Today’s Roto Riteup recognizes that the Sun is not our friend, but our greatest adversary.

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• Derek Lowe picked up the traditional four inning save tonight for the Yankees. Yes, you read that correctly — four-inning save. In his debut for the Yankees, Lowe came on in relief of David Phelps in the sixth and dished four scoreless innings of two-hit ball while fanning four. For those youngsters out there, this was not Derek Lowe’s first career save. In fact, this was Lowe’s 86th career save and first regular season save since 2001 — almost 11 years to the day. It’s unlikely that Lowe will earn many more saves this year, but he could turn into an interesting rotation option for the Bronx Bombers should they need an extra arm.
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Josh Reddick is having an outstanding first season with the A’s after previously playing for Boston. The 25-year-old left handed hitter has an unexpected 25 HRs this season to go with a .253/.325/.500 triple slash line. Did Reddick change much from his time Boston? Was there some possible signs that Reddick had a chance to break out this season?

The main factor affecting his fantasy value in Boston was his playing time. Over 3 MLB season he had only 403 PA’s and hit .248/.290/.416 with 10 HRs (0.025 HR/PA). Not exactly numbers that will win a fantasy title.

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This Chris Carter was one of the first freedom campaigns that ever got my attention. Before Brandon Allen, there was Vernon Christopher, the twice-traded minor league slugger with power and patience that just needed somebody to believe in him. This year, after a couple tweaks, it looks like he’s finally free to free baseballs in the major leagues.

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Per usual, here are the Monday American League outfield stock watch updates.

Bullish:
Alex Rios – Since July 30, the 3rd best AL outfielder has been none other than Alex Rios. Commenter db thought that I should have ranked Rios higher in my last AL Tiered OF Rankings Update, and I may be inclined to agree more now than I was then. I still don’t love his projection, but a lot of his ZiPS is being influenced by his less-than-impressive 2009 and 2011 campaigns. To see this resurgency in Rios shouldn’t be taken lightly at this point. He is a five full category producer in standard roto leagues and barring a major collapse, should easily notch his second 20-20 season, but his first with a .300+ average.
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Let’s kick off the week with two Athletics, one current and one former…

Grant Balfour | RP | Athletics | Owned: 42% Yahoo!

With Ryan Cook having allowed six runs in his last four appearances and nine runs in his last nine appearances, A’s manager Bob Melvin gave the ninth inning reigns over Balfour against the White Sox this weekend. He closed out Saturday’s win without a problem, though Melvin has yet to make any sort of definitive statement about his closer for the short or long-term. When in doubt, I always lean towards the veteran in the short-term.

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Starling Marte has already made an impact with the Pittsburgh Pirates. After being called up in late-July, Marte has proved why he was one of their top prospects entering the season. Marte has hit .268/.303/.493 in 76 plate appearances with the Pirates this season. In just a short period of time, Marte has become a useful fantasy asset. And due to his prospect status at the beginning of the year, there’s a chance he’s already been picked up in your league due to his hot start. But it’s not all good with Marte. While he’s been a solid producer thus far, that probably won’t last.

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We have looked a lot at starting pitchers’ fastball velocity this year and we know that on average, it rises throughout the season. Pitchers will typically see a very slight uptick each month, but sometimes more significant spikes occur. These could be the result of many things, but whatever the explanation, it could portend a strikeout rate jump and likely performance improvement. Here are the five starters whose velocity has increased most in August versus July. The sample size for August is obviously small as it only encompasses one to two starts, so keep that in mind.

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Today’s Roto Riteup is a classic Monday edition. I can’t tell you what that means, but I can tell you that it’s totally true.

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• The merry-go-round in the Milwaukee bullpen continues. One night after Jim Henderson allowed Houston to walk off with a win, the Brew Crew came upon a save opportunity and turned to someone other than Henderson, John Axford, and Francisco Rodriguez. Yup, Ron Roenicke turned to righty Kameron Loe to finish off the hapless Astros. Loe’s ninth wasn’t completely clean — he allowed a hit, committed his own error, and threw a wild pitch — but the end result was a scoreless performance. Loe has a pedestrian (for a reliever) 17.9% K%, but his stinginess with providing free passes (6.6% BB%) has helped guide him to an unspectacular, but solid, 3.54 xFIP in 2012. With Axford, Rodriguez, and (AAA) Henderson’s BB% all above 11%, Loe’s strike-throwing ways might be welcome relief at the back end of a messy bullpen. Loe is probably worth a pickup, especially for vultures, but the situation remains so murky and fluid that it’s a bullpen you’ll generally want to stay away from it if you can help it. It’s likely we haven’t seen the last shuffling of deck chairs on this sinking ship before the season ends.

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