Vladimir Guerrero (DH—Rangers) Vladimir Guerrero continues to put the “S” in Sizzle as he has been hot, hot, hot! Tuesday night Guerrero went 3-for-5 with 2 home runs and 5 RBI. For those who may have had doubts about the aging former-MVP, they should put their skepticism away as Guerrero is now hitting .347 on the year. He currently has an 8 game hitting streak and has hit in 21 of the last 23 games. Over that span, he batting .359 with 10 homers and 29 RBI. Guerrero is such a good hitter that although he still swings at pitches out of the strike zone at a rate of 49%, he makes contact on those bad pitches 71% of the time which is 6% above the major league average. This year, Guerrero is using Rangers Ballpark as his own personal pinball machine batting .385 at home and has always hit well there. The 35 year-old is not slowing down and continues to be a must-start in all league formats.
Will Ohman (RP—Orioles) With Alfredo Simon heading to the DL, the Orioles appear to be looking towards Will Ohman to take on the closing duties. Ohman is typically a lefty specialist who has 3 saves for his entire career. Impressively, Ohman has not allowed an earned run all season long having logged 14.2 innings. He has a very good K/9 of 9.2 but a rather high BB/9 of 4.9. His effectiveness as a closer will largely depend on how he handles right-handed batters. Left-handed hitters are batting a career .175 against Ohman, however righties have had far more success batting .266. His career BHIP against righties also increases to .328 as opposed to .252 against left-handed hitters which highlights the concerns to handle right-hand hitters. However, the Orioles continue to struggle as a team and have one of the worst records in baseball so Ohman may not be provided with many opportunities to establish his value as a closer. Nonetheless, expect an increase in Ohman's value as he will be handling most of the closing and could be a worthwhile interim pick-up in deeper mixed leagues.
Ervin Santana (SP—Angels) Ervin Santana put together one of his best outing of the year giving the Angels a complete game, while striking out 10, allowing 4 hits, 3 earned runs and just 1 walk. Three of the four hits that Santana allowed found their way out of the ballpark and into some lucky fans hands as a souvenir. But despite the generous donation that Santana is making to the ballpark fans, he has put together three quality starts in a row and has 5 quality starts out of his last 6 games started. The FB% at 42.7% is somewhat concerning in that he has a high FIP of 4.54 compared to his ERA of 3.75 going into tonight's game. His allowed slugging percentage of .465 is also concerning when you compare the aggregate slugging percentage of all batters he has faced this year is at .413. This indicates that hitters are doing better getting extra base hits off of Santana then they should. Additionally with LD% of 22.5% and a LOB% of 80.4%, we can expect some spotty starts to get put into the mix along with the good ones like Tuesday's. Santana is certainly a solid pitcher, but watch the match-ups as he is prone to the home run and even though he may be a bit of a roller coaster, he will provide more highs than low as a whole.
Aaron Hill (2B—Blue Jays) There are many fantasy owners that were counting on Aaron Hill to continue his breakout season of 2009 into this year. But so far owners that were counting on the power and run production have been sorely disappointed and Hill is bordering on fantasy bust territory. Hill did hit his 6th home run Tuesday night but continues to struggle overall with a .159 batting average. Hills' BHIP is a measly .153 and as much as I would love to say they he is just getting unlucky, it's not hard to understand his issues when his LD% is just 8.7%. Hill may be trying to hard to duplicate his feats of last year as he has an infield fly ball percentage of 18% and a FB% of 48% so it appears that he is probably over swinging. To back that up, we can also see that Hill is having difficulties with pitch recognition and is reaching for pitches out of the strike zone at 32% rate. This is 10% higher than his career rate. Hill obviously is not this bad, so there should be an upswing at some point but it may not be enough to reach anything close to the production he had last year. If you can find an interested buyer in Hill, he may be worth trying to get some value for. But for now, until he figures out how to stay within himself and relax, he is best reserving on the bench until you see some consistent productivity.
Chris Tillman (SP—Orioles) It appears that the Orioles will be calling up top pitching prospect Chris Tillman for his 2010 season debut on Saturday. Tillman came up briefly last year for a “Cup-'O-Coffee” but realized that things are far more challenging on the major league level than in the minors. Tillman finished last year with 5.40 ERA and allowed 15 home runs in just 65 innings. I'll do the math for you and that comes out to 2.1 home runs every 9 innings. In Norfolk, Tillman has done much better this season with a 3.12 ERA in 59.1 innings and allowing just 4 home runs. His WHIP has been very impressive at 1.12 and has a FIP of 3.24 that is pretty much in-line with his ERA. All good news. However, fantasy owners probably know that these numbers aren't a 1-for-1 transfer to the big leagues and more reasonable expectation should expect a ERA closer to around 4.50 and a WHIP of 1.25. Still better than his first go-around with Orioles. In non-keeper, hold off on grabbing Tillman for now as he probably won't add any immediate value to your team. However, if he is still available in keeper leagues, you should grab him while you can as he is expected to be one of the good ones along with Brian Matusz and Jake Arrieta.
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