Lucas Giolito, Chicago White Sox - Lucas Giolito gave up three early runs via an Alex Gordon homer, but completely dominated the Royals outside of that to pick up his 7th win of the season. Giolito lasted eight innings and allowed just three hits while striking out a season-high 10 batters. Giolito amassed 26 swinging strikes out 107 pitches, with 14 coming via his fastball. The outing actually brought his ERA up to 2.85 for the year with a 2.83 FIP. His swinging strike rate continues to sustain the gigantic jump he made from 8.3% to 11.5% and it will go even higher after his 26% whiff rate Tuesday night. Giolito is a must start right now as he hasn't allowed more than three runs in a start since returning from the IL on May 2nd.
Gary Sanchez, New York Yankees - Gary Sanchez continues his 2019 bounce-back campaign with his second homer of the week, and his 17th of the season. A lot of his batted ball data across the board looks similar to last season but he's having far better-batted ball luck with a .253 BABIP (.197 in 2019) and a 30% HR/FB rate despite having extremely good exit velocity and launch angle last season, and those were in line with his enormous 2017 season. The biggest boost to his profile this year has come in his 25% barrel rate (top 1% in baseball), which make the homer barrage feel extremely sustainable after a 13.9% percent last year (still top 5% in the league).
DJ Stewart, Baltimore Orioles - DJ Stewart was called up by the Orioles from AAA and he went 3-for-4 with a stolen base in his 2019 debut. Stewart had posted a 154 wRC+ with a 15% BB% and 14% K% in AAA at the time of the call-up, so his production along with the fact that we are talking about Baltimore here led to the call up making sense. Stewart hit .250 with three homers and two steals over 47 plate appearances in a brief stint in the majors last year. Stewart has a solid blend of power and speed with a 20/20 season under his belt in AA. Stewart is worth a look in deeper leagues right now, and we can give him a little more of a test run in shallow leagues as he isn't the level of prospect you need to immediately jump all over.
Austin Meadows, Tampa Bay Rays - Austin Meadows hit his 12th homer of the season Tuesday while going to 2-for-4 at the plate. Meadows has been insane all season with a .356/.428/.696 with those 12 homers and he's also chipped in six steals as well. Meadows has a five-degree uptick in his launch angle and has more than doubled his barrel rate from last season, up to 13%. All of his xBA, xwOBA, and xSLG are all in the 93rd percentile or above, so nothing that he is doing is fluky even with a .350's BABIP. I had pegged Meadows as a target in the preseason but he's going to blow by even the most optimistic outcomes that I saw him having, he's a stud.
Jose Ramirez, Cleveland Indians - Jose Ramirez was held out of the lineup Monday but returned to the lineup Tuesday and reached based four times with two hits and two walks. Ramirez has been dreadful this season but he's still swiping bags at an excellent rate with two more Tuesday, running his total up to 14 for the year while only being caught twice. Ramirez continues to see his launch angle climb but his barrel% has dropped down to 6.3%, but his FB% is up to 48% so he isn't going to benefit from some positive BABIP regression because he is hitting a ton of weak fly balls.
This is just a small sample of our daily analysis, join our member area for over 80 daily player updates sent to your inbox every morning and track your team online. Follow for details: https://www.insiderbaseball.com/baseballsample.htm Follow to register: http://www.fantistics.com/salesbaseball.php3
