Yordan Alvarez (1B-HOU) - If you're looking for a high-upside prospect to stash that will help you this year, you can't do much better than this guy. Alvarez recently had a modest 2-for-8 over two games and then came back and went 13-for-20 in his next five games. For the year, Alvarez is now batting .402/.496/.892 with 13 home runs through 121 PA for Triple-A Round Rock. This comes after the Cuban slugger hit 20 homers in 89 games last year. Impressively, Alvarez has cut his K% from 24.9% to 18.2% while bumping his walk rate from 12.2% to 14.9%. We really have no idea what guys are going to do once they destroy AAA and join the big club, but it seems clear Alvarez is ready for the next challenge. Currently, the Astros have Yuli Gurriel and Tyler White sharing 1B/DH with a smattering of Aledmys Diaz mixed in. Gurriel has a .708 OPS for the year, but his hitting just .176 with one home run in his last 13 games. White meanwhile has no home runs and two RBI in 19 games. Not exactly elite production. I think we see Alvarez soon.
Martin Perez (SP-MIN) - I totally saw this coming. Perez moved to 5-0 Monday with seven scoreless innings and nine strikeouts against a struggling Toronto club. He now has a 2.83 ERA and 1.26 WHIP and has bumped the average velocity of his fastball from last year's 92.7 mph to 94.6 mph this year. So is it just the velocity driving results? Perez has cut his BB/9 a bit, from 3.8 to 3.5, and after 18.7% of his flyballs went for homers last year, just 4.7% are going out in 2019. On the plus side, Perez's swinging strike rate has jumped from its usual 7-7.5% to 11% this year. He's done that by going away from his below average slider to a cutter that for now at least, ranks as the best cutter in baseball. Quite the shift. On the down side, he's seen his flyball rate jump from 29% to 37.7% , though that's been mitigated by a nine-point drop in his hard hit rate. At some point, the home runs are going to come and he could have an ugly outing or two, but the velocity and change in pitch mix give me some optimism going forward.
Griffin Canning (SP-LAA) - If you told me you felt that Canning was already the Angels' best starting pitcher, I would think a couple things: you're probably right, and the Angels did nothing to upgrade their rotation this offseason. Canning picked up win #1 Tuesday with 5.1 innings of two-run ball with seven strikeouts in Detroit. In two starts (9.2 innings), Canning has a 4.66 ERA, but also an impressive 13:2 K:BB, so expect the ERA to continue to trend down. Canning was in the 92-93 range all night with his four-seamer. He should continue to stay in the rotation for the time being, but it seems either he or Felix Pena will get the boot once Andrew Heaney returns from his latest arm injury, likely in 10-to-14 days. Alternatively, the Angels could realize that Matt Harvey and Trevor Cahill are sunk costs and keep both Canning and Pena in the rotation.
Brandon Lowe (2B-TB) - Lowe has been a revelation for the Rays, and he's certainly not resting on his laurels after signing his six-year contract. Now leading off, Lowe went 2-for-5 Tuesday with HR #8 to raise his line to a healthy .311/.366/.597. Of course he won't keep up a .400+ BABIP and HR/FB rate near 30%, but there's just so much to like here. Lowe hit a combined 28 homers last year, so we know the power upside is there, but now in the leadoff role, he could also chip in 10-15 steals (three already), making him that much more valuable. Lowe came into the game with a 32.5% K%, so that plus the elevated BABIP could push his average down, but he's shown decent plate discipline in the minors, so the drop-off shouldn't be too substantial.
Hanser Alberto (SS-BAL) - It's possible the Orioles have seen enough of their Rule 5 pickup, Richie Martin. Martin was on the bench Tuesday, allowing Alberto to get the start at second, with Jonathan Villar sliding over to short. Alberto went just 1-for-4, but the one hit was his second homer and it gave him a respectable .302/.315/.384 slash in 86 at-bats. Robles entered the game with pretty extreme splits (1.000 OPS vs LHP, .485 vs RHP), but perhaps Martin's struggles will give Alberto longer looks against RHP. He had showed nothing at the big league level prior to this year, but he did hit .330 in AAA a year ago. He won't be a huge fantasy contributor due to the total lack of speed and below average power, but in deep formats, he can help.
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. Click here for details:https://www.insiderbaseball.com/baseballsample.htm Click here to register: http://www.fantistics.com/salesbaseball.php3
