Anthony Ranaudo, Boston Red Sox - Ranaudo made his major league debut Friday getting the call after the Red Sox traded away over half of their starting rotation at the deadline. He pitched well, lasting six innings allowing just two runs but walked four batters to earn his first win of his career. He struck out only two, but I expect that total to rise over the course of the season as he was average nearly 7.5 K/9 in AAA this year. He's the Red Sox's second best pitching prospect trailing only Henry Owens (who was moved to AAA to replace the vacancy Ranaudo left) and will stay in the rotation for the rest of the season provided he doesn't pitch his way out of the spot, which with how the Red Sox's season is going that would be tough to do.
Danny Salazar, Cleveland Indians - A popular preseason pitcher among owners (including myself) has pitched extremely well after being sent to AAA for almost two months. On Friday, he struck out four over six innings allowing just one unearned run to pick up his fourth win of the season. Since being recalled on 7/22, Salazar has allowed just four earned runs over runs over 18.0 innings with 17 strikeouts. He's lowered his FIP down to 4.00 and he is striking out nearly 10 batters per nine, showing why he was such a popular preseason pick. His next start comes at the Reds, and he's worth an add in AL leagues and is definitely earning serious consideration for being owned in mixed leagues as well.
Lonnie Chisenhall, Cleveland Indians - Chisenhall's homerun drought came to an end Friday as he launched his 10th homer of the season. It was his first home run in literally a month, as the last time he left the yard was on July 1 and he also only drove in five runs over the course of July with his last RBI coming on July 11. His breakout season has seen him triple slash .305/.372/.476 but as noted, July was tough on Chisenhall as he hit just .198 after hitting .373 in May and .311 in June. I like Chisenhall to turn things around in August, mainly based on his 24% LD rate combined with his .348 BABIP. The combination of a high LD rate with an above average BABIP (not extremely high) means that there is some room for improvement getting him closer to what he hit in June.
Tyler Flowers, Chicago White Sox - Flowers hit his 7th homerun of the season Friday and his extremely hot start seems like all but a distant memory as he is now triple slashing .245/.303/.357. Flowers got hit HARD by regression as he was hitting .354 at the end of April but proceeded to hit .208, .129, and .269 over the next three months leading to his average sitting at where it is now. He's lucky to have his average even be .245, which sounds crazy but he is striking out in 35% over his at bats and has a very high BABIP of .374. He is hitting a very high amount of LD's though, which does help because since he doesn't make much contact at least he's making hard contact a la George Springer. Hard contact doesn't necessarily translate to power though in Flower's case with his .103 ISO.
Mike Foltynewicz, Houston Astros - Foltynewicz is the newest Astros' prospect to get the call to the majors, and he will take his 100 MPH fastball to the bullpen for the rest of 2014. Folty's long term projection has him in the rotation and the Astros' front office has already said that the bullpen move is just for this season and that he will be competing for a starting rotation spot this spring. He wasn't exactly pitching well from a traditional stats standpoint in AAA before being called up, posting just a 7-7 record with a 5.08 ERA. Folty will be a nice source of strikeouts for fantasy purposes, but that will be about it as he's unlikely to get into the mix of saves right away.
Josh Sperry - @jsperry1991
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