What is wrong with Jose Abreu? Been getting that question a lot lately. Some thoughts. (1) He’s not a .317 hitter as he flashed as a rookie. I stated that a gazillion times last season. He’s also not the .242 hitter he’s showing right now either. He’s just not hitting the ball on the barrel as much as in the past as his 17.7 percent line drive rate is well below his 21.3 percent career mark. His walk and strikeout rates are identical this season compared to his career mark, so that speaks well for a rebound. (2) He’s not driving the baseball. His SLG is under .380. His career mark is .515. His Isolated Power mark is .137 (career .222). His 21 percent career HR/FB ratio is exactly half this season with a 10.5 percent mark. Barring injury, the average should come up as the power comes. Still little reason to think he can’t be a 25 homer, 90 RBI guy this season, though that would be the first time in three years that he failed to go 30-100.
Wasn’t Miguel Cabrera the guy who was losing his pop? He’s hit six homers the past two weeks and now has 12 on the year. He’s no longer a 35-40 homer bat, but 25-30 is totally doable. Over his last 36 games Miggy is batting .358 with a .426 OBP and .664 SLG. Same as always folks.
Nick Castellanos is batting .321 with 10 homers and 32 RBI and a .908 OPS. Those are all-star level numbers. However, he has a .194 average, one RBI and a .541 OPS his last eight games as his production is crashing back to earth. Still has that ungodly .389 BABIP which is going to continue to fall, and that HR/FB ratio sits at 15.9 percent after resting at eight percent the previous two years. More struggles are coming.
Rusney Castillo is back in the minors as Jackie Bradley has returned from the paternity list. Bradley is on pace to go .331-26-110-80-9. Come on now.
Paul Goldschmidt is back to ripping it up. Over his last 13 games he’s driven in 10 runs, has walked 10 times and is batting .378. He’s still hitting just .263 but the guy is a career .297 hitter who has been over .300 each of the last three years. Note that his BABIP is .317, well below his career .352 mark, and that he’s still posting a .419 OBP that is 6th best in baseball. How good is he given that he’s had a “slow” start?
Odubel Herrera had 23 walks and 18 strikeouts in April. In May he walked 11 times while striking out 22 other times. The result was a drop of .069 points in his OBP, though his .393 May mark is still really impressive for a guy who was at .344 last season. Is another similar drop in store for the month of June?
Why is everyone so jazzed about Rougned Odor? Over his last 162 games the fantasy numbers include 22 homers, 85 RBI and 82 runs scored. OK, I get it. Still, the guy is batting .264 in that time with a .308 OBP and .768 OPS. Brett Lawrie has a .763 OPS right now – that exciting anyone? Odor has also, and perhaps more condemningly, shown no improvement this season when compared to last. His batting average is up one point. His OBP is down .029 points. His SLG is down .021 points. His BB/K ratio is down 50 percent (from 0.29 to 0.16). His Isolated Power mark is down .022 points (.182). Look, the counting category numbers impress for a second sacker, but the fact is that his overall game is pretty average-ish at the moment.
Joc Pederson stole 30 bases, while hitting 33 homers, in 121 games at Triple-A in 2014. Through 221 big league games he’s attempted 14 steals (six successful). Even with Dave Roberts, who stole 38 or more bases four times in his career, as his manager, Pederson doesn’t even seem interested in running. Without that aspect of his game missing he’s no different than Carlos Beltran.
Eugenio Suarez has come out of nowhere to hit for power. Adam Jones is on his typical HR pace. Can Mark Trumbo hit over 50 bombs this year? CHECK OUT THE VIDEO.
Domingo Santana is finally back, and let’s hope his shoulder is finally good to go. Santana will be the everyday right fielder for the Brewers and he returns to a .353 OBP through 36 games.
Over his last 13 games Kyle Seager is batting .407 with a .447 wOBA as he’s hit two homers, driven in 14 runs and scored 12 times. Remember what I said back in March? Seager is money, will produce, so draft him and forget about him. He stunk in April, but his May was white hot bringing his numbers up to a level that what would be career best across the board (.295/.369/.535).
Trea Turner will make his 2016 debut Friday as the Nats have called him up to take the roster spot of Ryan Zimmerman who has been placed on the paternity list. At this point it’s still uncertain how much time Turner will get at the big league level, it’s possible he is sent back down in a few days, but one would think that he’s up to stay. As I’ve said before, Turner should be expected to perform like, wait for it, Elvis Andrus. It would greatly aid his case if he were to stick in the #2 spot that he’s hitting out of Friday. In that game Bryce Harper returns after being out of the lineup for three days after taking a pitch off his knee Monday.
* NOTE: IT SOUNDS LIKE TURNER WILL BE DEMOTED AS SOON AS ZIMMERMAN IS READY TO RETURN FROM THE PATERNITY LIST. THAT IS THE WORD FROM TURNER AS WELL AS THE NATIONALS MANAGER DUSTY BAKER. I SO WISH YOU FOLKS WOULD JUST LISTEN TO ME ABOUT ROOKIES, EVEN THOUGH YOU RARELY DO.
Jonathan Villar has six steals the past two weeks with 12 runs scored. Meanwhile Jean Segura has one steal and is batting .180 the past two weeks. Segura has seen his average dip to .301 as he’s hit a mere .194 the last 17 games. In four seasons Segura has hit .260 just once, so one should expect his batting average to continue to dip. It doesn’t help that Segura has 19 walks in his last 194 games. Mike Trout has walked 12 times the last two weeks.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday 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).