Triston McKenzie, Cleveland Indians - The Indians SP factory seems to have another great one in Tristan McKenzie after he struck out 10 Tigers hitters over six innings in his MLB debut. McKenzie allowed just one run in the outing which came on a hung changeup to Willi Castro. He generated 17 whiffs on 40 swings and had a ridiculous 11 whiffs on his fastball alone which sat between 94-96 MPH. He had a 41% CSW in the outing, well above the league average this year of 30%. He did an excellent job of limiting hard contact with just four batted balls registering as hard-hit (95 MPH+). He's absolutely worth a pickup in FAAB this weekend and this start could make his prices go absolutely nuts
Matt Boyd, Detroit Tigers - Matt Boyd turned in a solid outing against the Indians on Saturday with 5.1 innings before being pulled, and the two runs he allowed were allowed by the reliever after he entered the game. We saw a significant change in his pitch mix on Saturday with his changeup jumping to a 26% usage while his slider dropped to just 11%, where his previous lowest slider usage came at 23% two starts ago. Last time out he used it at 41% again, so we have not seen him string together a few starts with this mix to tell if it's an actually mix change or more of just matchup based.
Miguel Sano, Minnesota Twins - Miguel Sano went 2-for-5 at the plate and homered for the 5th time this season. Sano also struck out two times this game, which somehow drops his K% down to 45.6% for the season. This is pretty much Sano in nutshell. He's going to hit the ball over the fence a lot, which most being extremely hard hit, but the strikeouts are always going to be the thing that holds him back. He's typically been a 37% K% guy in the majors, so even as a Sano fan, it's not great seeing him up over the 40% mark. He does have an extra-base hit in seven straight games after Saturday's homer, so maybe he is starting to pick up the ball a little bit better.
Pat Valaika, Baltimore Orioles - Pat Valaika homered for the 5th time this season on Saturday, and for the third straight game, in a 2-for-3 game at the plate. He also reached base with a walk. Valaika's stats have been trending upwards lately with a 108 wRC+ and a .242/.299/.484 triple slash. While those stats on the surface are not anything too special, it is Valaika's batted ball profile that looks intriguing. Valaika has a hard-hit rate in the 65th percentile and a xBA in the 92nd percentile, but the most shocking growth for him is cutting his K% down from 40% last season to just 15% in 2020. He's putting the ball in play significantly more than he has at other times in his career, and he's also hitting the ball harder more consistently than in years prior.
Alex Cobb, Baltimore Orioles - Alex Cobb's line score doesn't look too bad with two earned runs over five innings, but this wasn't exactly a start to be excited about. Cobb struck out just one batter while generating five whiffs on 38 swings and overall had a 23% CSW. You can kind of get away with that if you limit hard but in this outing, he had 19 balls put into play against him and TEN were hit over 95 MPH. In fact, on those 19 batted balls, the average exit velocity of those swings was 94.9 MPH. Cobb is a guy I'm 100% selling "high" on if I can because this looks like a house of cards that is getting ready to topple over. He's giving up a ton of hard contact his year and it's really only his splitter that's getting any sort of consistent swings and misses.
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