the Mariners. It was one of his poorer starts to the season, and was particularly frustrating to sabremetric fans; his SIERA was a respectable 3.82 entering the game and he sported a K rate over 9. But that's why it's tough to trust a pitcher who plays half his games at Coors Field. Anderson could have great stuff, but the smallest of mistakes will expose him. He could be serviceable moving forward, but give it a few starts to see if he can find some consistency. The Swing and Miss numbers are great, but it hasn't amounted to anything yet.
