Vernon Wells – Wells and the Jays continued to swing hot bats last night. Wells finished the game going 3-5, driving in 2 runs and scoring 2 as well. He also walked once and struck out once. It seems to the naked eye that the Blue Jays, and Wells in particular, are putting a lot more balls in play as a result of a more aggressive approach. So, I decided to look at the numbers, and it turned out that Wells is actually benefiting from being more selective at the plate. His first pitch strike percentage is currently 51.9%, which is much lower than his career mark of 60.1%. His previous season low was 57% in 2007. Also, Wells is only swinging at balls outside of the strike zone 20.5% of the time, much lower than his career mark of 25.1%. His previous season low was 19.5% (next lowest was 24%) in 2004. Clearly, Wells is taking a different approach at the plate, but his increase in balls put in play (current contact rate is 93.3%; career contact rate is 86%) of being more selective not more aggressive. This also helps to explain Wells’ current BB rate of 10.3%, when his career mark is a below average 6.8%. To sum things up, it is difficult to predict if Wells’ current selectiveness at the plate is due to a legitimate change in approach or just small sample size. I tend to think the addition of Cito Gaston has indeed helped Wells as well as the other Jays’ hitters, so I will go out on a limb and predict Wells’ current numbers in terms of first strike percentage, outside swing percentage, contact rate, and walk rate will last. That means more RBI’s and more RS for Wells than most predicted, and his current EYE of 2 could also mean an increase in Wells’ singles average and consequently his actual batting average.
Trevor Cahill – Cahill was awful last night, allowing 7 earned runs on 8 hits and 2 walks. He only struck out 2 batters as he did not make it out of the third inning. Fantasy owners should have seen this one coming. Despite a 2.60 ERA coming into last night’s start, Cahill had an absolutely horrendous .38 K/BB ratio. The only thing saving him was a ridiculously low .215 BABIP and high (particularly considering his 2.60 K/9) LOB% of 77.8. Cahill’s main skill is he can induce groundballs as evidenced by his 2.23 GB/FB ratio. Still, he will have many more outings like this if he continues to walk batters at a high rate (6.75 per 9 before factoring in yesterday’s 2 BB in 2 and 2/3rds IP) and cannot even post an average K rate.
Michael Young – Young hit a game winning 9th inning homer last night. He now has 5 on the season through 16 games, after hitting just 12 155 games in ’08 and 9 in 156 games in ’07. He is definitely a sell high candidate. Young’s HR/FB% heading into last night’s game (before his 5th HR) was a whopping 40%. His career mark is 9.3%, and he only ever posted a HR/FB% in the double digits once. The past 3 seasons, his HR/FB percentages were 8.6, 6.9, and 7.2. His hot start may propel him to 15 HR on the season, but I would not expect more than that.
George Sherrill – Sherrill blew a save last night, yielding a game winning 2-run homer to Michael Young. This sort of thing is not surprising, as Sherrill is an extremely fly ball risky pitcher. Over his career, half of the balls he allows in play are fly balls, and it has been even worse so far this season as his FB% is 61.9%. This, combined with Sherrill’s career BB/9 of 4.55, make him a bad choice as a closer, and it is unlikely he will last the whole season locked into that role.
Fausto Carmona – Fausto, despite the loss, had an encouraging start last night as he struck out 7 batters over 6 IP. Believe it or not, the last time Fausto struck out that many batters was September 21st, 2007. It’s true. Look it up. In fact, Fausto hadn’t even struck out 6 batters in a game since that start until last night. However, in that magical 2007 season, Fausto struck out 6 or more batters in 7 of his last 21 starts before going 25 straight starts without repeating the feat. Unfortunately for Fausto, I have a feeling it may take another long stretch of starts before he strikes out another 6 or 7 batters. Why? Well, to be honest, and a scout may prove me wrong, but I don’t think all that much has changed with Fausto himself since that 2007 season. What has changed is hitters’ approaches to facing Fausto. I wrote before last season that Fausto would be a bust because other teams would pick up on what the Red Sox did to him in the ALCS the previous year. What the Red Sox did, simply put, is lay off that devastating sinker of his and trust it would be a ball. This was particularly true for their right handed hitters. Instead of swinging and missing at an unhittable pitch, batters were taking more and more pitches. The result was less weak ground balls early in the count and less strike outs later in the count. This led to Fausto walking more batters, being forced to leave the ball over the plate more often (as a result of being behind in the count), and throw many more pitches per inning. I mean just look at his increase in BB rate (2.55/5.22/5.63 BB/9 from ’07-’09); it’s as disturbing as his decline in K rate. And, as I said before, I don’t think there’s much Carmona can do about it in terms of striking batters out. He still does get an incredible amount of ground balls, though, and as a result, Fausto might be better served to stop picking at the corners, which would lead to walking less batters and taking his chances with balls in play.
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