Jordan Zimmerman impressed yesterday going 7 innings with 0 ER and 6 strikeouts against the Yankees. Zimmerman decreased his ERA to 5.35 in what has been an obviously disappointing season. Despite the good start, the 31-year old isn't an advised option in any format. He's allowing a pretty poor 1.84 HR/9 due to a high 42% FB rate. He's fortunate to have left Yankee Stadium without surrendering a longball yesterday. Despite the strong start, stay away from Zimm.
Masahiro Tanaka took his 10th loss of the season yesterday to the Tigers, going 6 innings and allowing 2 runs (1 ER) with 7 strikeouts. Tanaka decreased his ERA to 4.93; he remains an extremely volatile player that I'm having difficulty trusting. If you look at his peripherals, he should be a top 20 pitcher; his SIERA is 3.54 with an insane 14.8% SwStr%. Unfortunately he's allowing nearly 2 HR per 9 innings, leading to many ruined starts due to one swing of the bat. I'm not sure what to do with Tanaka going forward. I'm happy to have him on my roster, but it's tough to trust him given the uneven results. But given his last two starts, hopefully he's trending upward and has figured things out.
Miguel Cabrera was 0-for-4 yesterday, decreasing his BA to just .257 on the season. This can hopefully be an absolute lowpoint for Miggy's 2017 as he's been one unlucky fella. His .300 BABIP is actually 46 points of his career. His 27% LD rate is the highest of his career, so we should be seeing at the very least a BABIP more in line with his career average, if not even higher. Of course with the adoption of defensive shifts, we should have some lower expectations for Miggy, but he's pretty equitable with his hit dispersion that I don't think that's the true cause of the poor results. Buy now on Miggy before it's too late; I see a strong final two months.
Ervin Santana picked up his 12th win of the season, pitching a CG 2 ER with 9 strikeouts in a nice matchup against the Padres in San Diego. The 34-year-old reduced his ERA to just 3.28. I'm shocked he's been able to maintain such a strong ERA for so long, but it's been done by a career best 83% LOB rate, which is about 10 points higher than his career. I will say, he's inducing very poor contact (20% soft hit), which is the best of his career. That's leading to some of the favorable results, but with a SIERA of 4.81, I'm not confident in his success continuing in the dog days of August.
JA Happ feasted on the lowly White Sox yesterday, going 7 strong innings with 10 strikeouts and just 1 ER. I'm certainly sending Happ's stock higher after this start since he's allowed 3 ER or less in 9 of his last 10 starts. His season-long stats are still iffy, but he can be a solid backend rotation addition, particularly in favorable matchups or two start weeks. I'd expect an ERA around 4.00 rest of season with 8+ K/9.
