Ha-Seong Kim (2/S/3 - SD) - Kim singled, homered, and walked twice in the 11-1 drubbing of the Rockies on Wednesday. Kim is finally becoming the sort of player that we expected to see in his 3rd season since coming over from Korea, combining a little bit of power with good speed and excellent contact ability. He even started slowly again this April, but he has steadily improved each month, culminating in a 337/449/551 with 5 HR, 8 SB, and more BB than K. He's taken over the leadoff spot for the Padres and has shown himself to be a tremendously valuable player with eligibility at 2B, SS, and 3B. I believe that we are about at the power ceiling for Kim (20-25 HR over 150 G), as the max exit velocities show average raw power at best, but the contact ability and speed are easily enough to carry the profile throughout the 27 year old's prime.
Cole Ragans (SP - KC) - Ragans looked very solid on Wednesday against the Mets, allowing 7 hits over 6 scoreless innings, striking out 8 and, perhaps most importantly, only walking a single batter. Control has always been the biggest issue for Ragans. He misses bats fairly well and doesn't allow a ton of hard contact, so seeing that he's likely to have a rotation spot for the stretch run has definitely piqued my interest. If he's going to show this sort of control, he is absolutely a must-add in all formats. In his two starts for KC he has a swinging strike rate of 13.8% and he's allowed just 1 run in 11 innings. The upcoming schedule is fairly difficult for him (assuming he keeps this slot): @BOS, STL, @CUB very an easier end of August with @OAK and PIT. I would probably be willing to gamble with him on the two-start week next week and see how that goes....I do see quite a bit of upside here, but it's obviously not without risk.
Dane Dunning (SP - TEX) - Dunning was outstanding on Wednesday against the White Sox, allowing just 2 singles and a walk prior to a solo HR from Seby Zavala with 2 outs in the 8th. He struck out 11 in the contest with 14 swinging strikes in 102 pitches, moving to 9-4 on the year. I'm of two minds on Dunning, to be honest. Yes, it looks like he is vastly outperforming his peripherals with a very low K rate and poor quality of contact numbers (which were also poor during Wednesday's excellent outing, surprisingly). His xFIP of 4.75 and xERA of 4.87 make him look like a candidate for the waiver wire much more than the mid-rotation starter that he's performed as since May. Yet, with 3 plus pitches (sinker, cutter, slider), I can see a path for him to continued production. If he would limit the use of his changeup and keep the slider out of the zone, relying on the sinker and cutter to get strikes, I think there's a very solid SP3 here. The margins are fine though, as Dunning doesn't have the raw velocity to blow hitters away. The schedule looks favorable for him for the rest of August: @OAK, @SF, MIL, @MIN, @NYM. There's nothing there that I'd shy away from, and with that in mind I'd be happy with him in my rotation in all formats for the near future.
Chas McCormick (OF - HOU) - McCormick homered twice and stole a base on Wednesday, giving him 15 and 12 respectively in those two categories and bringing his slash line up to 286/375/547 for the season. It's fairly unusual to see a player perform better in the majors than he ever did in the minor leagues, but McCormick is accomplishing that this year, primarily on the strength of a pull/FB approach that is maximizing his average (at best) raw power. The Statcast data leads you to believe that he's been rather fortunate, particularly in terms of AVG (xAVG/xSLG of 243/467)....unsurprising with the amount of increase he's shown in pull% alone. Still, the 30/25 pace that he's on over 150 games is enough to make him a useful OF even if the AVG drops 30-40 points, especially if he's going to approach 100 RBI as well. I've been pleasantly surprised by McCormick this year, and while I think that the average power/below average contact profile is likely to see him regress to a .250/20-25/20 sort of a player going forward, that's still easily enough production for him to be a top-50 OF.
Joe Ryan (SP - MIN) -
Ryan was blasted by the Cardinals on Wednesday, giving up 7 runs on 9 hits over just 4 innings of work, walking 1 and fanning 4. The big issue here was once again the long ball: Ryan allowed 4 more homers to bring his total to 17 over his last 7 starts. I hate to say it, but he has slid back into "streamer" territory for me despite the massive increase in strikeout ability this year. The new splitter continues to do work, but the velocity gains from early this year have dissipated, the control has deteriorated a bit as he tried to find a way to avoid the real issue: the homers. He just allows too many flyballs to be a consistently successful SP in this era of baseball. His schedule for the remainder of August looks like, for me, usage in 3 out of 5: @DET (yes), @PHI (no), PIT (yes), TEX (prob no), and CLE (yes). This has been a disappointing stretch for sure, as it looked like Ryan was making the leap from SP4 to SP2 in April and May, but now I'd put him right back down in the SP4 range. He is really missing that extra velocity from the spring right now.This is just a small sample our daily analysis, join our member area for tools that will help you win your fantasy championship. Click here for details: http://www.insiderbaseball.com/baseballsample.htm Click here to register: http://www.fantistics.com/salesbaseball.php3
