Jonathan Gray - Gray was excellent on Monday, allowing a solo homer to Travis D'Arnaud and a couple of walks over six innings, striking out 5 Mets. He didn't get the win due to some very questionable managing from Walt Weiss, who chose not to extend Gray past 75 pitches even though the stated pitch limit was 85, left an obviously struggling Justin Miller at least a batter too long, and then forgot to have a right-hander warming up for Yoenis Cespedes (that one didn't end up costing them). Gray looked very solid, throwing 95-98 with the fastball and locating it well for the most part. The slider was mostly just decent, although he did pick up a swinging K on an excellent one, and the changeup was fairly average with little fading action that I could note on the TV. Both offspeed pitches came in between 86-89 for the most part. The biggest issue for Gray is that he's pretty clearly a flyball guy, which is fine when you're pitching in Citi Field, but less fine at Coors. It'll be tough to trust him for quite some time as more than a streaming option, but the tools are clearly here, and I wouldn't have an issue spotting him in in most formats when he's on the road.
Welington Castillo - Castillo remains on fire, picking up a triple and a homer with 4 RBIs Monday against the Phillies. That gives him 2 2Bs, a 3B, and 5 HRs in the last 10 games, pushing him up into the top-12 at the position on the season. After all that he's still available in many leagues, likely due to his "maybe 2/3 of the time" playing time situation. He's a layup for 2-catcher leagues and NL-only formats, but with a hard contact rate of over 41% coming into Monday's contest (and that didn't drop, I assure you) and the highest flyball rate of his career, this level of power isn't all that unexpected...I believe that he's a viable starter in just about all formats right now.
Enrique Hernandez - Hernandez is going to play pretty much every day while Howie Kendrick is on the DL, according to Don Mattingly, giving the opportunity for a massive increase in value to a guy that has shown flashes of very solid play in a part-time role. Hernandez hit 296/350/451 in about 2/3 of a season's worth of play at AAA over the past few years, and he's managed a 270/333/471 line over his first 244 major league ABs while shuttling around three organizations. He has played 2B/SS/OF so far this year, played 3B last year, has a hard contact rate of just over 35%, and has managed a .201 ISO as a 23 year old playing predominantly in pitchers' parks....definitely some upside here. I would look to add in formats of average depth or greater for sure.
Shane Peterson - Peterson has been the CF of choice for the Brewers since the Gomez deal, and he's hit .355 with an OBP of .444 in the 10 starts he's been given. This is a guy with a 297/383/461 line in 1476 ABs at AAA, so he's been around a while and isn't a tremendous slouch. He's probably more of a 10/10 guy playing every day, but he hits a lot of line drives (33% LD rate in the bigs this year) and draws some walks. Those in deep leagues could do much worse.
Jon Niese - Niese continued his run of excellent pitching on Monday, holding the Rockies to 2 runs on 6 hits over 7 innings, striking out 5 without walking a batter. He's 11/12 in QS since June 1, and he's only walked 6 batters in his last 7 starts, correcting some early control issues that are still impacting both his traditional and underlying stats at first glance, causing him to remain an under-owned commodity. His GB rate has jumped to well above average levels this season, enabling his lower K rate to play up a bit. I'm not a huge fan due to the pedestrian stuff, but there's no denying that he is performing well enough to be utilized in all formats right now.
