JD Martinez, Boston Red Sox - JD Martinez launched three homers on Sunday pushing his total to five for the season, and his triple slash is sitting at .472/.500/1.083 after a disappointing 2020 season. Martinez is widely known as someone who watches a lot of video in between at bats and video wasn't allowed in 2020 as part of the COVID protocol agreements. Video returned in 2021 though and Martinez has been absolutely raking, picking up a hit in every single game this season. On top of that, he has multiple hits in six of the eight Red Sox games this year and has already driven in 16 runs this year. He's an elite bat and is back to his elite production.
Byron Buxton, Minnesota Twins - Byron Buxton homered AGAIN on Sunday giving him five homers on the season and his slash line up to .481/.548/1.185 with all of his expected statistics sitting in the 97th percentile or higher. It's always only been health for Buxton. The talent has always been there, and last season his HR/AB was among the best in all of baseball. He's still swinging and missing a decent amount, but it's significantly better than he has been in prior seasons. After posting a 1.5% walk rate in 2020, Buxton is pack up to 7.7% while his strikeout rate is under 20% for the first time in his career
Dylan Cease, Chicago White Sox - Dylan Cease allowed just one run over 4.2 innings with recording six strikeouts. He scattered a good amount of baserunners in the game with four hits and three walks. Cease generated 14 whiffs in the outing good for a 36% rate, but he didn't have a ton of called strikes in the outing leading to just a 28% CSW for the game. This is pretty much how Cease starts are going to go with his extremely nice strikeout upside, but also he will struggle with his command at times leading to walks and high pitch counts early in games. He's a good streaming option right now in the right matchups but I wouldn't roster him fully right now.
Brent Honeywell, Tampa Bay Rays - It's been a long road to the majors but Brent Honeywell opened for the Rays on Sunday to finally make his MLB debut. Honeywell tossed two scoreless innings with a pair of strikeouts and no hits or walks allowed. Honeywell was ultimately optioned to the alternate site after this game, but in a brief outing Honeywell showed that he's ready for the big league level. His CSW was an elite 38% and he generated four whiffs on nine swings. We should see him back with the team at some point this year and he should continue to work in the opener role from time to time. He's going to be on an extremely strict innings count this season.
Xander Bogaerts, Boston Red Sox - Xander Bogaerts continued his hot start to the season going 3-5 at the plate Sunday with his second extra base hit of the season. Bogaerts has yet to hit a homer this season and his only extra base hits are doubles. The marks the second straight season of less than ideal hard hit data for Bogaerts, but even with that data last year he hit 11 homers and slashed .300/.364/.502 for a great fantasy season in the shortened year. I'm not super nervous about the lack of power yet, but with the deadened ball we could see a step back in his numbers that we didn't see last year.