Taylor Ward (OF - BAL) - Ward had his 2nd straight 3-hit game on Thursday against Boston, bashing his 16th double of the season in the process, and he's now hitting 260/404/357 on the year. There's so much that's good here in the statline, like the absurdly low 12% chase rate, the equally impressive 5% swinging strike rate, and a massive walk rate of just under 20%. The problem here is that, with far more line drives and far fewer flyballs (and a much lower pull%), the HR total has been stuck at 2 for 2 1/2 weeks. He's obviously been hitting very well, but that's not the type of production that people expected from Ward. The problem with guys that truly only have average raw power, is that any change in their batted ball profile can have some fairly significant ramifications to their power production. There are so many players that rely on pulled flyballs to produce HRs, and this sort of thing happens on a somewhat frequent basis. Ward is still very productive and is having a perfectly good year at age 32, but without SBs, HRs, or RBIs his performance in Roto formats has left a lot to be desired. He's on pace for well over 40 doubles, and with the weather warming up it is very possible that some of those will turn into HRs, but with the much more patient, line-drive oriented approach, I can't envision a return to the HR frequency of the past few seasons for him.
Justin Wrobleski (SP - LAD) - Wrobleski shut the D-Backs out for 6 innings on Thursday evening, showing increased velocity (back to 2024 levels) while scattering 6 hits and fanning 4 without walking a man. That gives him QS in 7 of his last 9, and he has excellent control. That about sums up the positives. Even in this solid outing, Wrobleski only managed 7 whiffs on 84 pitches, and he allowed 11 hard hit balls during the outing....that's more than half of the balls hit into play! His GB rate is poor, the strikeout rate is abysmal, and he somehow has a HR/FB rate of well under 5%. He has the 6th highest gap between his ERA and xFIP right now, and that was before Thursday's outing. The excellent control can only take him so far....I would absolutely be selling high here.
Jackson Chourio (OF - MIL) - Chourio was 3-4 with 4 R, 4 RBI, and 2 HR on Thursday, and he's now hit in 6 straight and has a 308/373/505 line through his first 26 games of the season. Chourio basically put up identical seasons at age 20 and 21, but here at age 22 he's taken a step forward in bat speed and exit velo in addition to cutting his swinging strike rate by about 1.5%. Drafted as OF8 this spring, I think he's pretty easily going to surpass that ranking by a couple of spots this year, and he's still years away from his prime. He's been much more patient this year, although much of the patience has come inside the strike zone as opposed to reduction of his chase rate, but I have some faith that he will improve that chase rate as well over the next few years. He is as likely as just about anyone to be one of the best 5 players in baseball for the next decade.
Vlad Guerrero JR (1B - TOR) - Vlad was 3-5 with a double on Thursday, and is now hitting 300/391/391 for the year. That SLG isn't a misprint, as the 27 year old has 11 2B but just 3 HR, with only 1 of those blasts coming since April 20th. The flyball rate is down for the 3rd straight year, and it was never very high to begin with. A bit more worrisome is the fairly sizable decline in exit velo for the second straight year. It's still above average, but not by all that much anymore, although the max EV shows that his raw power is still just about as good as anyone's. As much as we all want Guerrero to be a .300/30/100 guy year in/year out, I just don't see it happening with his style of hitting. He's a great hitter that just doesn't try to elevate the ball often. He's durable, he is a well above average contact bat, and he has plenty of pop, but the sum total of his production somehow always feels a touch disappointing.
Kody Clemens (1/2/O - MIN) - Clemens hit two solo homers in the 8-6 loss to the Royals on Thursday, giving him 8 to go along with 5 steals through 51 games this year. Clemens is an interesting player, as he appears on the surface to be a high-power/low-contact slugger, but in reality he's an average contact/average power guy that hits a ton of flyballs. It keeps the AVG down, and allows the average power to play a bit above that. The kicker here is the 1B/2B/OF eligibility, which is both fairly unique and rather valuable. The 30 year old is a bit fringy in standard formats, but he definitely has value in deeper leagues, and the multi-position eligibility makes him a reasonable injury fill-in at times. A 20/10 season this year wouldn't be a surprise, although it will almost certainly come with a low AVG.
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
