DFS PLAYBOOK PRO – An exciting new offering from the Alarm is here! It’s the DFS Playbook Pro. I will be doing a daily breakdown of the hitters –Hitting Coach – while Howard Bender looks into the Pitchers (Pitching Coach). You can find the link to the Hitting and Pitching articles under the DFS Playbook pro tab at the top right of the screen.
OTHER LINKS TO BOOKMARK
THE LAST TWO WEEKS
wOBA – basically a slightly more accurate way of recording a players performance than OPS – says the following about player the last two weeks (wOBA is on the same scale as OBP meaning that a .315 mark is average, .350 is solid, .400 is elite etc.).
.598 – Troy Tulowitzki
.569 – Paul Goldschmidt
.558 – Joey Votto
.541 – Albert Pujols
.514 – Giancarlo Stanton
None of that is surprising given how hot those guys have been. Here are some others though that you may not have noted have really taken off the past two weeks.
.442 – Brandon Moss
.432 – Chris Carter
.411 – Carlos Gonzalez
Moss is on pace to hit .255 with 27 homers, 90 RBIs and 70 runs scored in his first season with the Indians. Yeah, look it up. The last two seasons with the Athletics his average effort was .244-28-84-72. Same as always.
Carter is on pace to hit .219 with 27 homers and 80 RBIs. The last two seasons he’s hit .225 with an average of 33 homers and 85 RBIs. I know you don’t want to hear it, and many may not even believe it, but the fact is Carter is performing in virtually the same manner as he has the last two years. Hot/cold is his game, and it’s a frustrating own.
CarGo is hitting. Waited a long while to say that. Over his last 13 games he’s hitting .360 with a .411 OBP and .560 SLG. He seems to be back with the bat. He’s even stolen a base. Still a long way to go before we can even begin to suggest that he is truly back, but the recent run brings hope. He’s gotta start running though. He has attempted only two thefts all year.
WHAT HAPPENED TO JOSE ALTUVE?
Yikes.
Jose Altuve is batting .250 with a .519 OPS in June. ‘Come on Ray, it’s only 10 games.’ Fair point. Let’s look at his last 36 games then. Since that point Altuve 
is batting .227 with a .561 OPS. He’s been able to still run with eight steals, but he also has a poor 67 percent success rate on his 12 attempts. Despite that horrible slump know this.
Altuve is batting .289 this season.
Altuve hit .341 last year.
For his career Altuve is a .301 hitter.
That mean’s Altuve was .040 points off his career mark last season but only .012 points off it this season.
Altuve still doesn’t walk, and as a result his OBP is down to .328 (it was .377 last year). That leaves Altuve on pace to score 69 runs.
I did offer some words of warning in his Player Profile. Did you listen?
WHAT HAPPENED TO SHANE GREENE?
Oh well.
Shane Greene was demoted to Triple-A Friday as the Tigers just couldn’t show any more patience with the righty starter. A review of his work to this point.
(1 )His 5.82 ERA is awful. Still, he’s pitched much better than that mark: SIERA (4.37) and x FIP (4.27).
(2) In his 13 starts he was all over the flippin’ map. Five times he allowed zero or one earned run. Five times he allowed five or more earned runs.
(3) He lost the ability to put batters away as his K/9 rate of 5.82 was miles away from the arm we saw in 2014 when he struck out 81 batters in 78.2 innings.
Disappointing to say the least. Still like the skills, but until he can consistently find his release point and get more downward movement on his pitches he’ll be toiling in the minors.
A very underrated movie…
People keep beating Ray Flowers. It’s easy. Ask around. But he’s back for the challenge yet against Friday thanks to Fantasy Alarm and Draft Kings in the $1,000 Ray Flowers Challenge.
SPEED BUMP?
In Don’t Draft Tanner Roark from our 2015 Draft Guide, I wrote the following. “Not getting all technical, SIERA and xFIP remove some of the "white noise" with ERA and speak more directly to what the pitcher has done on the field. Those two marks are 3.81 (SIERA) and 3.69 (xFIP), more than a run above Roark's raw ERA…. Bottom line with Roark is that he will be over-drafted. His ERA will most likely rise, perhaps significantly, and he's nothing more than a moderate strikeout arm.” The last two times that Roark has taken the hill he’s been bombed for four homers, 15 hits and nine runs over 12.1 innings. As a result his ERA is 3.71, his WHIP 1.24 and his K/9 rate is sickly at 4.33. Hopefully you didn’t waste your time with Roark.
PHILLIES BULLPEN UPDATE
Sounds like the Phillies might be inching closer to dealing Jonathan Papelbon. His value will remain unchanged, no one is acquiring him to be their setup man, so the real question is what do the Phillies do in the 9th when Papelbon is dealt? My preseason choice, and the guy I still believe to be in the lead to take over, is Ken Giles. He’s got nine holds this season, a 2.16 ERA and a 9.36 K/9 mark. At the same time, that K-rate is down three batters from last season and Ken’s walk rate has exploded from 2.17 to 3.96 per nine. Batters never square him up, his line drive rate is 15.0 percent and his HR/F ratio is just 3.0, but he often loses the strike zone which can cause rough outings. I would suggest adding Giles if he is out there, but I’m not as pumped about his second half prospects as I was two months ago.
JASO… ?
John Jaso was supposes to miss a few days when he hurt his wrist after one at-bat. Then it was setback after setback. Now we hear that he’s closing in on hitting off a tee. Seriously? He was going miss a few days and it’s not taken more than 60 for him to start hitting off a tee? Really? The hope is that he’ll be able to return to game action in about a month. That means an injury that was gonna keep him out of the lineup for a few days is going to sideline him for three months. Jaso has little power, but he gets on base with a career .359 OBP and should see plenty of playing time when healthy. A lower level second catcher option in mixed leagues in the second half… if he can get back out on the field.
MINOR LEAGUE UPDATE
According to Aaron Gleeman, Byron Buxton has been ripping it up at Double-A of late. Over his last 45 games he’s hitting .306 with a .373 OBP and .541 SLG reminding people that Buxton is an elite of the elite in terms of prospects. If you look at the Twins outfield you see Torii Hunter and… yeah. There are guys like Eddie Rosario, Shane Robinson, Aaron Hicks… certainly if Buxton keeps hitting it seems very likely that we will see him at some point in the second half. Realize though that Buxton has only 59 games of experience above Single-A ball and he appeared in just 44 games last season because of injury. And he’s just 21 years old.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday at 7 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 7 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).