Carlos Delgado:
The power's starting to come for Carlos Delgado as he knocked out his 13th HR of the season on Sunday along with his 19th 2B of the season in a 2-3 performance. Delgado now has 17 extra base hits in his last 107 AB's which is actually a tad better than the extra base hit rate he posted last season in which he knocked out 38 HR's and drove in 114 RBI's. The downside to Delgado's last 107 AB's is the 4 BB's and 22 K's he's posted which has helped limit his batting average and consequently mask some of the positive regression Delgado's actually had. The reason is many people are still envisioning Delgado as a solid batting average contributor when in fact for his career he's just a .280 hitter and over the last few seasons, as he's aged, he's become more of a .265 hitter. Because of that I think the expectations surrounding Delgado are a bit misguided, his role as an aging power 1B is simply to be a power-hitting run producer and Delgado's coming out of that early season slump to start producing the power numbers we've come to expect. The slow start will hurt Delgado's overall numbers but I'd expect a solid 2nd half for Delgado along the lines of .260-17-60. Delgado's raised his FPI in each of the last 3 2nd halves and I fully expect him to make it 4 this season, just be prepared to swallow a rough batting average to go along with the power.
Wandy Rodriguez:
If you're looking for a starter that's already posting elite peripherals despite mediocre performance and could be in for a very nice regression take a deeper look at Wandy Rodriguez. Rodriguez picked up his 5th win of the season on Sunday shutting out the Rockies for 7 innings while limiting them to 3 hits and 2 BB's. Rodriguez added 4 K's to the mix and now has posted a .86 K Rate through just over 95 innings this season. Along with the impressive K Rate, Rodriguez has posted a .26 BB Rate and is only allowing 1.1 HR's/9 innings. All of those numbers are indicative of an above average starting pitcher, however most see Rodriguez's 5-7 record with a 4.23 ERA and don't think much of him, I suggest taking a deeper look and investing in Wandy going forward who's posting above average numbers and gets the benefit of facing the weak NL Central for the majority of his starts the rest of the way.
Carlos Marmol:
If you haven't had the pleasure of watching Carlos Marmol pitch this season, tune into a few Cubs games over the next week and tune into see the next version of KRod. Marmol's only in his 5th season of pitching and the converted catcher/infielder is showing signs of mastering his only flaw. Coming into the season Marmol had always shown electric stuff but he's always struggled with his control. This season he's only issued 8 walks in 24 innings to go along with 34 K's. On Sunday he threw 21 of his 23 pitches for strikes as he mowed through the Brewers lineup for 2 innings of relief, striking out 4 in the process. I'm going to recommend rostering Marmol in almost any format, because as many of you know I like to use middle relievers to help smooth out the ratios and I believe Marmol is entering the elite middle reliever class because of his tremendous K potential. Add in the chance that Pineilla eventually hands the closer's role over to Marmol, which I think is reasonably likely just because Pineilla believes in talent more than anything and has already expressed displeasure with Dempster at times during the season and I think Marmol has significant upside going forward.
Matt Kemp:
Kemp's hot start is getting the attention of many fantasy owners, especially those who remember the 15 extra base hits and 6 SB's in just over 150 AB's this season. Another 2-4 performance on Sunday brought his 2007 average up to .400 and while Kemp's intriguing power-speed combo has even me salivating a little bit, I'm going to warn owners to exercise a bit of caution when evaluating Kemp for this season. Kemp struck out twice in the other 2 AB's and now has a 19:4 K:BB ratio in 65 AB's, which amounts to a .21 EYE and a K Rate of 29%. Those numbers suggest Kemp's going to have limited batting average upside, probably in the low .270's range and while that lower batting average will come with some significant power and some good speed as well it's going to come with some significant speed bumps along the way. Since Kemp's currently sporting a .400 batting average with the benefit of a ridiculous .512 BHIP%, I'm going to go out on a limb and say a significant regression is coming sometime soon.
Rafael Furcal:
Furcal must have an extremely sensitive internal calendar. Over the last 3 seasons, Furcal's posted an overall OPS of .785, but in July Furcal really starts to get his season in gear posting a .936 OPS over the last 3 seasons. Sure enough on the first day of July Furcal knocked out his 2nd HR of the season in a 2-5 effort that netted him 2 Runs and 2 RBI's as well. Furcal also swiped a bag on Sunday, which is just his 9th all season but is also his 2nd in the last 3 games. While this is an encouraging sign for a speedster that's been hampered by leg injuries this season it also came against a Padres team that surrenders as many SB's as anyone in baseball. I think Furcal's a great buy-low candidate as he always tends to put up nice 2nd halves to the season, but those expecting 35+ SB's from Furcal need to lower their expectations in the 20's.
