Trevor Cahill- P- OAK- Idea- When he has pitched in the pitcher-friendly Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum this season he has looked like the second coming of Cy Young. With a .156/.215/.247 slash line and 0.85 ERA there has been a sharp contrast to his .294/.387/.446 slash line and 7.02 ERA on the road. Cahill's last home start on August 18 was 7 shutout IP of the Astros. Value play- Draft Kings salary $6800
Lance Lynn- P- NYY- FYI- In his 7 starts as a Yankee, Lynn has exactly 1 quality start. That was also the only time he pitched at least 6 IP. Yesterday Lynn was tagged for 6 runs (all earned) before leaving after 3.2 IP. There is a silver lining there, though. The runs came from the way the Tigers strung things together, not necessarily because Lynn pitched poorly. His FIP for the game was 0.70. He struck out 6 batters, walked none, and none of the hits were homers. The outing actually dropped Lynn's FIP for the season a hair below 4.00 at 3.99. He is striking out more than a batter per inning, with a K/9 of 9.41. Lynn has been killed by his control, with a 4.71 BB/9. Over his last 3 starts, though, he has walked 3 batters in 13.2 IP, a marked improvement. If Lynn shows solid control the rest of the season and next spring, he would be a solid candidate to bounce back.
James Shields- P- CHW- Hot- Baseball is a funny game. After the Tigers tagged Shields for 7 runs in 6.2 IP on August 23rd, he gave up 2 runs in the Bronx on August 28th and threw 6 shutout IP against the Red Sox yesterday. His performance against Boston was superior to that against the Yankees. Shields gave up 4 hits (one of them a homer) and 4 walks against New York. He gave up 4 hits and only walked 2 against Boston. In the second half Shields has turned in solid performances against the Indians and Mariners (when they were still a wild card favorite.) His performance has been solid enough to merit a look for the rest of the season and next spring to evaluate his possible value for 2019. It's not consistent enough to recommend him down the stretch for this year.
Joey Rickard- OF- BAL- Hot- Rickard is 3-for-7 in his 2 games since being added to the major league roster again. He batted .275 at AAA Norfolk and had a .384 BABIP due to a 14.1% BB%. Rickard has showed increased power this season during his time in the big leagues, with 7 homers in 157 ABs. That's the most homers he has had in a season since 8 in 559 Class A ABs in 2013. Rickard's FB% has increased from 38.0% in 2017 to 44.4% this year while his Hard% has gone up from 24.9% to 31.6%. He should get a decent look this September, which will help project him for 2019.
Shohei Ohtani- P- LAA- FYI- Ohtani made his much-anticipated first start since June 6th. It was not a long outing, as he was pulled after 49 pitches with one out in the 3rd inning. Ohtani threw 30 of those pitches for strikes, which just about exactly matched his percentage of strikes thrown before he went on the DL. He ended up giving up 2 runs on 2 hits and 2 walks while striking out 2. One worrying thing was that Ohtani's fastball velocity dropped significantly in his last inning of work. It looks like Ohtani is not ready to go deep into games.
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