You will struggle to find decent hitting offenses to avoid. I’m saying if you stop streaming against ‘good hitting teams,’ you will struggle to find them. Where are they, you might ask. They’re not in or around the lineup that is managed by Bud Black. His best hitter — easily! — Brenton Doyle is hitting 6th. Ya know, right in front of three guys hitting .190 or worse. With that said, Andrew Abbott (7 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 3.06) put up another great performance in a season filled with them. It’s worth looking closer at him to see if this is real. [opens Abbott’s stat page, closes it immediately] Can I get an el oh el? My xLOL — expected LOL — was at about 86.5 out of the 100 xLOL scale and I easily LOL’d. It could’ve been a 99.9 xLOL in retrospect. It shows how flawed expected stats are though. That xLOL stat is as bad as xBA. Abbott has a 7.2 K/9, 3.4 BB/9 and neutrally pitching around a 5 ERA in Cincy. C’mon, that’s at least a 95 xLOL. How is it only a 86.5 xLOL. Stupid xLOL stat. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Rece Hinds – 2-for-3 and his 1st homer as he was called up by the Reds. In Triple-A, he had a 38.4% K% and hit .216. Oh, he’s gonna fit right in! If you be Hinds in hitting, you is ass! Okay with the foolishness, he did go 23/20 last year and 13/12 so far this year, so he has speed and power. There could be something, I suppose. Yes, “I suppose” is meant to hedge. I don’t think there’s much here in the big picture, but speed and power and striking out? There’s worse things, I suppose.
Alex Young – Acquired by the Giants for Austin Slater. Watch out, the hot stove is heating up!
Tommy Pham – Scratched with a dental issue. Googled “Dental Pham” to see what the issue was and now I have ads for dental dams following me around.
Trevor Larnach – 1-for-4 and his 9th homer. He’s been hitting third, which seems like a dare. Like Baldelli is saying, “I dare us to score with arguably our worst hitter hitting third.”
Chris Paddack – 5 IP, 2 ER, 5 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 5.18 vs. Chris Flexen – 6 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 4.95. This matchup was billed as, “Can we just call them both Chris Midwest and move on?”
Carlos Correa – 1-for-5 and his 12th homer, hitting .303. What is this I’m feeling for Correa…Exuberance?
Martin Maldonado – 1-for-1 and his 3rd homer. He’s so mad he got snubbed from the All-Star Game!
Anthony Rendon – 1-for-4, 1 RBI as he was activated from the IL, and hit leadoff. That’s right, Rendon returns to doing his least favorite thing: baseball.
Davis Daniel – 3 2/3 IP, 7 ER, ERA at 5.82. Damn Daniel!
Jon Gray – 5 IP, 3 ER, 6 baserunners, 2 Ks, ERA at 4.01. Just put Jon Gray’s statline vs. the Angels through my What If He Were Pitching Vs. A Real Team calculator and it was a 2/3 IP, 6 ER line. Yikes.
Corey Seager – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 17th homer, hitting .273, and 2nd homer in as many games. Seager is the type to be the top hitter in baseball for a month or two. Cust kayin’.
Wyatt Langford – 2-for-5, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 5th homer, as he moves up to cleanup and in front of Adolis Garcia (1-for-5, 1 run, hitting .214). BDon and I talk about Wyatt on this week’s pod, and how he could still win AL ROY, because there’s zero AL rookies who are running away with it.
Eddie Rosario – 1-for-4, 1 run as he had his contract selected by the Braves to play outfield and come up big out of nowhere in the playoffs in three-plus months.
Austin Riley – 1-for-4, 2 runs and his 12th homer. Can he get to 30 homers? Maybe. I hope. Watch him have a boring 2nd half, barely get to 25 homers on the year, then hit 12 homers in the World Series or something obscene.
Sean Murphy – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 5th homer, hitting .224, and his 2nd homer in July. He homered off Sewald in the 9th with two outs, so maybe that’s the fire under him to be somewhat decent in the 2nd half, and stop Murphy’s Law from being so on the nose.
Yilber Diaz – 6 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 5 Ks, as he made his major league debut. Here’s what I said yesterday, “Here’s what Itch said previously, ‘At six-foot even and 190 lbs, Yilber Diaz features a riding fastball that dominates atop the zone and a nasty curveball that tunnels well with the cheese. Unlike Ben Williamson and Jake Bloss, Diaz is Rule 5 eligible this winter, which means he’ll have to be added to the 40-man roster before then anyway. In the past, teams might look at a guy like this and print his ticket for the bullpen. And maybe that’s how the team will deploy Diaz down the stretch this season. I think he’s got the best stuff of their rotating back-end starters and could grab that gig if given the chance. Trouble is, his command comes and goes, and Double-A hitters don’t punish pitchers for that the way a major league lineup might. Or I might punish Grey with my fists.’ C’mon! Yilber, or to you old folks, call him Mr. Ed Diaz, which fits since he looks like a bullpen guy, and I wouldn’t touch him in mixed leagues yet, but worth a monocle.” And that’s me quoting me and Itch!
Gavin Williams – 5 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 4.82. Most of the hits were weak contact. He was pelting 98 MPH fastballs pretty easily by the Tigers. Oh, did I mention it was the Tigers? Yeah, not great. Me watching Gavin was more me watching the Tigers look awful. Wenceel had me wincin’, Baddoo looks like bad-doodoo. All that said, Williams did look solid. He gets Tampa next in the Sunshine, and that will be more of a test. Here’s to him passing!
Parker Meadows – Hit the IL with a hamstring strain that seemed to be bad. How bad? Not sure. I bought what I thought was a Bad scale to measure badness at a flea market, but it turns out it was labeled “bad” because it was broken.
Keider Montero – 6 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 4 baserunners, 4 Ks, ERA at 4.64. Okay, this is weird, maybe it’s confirmation bias, but after seeing Keider Montero pitch I kept seeing Keider Monteros all over the road. If the Tigers start my Hyundai Sonata tomorrow? Well, than it’s more than a coincidence!
Brandon Nimmo – 2-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 14th homer. Currently doing my top 100 for the 2nd half that will be released next Tuesday here (Friday on Patreon), and Nimmo popped up for me as a possibility, and I thought he was clearly not a top 100 guy, then I saw he’s easily top 50 in the 1st half on the Player Rater. He had to be one of the biggest Buy Lows after April. Shame I was not saying that. Stupid brain!
Christian Scott – 5 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 1 hit, 1 walk, 3 Ks, ERA at 4.15. Love me some Scott — Michael, Baio, Christian — but this isn’t even about that. Streamonator loves his next one, and I would grab him everywhere.
Oneil Cruz – 2-for-3, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 14th homer. Oh, ya know he’s going to be in next week’s top 100 for the 2nd half! Ya know it! Only question is do I rank him above or below Elly. (I’m 1000% joking. Of course Oneil’s ranked 1st overall!)
Joshua Palacios – 1-for-4, 2 RBIs and his 1st homer. When he finally saw playing time last year, he hit pretty well. Okay, “pretty” is doing more lifting than Ken Patera, and is very subjective. But Josh Palace has speed and power, and I have a monocle.
Mitch Keller – 8 IP, 2 ER, 7 hits, zero walks, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.40. Baseball starters have become so funny when my biggest takeaway from this start was, “Wow, he threw 107 pitches. Is that a 2024 record?”
Miles Mikolas – 6 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 6 hits, zero walks, 3 Ks, ERA at 4.88. I don’t want to say anything to jinx his next start, and final one of the 1st half, but there is a ton of pressure taken off when you start a guy for two starts in a weekly and his first one is a cakewalk. “Did someone say cakewalk?” No, Rowdy Tellez, not like that.
Paul Goldschmidt – 2-for-5, 2 runs and his 12th homer, hitting .229. Au Shizz!
Alec Burleson – 2-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 14th homer. Burleson’s peripherals look so good you’d think the Cards would’ve already traded him.
Mitchell Parker – 7 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.44. Streamed him for this start, but Streamonator hates his next one, and I’m not trying to scream no whammy and press my luck.
DJ Herz – Optioned to the minors. To add insult to injury, when he went to get his stuff out of his locker labeled Herz, it was already turned back into a ladies room, stocked with sanitary napkins.
