Carlos Zambrano (SP—Cubs) Carlos Zambrano’s return to the starting rotation didn’t work out the way he or the Cubs intended as he took his fourth loss of the season against the Astros. Zambrano wasn’t able to get out of the 5th inning and allowed 3 earned runs during his 4.1 innings of work. He threw 84 pitches in the game of which only 56% of them where thrown for strikes. Despite the hardships Zambrano has endured this season, there are some positives that we can take away from his season so far. Zambrano’s K/9 has been very good at 9.5 which indicate that he has some pretty good stuff going on to fool hitters even though he’s been struggling with finding the strike zone. He’s actually had more success with his slider this year and has really struggled with his fastball, losing a little velocity on the pitch that has accounted for some of his struggles. His FB% of 31.3% is actually below his career average but his HR/FB rate is 16.1% (up 7% from his career norm) telling us that he is really getting burned (an unlucky) on the home runs. Additionally his BHIP now stands at .398 which is very high. This will almost certainly come down a good 80 points which should bring better days ahead for the Big Z. Expect good things ahead from Zambrano assuming he is injury-free. In fact, he might be a good buy-low choice at this point as there are probably some frustrated fantasy owners that are ready to give him his fantasy pink-slip.
Matt Kemp (OF—Dodgers) Expectations were very high for Matt Kemp at the beginning of the season. Many considered him a first round draft choice with his combination of power and speed. Starting the season off strongly, Kemp dipped a little bit but appears to be picking up the pace again. He’s hit in 16 of his last 18 games and although not many of them have been multi-hit games during that stretch, half of the hits have been of the extra base variety. He has a good ISO of .227 and although his strikeouts are on the high side (26.4%) and his EYE is on the low side 0.36, he will still wind up the season with solid numbers. He currently looks to be on pace for about 33 home runs, 94 RBI and 21 stolen bases. If you can past the high number of strikeouts, Kemp will be an overall solid fantasy contributor in most major offensive categories.
Ian Stewart (3B—Rockies) Ian Stewart slugged his 7th home run of the year Friday night and continues to make strides in his development. Last season, Stewart managed just a .225 batting average but his 25 home runs were no fluke and he was on many fantasy owners’ radars as a nice sleeper pick for this season. The good news is that the batting average has definitely increased this year as he is up to .274 and he’s been hitting line drives at a very solid rate of 27.6% which should indicate a good probability to keep that average on the high side. The other piece of good news is that Stewart has reduced his strikeout rate from last year by 5% and is now down to 27.5% and his contract rate has improved marginally as well. But unfortunately, Stewart has been his own worse enemy by expanding the strike zone and reaching for pitches out of the zone at a rate of 27.8% of the time. Not surprising his EYE is at a mediocre 0.43. If Stewart could get that part of his game together, he could make a significant jump in average and OBP. Still look for a solid year with good power from the flourishing Rockie third baseman
Chipper Jones (3B—Braves) OK, now you knew at some point Chipper Jones was probably going to wind up on the DL, right? I mean you actually didn’t think he was going to go a whole season without some sort of hang nail, stubbed toe, swimmer’s ear or bad pimple that would send him to the DL, did you? Chipper’s injury du-jour is now a bad finger that he is having difficulty bending. Jones has been on a steady decline year after year. This season he is just hitting .240 with a BHIP of .268. A case could be made for him being somewhat unlucky with a LD% of 19.8%, so when he is healthy again we may see some improvement in average. Also his feel for the strike zone still is outstanding since despite his low average, he still possesses an OBP of .392. Look, you know the drill. When he is healthy, he is still a viable option at third despite the eroding skills. But you take the risk when you choose to draft Chipper for your team. Hopefully, this finger issue will quickly mend itself, and Chipper will pick up his sluggish pace
Colby Rasmus (OF—Cardinals) Colby Rasmus collected two hits Friday night including his 9th home runs of the year. Rasmus has had 4 multi-hits games in his last 6 and he is currently on a pace to hit 24 home runs this season. He’s having an all around solid year with a slash line of .279/.390/.540. And yes, if you are keeping track that would make an OPS of .930. Pretty darn good. Rasmus has improved on his plate discipline this year with an EYE of 0.49 which is better over last year at 0.38. His ISO is a very solid .247 and has been scoring runs at a very good rate. He has 36 runs scored on the season which is good for 8th in the league. If you are not playing Rasmus, you should get him into your lineup. If he is still available, make sure you grab him as he is having a break-out year at the age of 23.
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