Welcome back once again to another exciting week. What are we roughly 38% or so through the season? Pretty soon the recreation players will be off to concentrate on fantasy football and that’s where you can make some savvy moves on the waiver wire to improve your team. A lot of good pitching performances of late and the Yankees look dammmm good. I was listening to a podcast the other day I’m sure you listen to them as well they do one every day and they were talking about the best pitchers in the Major Leagues right now. They mentioned Gerrit Cole, Corbin Burnes, Sandy Alcantara, Shane Mac, all the ones you expect but totally omitted one and I don’t know why, so if you have any reason why Joe Musgrove does not belong in this tier this season feel free to comment. I know Padres don’t get a whole lot of national media play but come on fellas give the guy his due. Every start has been a quality start this year 8-0 1.59 ERA 0.92 WHIP 81 K’s in 79 INN 2.54 xERA are some of the surface numbers. I think it speaks for itself he’s having a great season so far but just gets passed over in talks like he’s a journeyman. Kinda irritating just needed to get that off my chest lol.. Anyway, let’s get to some interesting Corner Infielders to discuss. I picked some players I wanted to highlight that I thought were due for a nice breakout the rest of the season and ones to be leery of putting in your lineup. Let’s get to it..
Ryan Mountcastle 1B/OF Orioles If you held onto him after a meh April you are reaping the rewards now as he has improved immensely since then and is hitting .300 in June and has a dozen HR’s with 36 RBI’s. His xBA is .314 and xSLG is .593 which bodes well for the rest of the season. He’s improved on his plate discipline as well taking more pitches and getting some more base on balls in his appearances which set up later at-bats. As the summer months are in full swing now, you can expect the humidity to play a factor in some of these games and see a lot of runs being scored. Mountcastle looks primed for a breakout here at the plate. I’d like to see if he can continue to improve on his chase rate of pitches outside the zone which sits at 37% but if he keeps making hard contact when he does hit it 50.9% there will be enough production there to offset the K’s. I’m really intrigued by Mountcastle and think he’s definitely somebody to go out and get if you can. Breakout
Jake Cronenworth 1B/MI Padres Another dual-eligible player who had a rough start to the season but is now raking at the plate hitting .354 in June and has more HR/RBI’s in June already than he did the entire 1st two months of the season. This is a player you knew with his previous BA at .285 and .266 and his skill around the plate not swinging at bad pitches and getting on base it was a matter of time before he got locked in at the plate and the hits started to fall. With Machado out for the time being Cronenworth will need to step up and I believe he can. Another player to get in your lineup asap. Breakout
Nathaniel Lowe 1B Rangers Lowe started off hot in April cooled off in May but is right back at it in June hitting .316 with 6 HR’s which bodes well for the rest of the summer. Almost half of the games in June Lowe has multiple hits and the Rangers score plenty of runs sitting in the top half of the league in that department. Lowe will be in the 20-25 HR range at the end of the season driving in 80 or so runs with a .270 avg so not too bad for a CI if you are looking to improve on your production there. Breakout
Jake Burger 3B White Sox I think Burger will be a good player in the majors at some point but I would steer clear this season. The K rate is way too high. He swings at too many pitches outside the zone and doesn’t get on base enough to overcome these traits. He’s having a nice June hitting .291 but I think that comes down significantly to his norm around .230 so you would be buying him at his high point and play him when regression is coming up. I think eventually he will be playing only against lefties who he hits very well when the White Sox get everybody healthy. Leery
Alex Bregman 3B Astros You got to wonder what the heck is going on with Bregman. He still has the elite plate discipline he is known for and gets on base via the base on balls frequently but isn’t doing a whole lot else. He is hitting .159 against lefties which is not good and when he does make contact it doesn’t go very far. Leery
Patrick Wisdom 3B Cubs I know you can get enamored by the long ball but there are glaring issues 88 k’s in 256 PA is insane. The only hope is he gets his average to around .240 to even it out somewhat but I don’t think it even gets there. I think a .215 avg is where it will end up with 25 HR’s and 65 RBI’s. That just doesn’t seem worth the risk to me in having someone drag down my avg so much when I can find some other options that get on base more with a little less power. Leery
That’s going to be it for today. I’m off to the east coast tonight for some lacrosse tournaments my son is playing in so I’ll be back next week. Have a great week everybody!
