Jake Bauers (1B/OF - MIL) - Bauers reached base 4 times on Sunday in the 4-3 win over the Twins, including HR #21. There is so much that's positive in this year from Bauers, I can't help but be tremendously impressed by both the player and the trust from the club. First, from the club standpoint, this is the first year this decade that Bauers has been given significant playing time against LHP, and he's rewarded the Brewers with a 247/337/459 line against them. Decisions like this are part of why the Brewers can continue to succeed despite a payroll that is a fraction of many of their competitors. As far as Bauers himself, he has become a much more patient hitter with Milwaukee, and the contact ability has proven to be at least average. He's also managed to raise his exit velocity in every single year of his career, so that's 6 straight increases at this point. He's a top-15 player in terms of bat speed, and by any offensive measure he's easily been a top-10 1B this season at age 30. It's been the kind of year that so many teams were sure that he had in him, but nobody had been able to unlock that potential with any consistency. It's somewhat strangely come from the lowest launch angle of his career, so as crazy as it sounds there could even be a bit more upside from here. I do believe this is a legitimate breakout, with the only real weak spot being defensively, where he is just pretty poor wherever they play him.
Troy Melton (SP - DET) - Melton allowed an unearned run on 4 hits over 6 innings against the Giants on Sunday, walking 1 and fanning 5. The Tigers improved to 11-2 in Melton's 13 starts on the year, and the 25 year old has only allowed more than 2 runs once so far this season. In fact, he's only allowed 2 runs twice, so he's allowed 0 or 1 runs in 10 out of 13 starts, which is simply fantastic. The xFIP and SIERA both point toward significant regression at 3.91 and 4.07 respectively, but with above-average control, an above-average GB rate, and an above-average swinging strike rate, I'm not so sure that he's going to fall apart. Sure, the 95% strand rate and .191 BABIP are going to lead to some poorer results than we've seen thus far, but I think that the xERA of 3.11 points more closely to the region I expect Melton to be inhabiting going forward. He has 5 plus pitches and plus command, and the only weak point of note is that he has had some HR issues at times in the past. I view Melton as a solidly above-average SP moving forward.
Abimelec Ortiz (1B - WAS) - Ortiz singled and homered on Sunday before being removed for a pinch-hitter in the 7th, and he's hitting 273/304/591 in his first 23 MLB PAs for Washington. Part of the return for Mackenzie Gore, Ortiz reminds me quite a bit of a much slower Wilyer Abreu, from body type all the way through approach and skill set. Patience, a low GB rate, very good power, and a lot of pull are what we see here, along with a contact rate that has steadily improved despite his progress up the organizational ladder both in Texas and now here in Washington. He's hit 33, 18, 25, and now 20 HR in his last 4 seasons, all of which were at least 20 games underneath a "normal" major league workload. The combination of the contact rate improvement and the obvious plus power have me very excited for his ceiling, but there is one major issue here: he is very clearly being platooned with Andres Chaparro because he's shown very little ability to hit LHP above A-ball. I've seen Ortiz in person a couple of times and he does stand out as a major-league caliber hitter, but it's tough to be very impactful when you're only going to play 60-70% of the time. As such, I think that he's only a viable play in deeper leagues and in DFS at present, but I'd also keep an eye out for weeks when the Nationals are scheduled to play a predominantly RHP-heavy schedule (that is most definitely not this week coming up, where they are scheduled to face 3 lefties and righties apiece).
JJ Wetherholt (2B - STL) - Wetherholt singled, doubled, and walked twice in the 7-4 win over Colorado on Sunday. The 23 year old hasn't quite lived up to the hot start that he made in April, but he should score close to 100 runs and is likely to be a 15/15 player with close to a .350 OBP, which pretty clearly makes him a top-8 2B at a minimum. There's no real standout tool here, but the contact ability and speed are above average and the power is solidly average. He's been fairly unlucky too according to the expected data, as the xAVG/xSLG of 255/432 are quite a bit above the 246/383 AVG/SLG with which he entered Sunday's contest. I think we're just scratching the surface of Wetherholt's ability, and I expect significantly more in terms of AVG and possibly SB over the next few seasons.
Ian Seymour (SP - TB) - Seymour has been very solid of late, a trend that continued on Sunday against Seattle with a 6 IP, 1 R, 2 BB, 7 K performance to move him to 9-3 on the year. He's fanned 27 over 22 2/3 IP in his last 4 starts, walking only 4 men and allowing only 5 runs. The control seems to be improving by the week and he's always been able to miss bats, so you just have to deal with the occasional big fly from his extreme flyball nature. He's not quite an "every start" guy for me yet, but I'm fine with Baltimore and Toronto coming into the Trop for his next two outings (he's pitched to a 3.50 ERA at home this season).
