Here is just a sample of today's player notes available to subscribers...
Luis Valbuena (3B-CHC) - With Mike Olt no longer having the eyesight excuse and batting .158, Valbuena is getting plenty of playing time at third base. Batting fifth against the Mets Tuesday, Valbuena went 2-for-4 with a double to raise his line to .270/.387/.440. He's probably going to be in and out of favor throughout his big league career given his lack of prototypical power, but then again, perhaps some of those double start travelling a bit further. A solid 17 of his 38 hits have gone for extra bases, and his 34:27 K:BB isn't too shabby either. Valbuena should see most of his at-bats against right-hand pitchers and should be owned in deeper NL and mixed leagues.
Neil Ramirez (RP-CHC) - The revolving door continued for the Cubs at the closer position, as Ramirez recorded his first save of the season Thursday. He's certainly worthy of the opportunity with just one run allowed in 13.1 innings to go with a 21:4 K:BB. That's a lot of missed bats, and his 0.75 WHIP isn't too shabby either. Ramirez steps in for the likes of Hector Rondon, Pedro Strop, and other pretenders and has a really good chance at nailing this job down. The Cubs aren't competing for anything more than 2015 draft position this year, so don't expect veteran competition to be brought in here.
Marcell Ozuna (OF-MIA) - Ozuna continued to flash his upside, hitting sixth on Thursday against the Rays and going 3-for-5 with a home rand four RBI, giving him 39 RBI on the season to go with a .274/.319/.466. After going deep just three times in 275 at-bats last year, Ozuna has 11 long balls in 207 this year, so yeah, nice trend. His BB% is still low at 6.8%, but that's still nice progress from last year's 4.5%. With these sorts of trends, it's not too tough to see the 23 year-old making a leap to All-Star status in the next couple years. Maybe not quite this year, but he's proven to be a nice building block.
Casey McGehee (1B/3B - MIA) - McGehee is about as inconsistent as he can be these days, at least measured by the amount of times I have personally picked up and dropped him. I have him again in a couple leagues, so I'm pleased with Thursday's 4-for-5 effort that included four runs scored, and thanks to the guys in front of him, no RBI. McGehee is now batting .298/.355/.382, a line that looks solid, but ideally your cleanup hitter would have an ISO much higher than .084. Just 23% of his hits have been of the XBH variety, including one home run in 59 games. With 37 RBI, he's been fairly productive, with the outside chance that he reaches 100 RBI with less than 10 home runs. He'll continue to hold down a starting role, but expect more cold streaks.
Kyle Kendrick (SP-PHI) - Kendrick isn't the most spectacular of starters, but he's considered a durable back-end of the rotation kind of guy, and in this market, the likes of he and Scott Feldman are in line for three-year deals in the range of $7-10 million per season. Kendrick will need a strong finish to put himself in that position, but it's possible he does. Thursday however, Kendrick allowed four runs on six hits while walking five and striking out just two Nationals over seven innings. That gives Kendrick a 4.91 ERA in his last three starts (4.30 overall), and in allowing another home run Thursday, Kendrick has now surrendered 10 already in just 75.2 innings. With a 1.1 HR/9 for his career, Kendrick is very familiar with the long ball and will need to do a better job controlling the free passes to have any sort of success going forward.
