Brandon Woodruff (SP - MIL) - Brandon Woodruff made his long-awaited return on Sunday, throwing 6 innings of 1-run ball against Miami, allowing 2 hits and striking out 8 without walking a batter. Since we last saw him, Woodruff has unveiled a cutter (his third most utilized pitch on Sunday) while losing quite a bit of velocity. He was decent during his stop and start minor league rehab time, but certainly not dominant enough to expect Sunday's level of performance, even against the Marlins. I'd be a little more cautious here than the raw results might make you think, but this was definitely an encouraging start with 10 swinging strikes over just 70 pitches. A sterner test will come in the form of the Nationals right before the break, and while I am trying to temper expectations, Woodruff is clearly worth a pickup in all formats.
Trevor Rogers (SP - BAL) - In his 5th start of the season on Sunday, Rogers tossed 6 2/3 shutout innings against the Braves, allowing 4 hits and walking 2 while fanning 6. That makes 3 starts of the 5 with no runs allowed, and only one really poor outing. He's showing improved control and velocity along with the swinging strike rate bump that you'd expect from greater velo, although the quality of contact allowed is still rather poor. With above average performance in both control and bat-missing (although not K's as of yet), I do think that Rogers is worth a pickup in most formats, especially with Miami coming into town for his last start before the break. Yes, he's been very fortunate thus far in both BABIP and HR/FB, but I still think there's a decent streamer here the rest of the way.
Joe Boyle (SP/RP - TB) - Boyle returned to the Rays for Sunday's contest against in Minnesota, and piggybacking on Drew Rasmussen's start (that seems to be the plan for the near-term) he managed 5 innings of 1-run ball, allowing 2 hits while walking 1 and fanning 7. The control has been significantly better this year: if Boyle can walk under 4 men per nine with his stuff, he can be successful. He picked up 15 swinging strikes on 95 pitches in the outing, illustrating the bat-missing potential that is the core of his value. He allows a lot of flyballs, a decent amount of hard contact, and there are the aforementioned control issues, so the floor here is pretty low. Still, if there were an organization that you want to see an arm like this surface in, it's the Rays, and as such he's definitely worth a pickup in all formats as long as it looks like he will have a starter-type workload filling in behind Rasmussen, who incidentally is likely droppable in all formats performing as a slightly extended opener for the time being.
Trevor Story (SS - BOS) - Story homered in the first inning on Sunday, extending his hitting streak to 8 in the 6-4 win over the Nationals. He now has 14 HR and 14 SB for the season, and he's hitting 319/352/496 with 7 HR and 5 SB since June 1st despite some pretty poor contact numbers. The power/speed mix and huge rebound in EV this season make him a productive player in just about all formats despite the steadily worsening contact and plate discipline.
Mickey Moniak (OF - COL) - Moniak had a single, triple, a steal, and his 13th HR of the season during the 6-4 win against the White Sox on Sunday. So, 13 and 5 in half a season with an AVG above the league median? There are select leagues where Moniak makes sense, because he's close to unplayable on the road (221/250/442) and has little pop against LHP (219/306/344), so you need to be able to add and drop him or carry him on reserves half of the time. 273/336/564 at home is pretty juicy though, and he's actually improved the contact rate a ton (from abysmal to merely below average) while nosing his exit velocity just barely above average. Sure, I don't think he's really playable without Coors Field, but he does happen to play there half the time......
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