Freddy Peralta (SP - NYM) - Peralta had another stinker on Monday, giving up 7 runs on 8 hits to the Mets over 5 1/3 innings, walking 2 and fanning 6 while seeing his ERA nose over 5.00 for the year. I feel like Peralta has been rather overrated for years because he's had a few seasons (2021 and 2025) where his ERA was significantly lower than what you'd expect from the sum total of his performance, and the past few seasons when his skill set has been deteriorating a bit have seen his ERA track the other direction. Looking at his last 5 seasons, I see a pitcher with mediocre control that doesn't keep the ball down, and while he still misses a lot of bats, that number is declining as well. He's never been one to generate a lot of chasing from hitters, relying on his ability to miss bats in the zone, but this is the 5th straight year that the in-zone contact rate against him has increased. He was able to stave off the early stages of that increasing contact rate by bumping up his GB% and walking fewer hitters, but that trend stopped two years ago. By my eye he was just a step above league average the past two years, but he benefitted greatly from low BABIPs and high strand rates, something that has certainly gone against him this year. He was the 15th SP taken by ADP this year, and we rated him in the preseason as going a bit more than 2 rounds earlier than our valuation. Sometimes people wilt coming to NY, but I really don't think that's the case here: I think with the slight decline this year that Peralta is just a roughly league average SP that is having a decent amount of bad luck to go along with that decline.
Ty France (1B - SD) - France is scorching hot right now, as another homer (#15) on a 2-4 night gives him an 8-game hitting streak. He has 5 homers during that stretch and is hitting 464/500/1107. He's obviously a bit over his head, but there's definitely something a bit conscious here in the power surge, as the 32 year old has a 1 mph increase in his bat speed, a 2.6 mph increase in avg EV (off a career high in EV last year), a sizable increase in pull% and FB%, and the worst contact rate of his career (and 2nd worst chase rate). The Statcast expected data has him with a .458 xSLG, which would be a full-season career-best (his SLG has decreased every season since 2020), and while I expect the actual SLG of .550 to drop some over the remainder of the year, I do expect France to continue to show more power than we've ever seen from him simply because we've never seen this version of France before. A career-high in HR (previously 20) seems a foregone conclusion at this point.
Ronel Blanco (SP - HOU) - Well, that was a pretty weird debut from Blanco, who returned from TJ internal brace/flexor tendon repair surgery in just 13 1/2 months on Monday. Blanco held the Marlins to 2 hits (both homers) and 4 runs over 4 2/3 innings, walking 3 and fanning 8. He was typically wild, but generated 18 swinging strikes and a 47% chase rate on just 86 pitches from a team that is bottom third in batter strikeouts. Color me intrigued, especially when you note that he threw 60% changeups and curves (last time we saw him he was 67% fastball/slider). When they could touch him he did get hit pretty hard, and he was typically control-challenged, but there could be something here with that much swing and miss (and a touch more velo). I'd be looking at a speculative pickup where appropriate (i.e. - not somewhere you're looking for a high floor guy).
Esmerlyn Valdez (OF - PIT) - Valdez homered again on Monday against Ryan Weathers and the Yankees, giving him 7 in the last 8 games and 13 through his first 32 (T-3rd in MLB history). He also struck out twice for the 6th straight game, and he's struck out at least once in all 15 games this month. He's been fantastic and the power is certainly legitimate, as is the strike zone discipline. The problems here are the contact rate (65.3% coming into Monday's contest, and only 71.4% in-zone) and the HR/FB rate (34.3% coming into Monday's game, a number that can only rise since he hit one ball fair Monday and it was a HR). One portends a lot more K's than even the high number that we've seen so far, and the other simply has to come down: his power is very good, but it isn't quite elite just yet. Monday's game is a good example: he swung 10 times and hit 4 foul balls, swung and missed 5 times, and hit 1 HR. Weathers hung a slider, and mistakes do happen, but this kid has run into quite a bit of luck to this point. He doesn't have much speed or defense going for him, so when a slump happens and all of the injured guys start coming back for the Pirates, does he continue to play every day? This is a really cool story and I think he's going to be a major leaguer with plus power, but that's about all I'm sure of right now.....he could easily hit .220 with 10 HR the rest of the way. I'd certainly be testing the trade market to see what others think of him right now.
Victor Mesa Jr (OF - TB) - Mesa hit a solo HR for the 3rd straight game on Monday, giving the 24 year old 5 in the past 8 games for the Rays. He's shown a real uptick in EV and bat speed this season at both AAA and in TB, while the speed continues to drop down toward average from "good". It's also pretty odd that the two best swinging strike rates that Mesa has ever posted have been in his two brief appearances in MLB, but the chase rates have steadily been dropping as well. This feels like a player that is maturing into a major-league starter, which is something I most definitely had my doubts about as recently as around 13 months ago. Right now there's a ton of FB/pull and I still have to believe the contact ability isn't quite average, so the AVG is pretty suspect, but the power may very well be for real, and there's still a bit of speed as well. As thin as OF gets here in the dog days of summer, I do think that Mesa is worth having in most formats....there's some upside here.
