Matt Holliday - Holliday doubled and walked yesterday, finishing May with a five-game hitting streak in which he hasn't struck out once. Looking at his past three or four years though, Holliday really seems to be slowing down early in his career. His speed score has dropped precipitously the past two years, his power has been dropping for four seasons, and he is popping up (IFFB% of 14) at an alarming rate since coming to St. Louis. I'm really not optimistic that we're ever going to see anything close to the 2006-2007 Holliday again even though he's only 30, and that contract may end up being a problem sooner rather than later.
Ryan Zimmerman - Zimmerman doubled, homered, and walked twice in the 14-4 rout of Houston yesterday, and he's now hitting 308/385/603 for the year. He's increased his contact rate, bumped up his power for the second straight year, and increased his walk rate with only a slight increase in strikeouts as a result. Yes, his BABIP is a bit hit-lucky at the moment, but that's a small black mark against a player that seems to be making the transformation from solid big-leaguer to star at age 25.
Neil Walker - After two months of watching Aki Iwamura put up a .500 OPS, the Pirates have decided to go with converted catcher Neil Walker at 2B. Walker is a solid little sleeper if he can handle the defensive aspect of things, as he has shown quite a bit of power in the minors. Walker was hitting 321/392/560 at AAA this season after posting a 264/311/480 line in a bit over a half-season last year. Walker was a catcher for his first three years with the organization and a 3B for the last three, so it's reasonable to assume that his development might have been slowed a bit by the changes in defensive responsibilities, so I'd be optimistic that he could be even a bit better than his minor league translations here in the bigs. I think he is a solid pickup in NL-only and deeper mixed formats right now.
Chris Narveson - I remain intrigued by Narveson as a back-end rotation option despite yesterday's outing, which while at first glance looks like a beating was really just Narveson falling apart after a stellar 5 2/3 innings. Narveson has been victimized this year by a BABIP that is a full 70 points above expectations, and he's increased his GB% by a whopping 13 percent while maintaining his excellent K rate. There isn't a ton of upside here, as his BB rates and inefficiency (he hasn't made it past six innings yet) leave a lot to be desired, but as your last starter you could do quite a bit worse.
Troy Glaus - Glaus homered again yesterday to finish May on a 6-game hitting streak, and he did end up posting an OPS of over .900 for the month with 28 RBI's. I would still wager that he's a better sell-high candidate than anything else right now, but since late April he's been a perfectly adequate solution even as a 1B. Sure, 20 HR and 100 RBI are within reach if he can stay healthy, but those aren't big numbers at that position anyway (and that's a sizable if as well).
