Joe Blanton
Blanton was phenomenal on Saturday night throwing a CG Shutout against the Twins. Blanton only allowed 3 base-runners in the game all on singles and not one Twin advanced into scoring position. He struck out 6 on the evening and continues to show improvements in his K Rate that have translated over to a more appetizing fantasy entity in 2007. Blanton's .74 K Rate and .21 BB Rate are both in line to be career bests for Blanton. On top of the improvements Blanton has really taken advantage of Oakland's home park where he's currently 2-1 with a 2.04 ERA and a 0.78 WHIP. For Blanton owners the improvements look to be pretty real, especially the improved K and BB Rates, but the biggest improvement in Blanton has been his ability to take advantage of one of the top 5 friendliest pitching ballparks in all of baseball.
Nick Swisher
Coming into the season Swisher was essentially viewed as the AL poor man's version of Adam Dunn. His strong power numbers would likely come at the expense of some significant chunk of batting average for your team. However while much has been made of Dunn's improvements (which I've repeatedly bantered against), little has been made of Swisher's .300 Average, so let's take a look. After last night's 0-2 performance Swisher has settled in right at .300 on the season. A quick look at Swisher's season shows a .281 BHIP% that is a good 50 points above last season's mark, which would suggest the .300 average has been aided by some strong luck early on in the season. However if we look deeper into the numbers we see that Swisher has also significantly improved his EYE, posting a 1.00 EYE with improvements in both his BB Rates and K Rates. This suggests while Swisher may not be the .300 hitter we're currently seeing, he's likely not the drain in batting average many expected coming into the season. Swisher will likely settle in around .275 with typical power numbers we've come to expect.
Magglio Ordonez
Ordonez went 4-6 with 3 runs, 2 RBI's, and his 13th HR of the season. Maggs is currently Slugging .686 on the season and posting an absurd 1.180 OPS. We're in June now and it's about time we start taking notice of just how absurd the season Maggs is having is. He currently has 41 extra base hits in 54 games, which puts him on pace for 123 extra base hits this season, along with 150 Runs and 156 RBI's. It's getting ridiculous and the amazing thing is, all of his peripherals support the improved production. Magglio is sporting an EYE above 1.00 for the first time in his career and has improved his EYE beyond what we previously thought were the high points in his career ('99-'03). His BHIP% is actually lower than his career norms because nearly every hit he's getting his for extra bases. He's incredible and is easily the MVP of the first half of the season in the AL and most fantasy league's MVP as Maggs probably could've been had in most drafts 6th+ round. Just an incredible year for a player that many had written off after the significant knee injuries that looked to be ending his career. Look who's laughing now at the contract the Tigers gave him, all I can say is WOW.
Hideki Okajima
I will challenge any of you out there to find a site that was more optimistic on the impact of Hideki Okajima than this one, ok let me revise that. I challenge any of you to find a site that's based in the United States that was as high on Okajima coming into the season as this one! Okajima pitched 1 1/3 clean innings on Saturday and picked up his first career win. Okajima improved his numbers to 1-0, 1.00 ERA, 4 Saves, 27 K's and 7 BB's in 27 innings and I'm here to tell you they're only getting better. Red Sox Nation is playing it off that the Red Sox are going to fit Okajima into close out some more games in order to "pace"Jon Papelbon as this season goes on, because they want to be more careful with his shoulder and while I agree to some extent, I think they're putting it to the fan base lightly and because everything's going well in Red Sox nation people are forgetting it. I think Papelbon's hurt, it appears to me that his arm angle is lower and his velocity has dropped a bit and so has his command (as evidenced by 10 BB's in 20 innings after having 13 in nearly 70 innings last season). The Red Sox aren't even using Papelbon in back-2-back games right now as it's only happened once in the last 6 weeks. I believe Okajima's going to end up with close to 15 saves this season and Papelbon's going to end up with a stint on the DL at some point. In any league that Okajima's available he's worth adding right now because of his peripherals alone, but I think he's a pretty good long-term investment as well.
Mike Mussina
After the close to the 2005 season I wrote Mike Mussina off. I thought he was finished after an uninspiring 2nd half to the season and a terrible final playoff start I thought the years had caught up to Mussina. So of course Mussina puts together a 15 win season with 170+ K's and a 1.11 WHIP last season to shut me up. Well as I like to say (when I'm lying to myself) I'm never wrong just sometimes early. It's a convenient cop-out for me. Anyways I'm back on the Mussina is done bandwagon after Saturday's start against Boston. Mussina's completely lost his velocity and is currently pitching in the mid 80's. The evidence shows statistically as well as his K Rate has dropped down to .47 after consistently hovering around .80 for the last 4 years. Mussina's still got good control an doesn't walk many but his lack of velocity makes him a spot start option at best and certainly someone to avoid when facing some of the better lineups in the AL East (like the Red Sox).
