Drew Pomeranz (SP -SF) - Last 4 starts for Pomeranz in that cavernous home park (including Saturday vs. ARI): 20 IP, 18 H, 2 ER, 8 BB, 30 K. Look, Pomeranz makes me as nervous as the rest of you, but that home park is a major boon to his walk-heavy/flyball-heavy "style" of pitching. Normally there aren't enough K's to justify the low floor he has, but the best velocity of his career this season has bumped that number up to the point where he can make some sense as a streamer/DFS play. On the Fantistics Insider Baseball Show on SiriusXM, Lou Blasi and I frequently discuss our preferred style of 2-3 aces/permanent lineup fixtures and 4-5 streamers for the SP slots, and Pomeranz is a classic fit for the latter portion of that style of management...he isn't for the risk-averse, of course.
Jason Heyward (OF - CHC) - Heyward homered again on Saturday, giving him hits in 7 straight starts with 3 2B, 1 3B, 3 HR, and 1 SB over that stretch. Heyward has sacrificed a little of his excellent contact ability for some power this year, and while he remains a pretty sizable disappointment from a career standpoint, he has pushed himself back into relevance from a fantasy perspective this year, particularly in OBP-oriented formats. He still likely maxes out as a .280-25-10 player, but that's likely a perfectly reasonable OF5, possibly even an OF4. The hard contact is the highest since 2012, and the combination of that rate and the LD rate should probably be yielding a bit more in the BABIP department than we've seen thus far, so there may be 5-10 points of AVG to be gained if continues in this vein. I don't love him, as the ceiling is pretty low (we're close to it), but the floor isn't too bad either.
Joey Votto (1B - CIN) - Votto had a pair of singles on Saturday as he continues to rebound from a horrendous start to the season. Votto entered the contest hitting 304/402/532 for the month of June, and the hard contact rate has come back to almost 46% this month. Yes, Votto is in decline, but he is nowhere near as bad as he looked in April just yet.....I'd have no qualms about acquiring him for the remainder of the year, as he'll likely be cheap. A dozen homers and an AVG close to .300 the rest of the way wouldn't surprise me a bit.
Dom Smith (1B/OF - NYM) - Dom Smith hit another homer on Saturday, giving him 8 to go along with 8 doubles in his first 122 ABs this year. He seems to have mostly fixed the contact issues that have ailed him since his initial promotion to the bigs in 2017, as prior to that he was an above-average contact hitter at every minor league stop. If you'd seen him the past few years you'd be forgiven for typecasting him as a low AVG power bat at 1B....he's more likely to be something like a homeless man's Joey Votto, showing above average contact ability but only average to average-plus power. His exit velo numbers are pretty unimpressive to this point, backing up both the scouting and statistical data we've seen so far. I wouldn't get carried away projecting positive things for Smith.....he could get to above average at 1B if everything goes perfectly, but he's more likely to be somewhere around average. The addition of OF eligibility does likely make him rosterable.
Jordan Yamamoto (SP - MIA) - Yamamoto had the first rough outing of his MLB career Saturday, allowing 4 runs on 3 hits and 4 walks over 4 innings to the Phillies in Miami, striking out 4. Yamamoto's major problem isn't control, it's the fact that he doesn't have the stuff to miss a ton of bats and he knows it, so he nibbles. He's a real kitchen-sink guy, throwing 5 pitches to varying effect. He's gotten a ton of called strikes to start his career as guys are figuring him out, and he strikes me as a guy that is going to struggle a bit once there's a book on him. I can envision him having some value as a streamer at home, but I don't expect more than that. If I'm looking for Marlins pitchers, and there are options for sure, Yamamoto is one of the lesser ones.
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