Chris Tillman, Baltimore Orioles - Chris Tillman struggled again Tuesday allowing five runs in four innings but did not factor into the decision. Tillman allowed eight hits and three walks in that span while not striking out a single batter. His K/9 is continuing to plummet and is sitting at 5.90 and his BB/9 is closing in quickly at 4.99. You could make an argument that his .378 BABIP against him is wayyy out of norm and that he's due for some positive regression but his zone contact rate is at 92% which is the highest it's been since 2010. At this point in his career Tillman just isn't a good pitcher and I don't know any reason to use him in fantasy.
Miguel Sano, Minnesota Twins - Miguel Sano launched his 17th homer of the season in a 2-for-4 effort with a walk. He's been incredible this season despite the 34% contact rate because if you leave anything hittable for him he's going to clobber it. His hard hit rate is 51.1% with a 45% FB rate which basically means if he connects people should duck. The strikeout numbers are still concerning because 34% is something to note but as long as the hard contact remains you'll take it. I don't expect him to hit in the .290 range all year but with some BABIP regression (.413) I could still see him hovering around the .265-.270 mark with 40 HR potential.
Francis Martes, Houston Astros - After making some serious strides last time out Francis Martes took a small step back in this last outing. He threw 5.2 innings which is a season high but allowed three runs and six hits. He also walked three batters and struck out just four. Martes is showing some command struggles so far walking 4.40 per/nine but he's never been touted as a starter with a ton of command. While these are all extremely small samples over his first 13-14 innings of his career, he is generating a nice amount of swinging strikes at 13.3% and it feels a little more impressive because he's only throwing around 40% of his pitches in the strike zone.
Logan Morrison, Tampa Bay Rays - Logan Morrison notched two more RBI Tuesday in a 1-for-4 outing to take his total to 49 this year to go along with his 21 homers. Morrison likely has been the non-rookie fantasy surprise of the year as he's rebounded from basically nothing to be one of the top first basemen this year. Looking through his batted ball numbers he looks to have taken the fly ball or bust approach as his FB rate has just 13% from last season and he also has a 8% higher hard hit rate than he did last season. His strikeout rate is up a bit from his career averages, but that can be expected with a HR binge approach but he's also offset it a bit with pushing his walk rate to over 14%. Morrison has given and taken from a few different numbers, but it's all leveled out to solid product across the board.
Aaron Judge, New York Yankees -This is kind of getting foolish at this point as Judge hit his 24th homer of the year with an oppo-boppo in a 1-for-4 game. Judge is triple slashing .333/.443/.704 this year after struggling horrifically in his debut last season. While Judge has been incredible I do see a couple things that we need to watch as the season progresses. Judge has always had strikeout issues in his career and they've taken a slightly higher jump in the majors and his HR/FB rate is otherworldly. Right now it's sitting at 41.1% and that numbers feels like it just can't be the high over the course of an entire season with his FB% being as high as it is at 36.6%. We've seen enough of Judge this year to believe that he's legit at this point but I don't think he produced at QUITE this rate for the rest of the season.
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