Kendall Graveman (3% Yahoo, 1.6% ESPN, 11% CBS) – on its surface, Graveman’s 5.48 ERA is enough to scare off most casual fans. And his 5.91 FIP and 4.33 xFIP suggest there’s little to see here. Yawn. Move on, right? Well, maybe. But depending on your league size, Kendall Graveman could be a surprising source of productive innings moving forward.

First, the bad. I’ve already touched on his disappointing ERA and the indicators that support it. He’s also walking more batters than he did last year. In fact, his 3.59 BB/9 would be by far the worst of his career, including his time in the minor leagues. After his start on Thursday, his Zone% is sitting at 42%, a 4-point drop from his 2015 rate. And then there’s the home runs. His HR/FB% is a ghastly 25%. As you might suspect, this is where we start looking for upside.

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Last week, I identified five hitters whose batted ball distance suggested better HR/FB rate days may be ahead and another five hitters who may be in for a sudden HR/FB rate decline. That’s one way to use a hitter’s average home run and fly ball distance — as a predictive metric to speculate on improvers and regressers moving forward. The other use is to validate as a backwards looking tool. Player X’s HR/FB rate has declined, has his batted ball distance plummeted as well? The batter is seemingly at greater risk of maintaining that decreased HR/FB rate if it came with a similar trend in his distance. Of course, he may improve the distance, in which case the HR/FB rate would rebound. But we still want to see the two match up.

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Clayton Kershaw already has three shutouts this season. This is not actionable news, but, just, damn. He’s 7-1 with a 1.48 ERA and 1.38 FIP, striking out more than a third of batters he faces. How does someone this good somehow manage to get even better?

And yet, Kershaw didn’t even have the most amazing feat from Monday’s slate. We see you, Alfredo Simon.

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• Injury update for the Angels as Huston Street is heading to Arizona Friday for extended Spring Training. He also threw 20 pitches today and “could be back before the end of May.” All promising signs for Street as he comes back from a strained oblique and provided there aren’t any setbacks he should be replacing Joe Smith and return to his familiar role in the ninth very soon. Until then, Smith will close as he did tonight getting his sixth save.

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5/23/16

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

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Notable Transactions/Rumors/Articles/Game Play

• Steve Pearce (3:15)
• Marcell Ozuna (11:40)
• Jonathan Villar (22:15)
• Matt Shoemaker (27:00)
• Jimmy Nelson (32:40)
• Alex Wood (37:20)

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• Sonny Gray will miss some time with a strained right trapezius (back/shoulder/neck muscle).

Gray said he got a cortisone/anti-inflammatory shot for the issue Friday and he believes he will not miss a great deal of time. He said he got treatment for the muscle strain in the trapezius and his neck before his start at Tampa Bay last Sunday and it felt OL during that game but it nagged a bit during the week.

“Warming up against the Yankees in the fourth inning, it locked back up the way it did in the bullpen in Tampa,” Gray said. “I definitely noticed a difference warming up the inning. It’s just a matter of getting extension and getting out in front.”

Said A’s manager Bob Melvin: “I don’t think it’s really affected his velocity, but it’s affected the command. It’s like pitching with a rock in the bottom of your neck.”

Sounds like minimum time lost and not a major injury.

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I used 10% Yahoo ownership as the cutoff for these selections. With these players available in nearly all leagues, boosting your middle-infield production isn’t as dire a situation as it may seem.

Derek Dietrich (9% owned) – With Dee Gordon suspended through July, Dietrich’s got a stranglehold on the second-base job in Miami for the next two months. For the most part, he’s been batting leadoff, although he’s hit in the No. 3 spot for the last two days, to accommodate a red-hot Ichiro Suzuki in the leadoff spot. Regardless, he’s hitting in the top third of the lineup, with a .293/.400/.485 slash.

The 26-year-old’s home-run power hasn’t shown up yet this year — with just two in 120 PA — but he’s got seven doubles and three triples. Don’t be fooled by that paltry ‘2’ in the HR column, because Dietrich has plenty of pop to get the ball over the fence. While his .355 BABIP suggests likely regression in his AVG, those of you in OBP leagues can reap the benefits of his 10.0% walk rate — and the fact that he’s strangely adept at being hit by pitches.

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The Prospect Stock Watch is back. It’s a feature that I’ve been writing since 2013 and have used it to predict breakouts for prospects such as the Cubs’ Kyle Hendricks and the Phillies’ Odubel Herrera (who was with Texas at the time). Today, we look at a slugging outfielder and a couple of intriguing arms — including one that could impact the playoff race.

David Dahl | Rockies | OF
ETA: August 2016
Value: On the Rise

The San Francisco Giants have pulled away from the pack in recent days but the Rockies currently sit in second place — just three games out of first place. And the lineup has been doing quite well, buoyed by the early-season successes of third baseman Nolan Arenado and rookie shortstop Trevor Story. The outfielders have been holding their own but, outside of perhaps part-timer Ryan Raburn, haven’t exactly been tearing the cover off of the ball. Enter Dahl — whom the organization tabbed with the 10th overall selection back in 2012. Recovered from losing his spleen in 2015, the young outfielder is showing increased pop (10 homers in 38 games) to go along with solid on-base acumen and strong base running (13 steals in 15 tries). He could be a .300-30-20 (AVG-HR-SB) man in Colorado during his prime and just might be capable of providing a big-league spark to this team in the second half of 2016.

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Agenda

1. The Daily Grind Invitational and Leaderboard
2. Daily DFS
3. SaberSim Observations
4. Tomorrow’s Targets
5. Factor Grid

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The Strikeout Era has created a burgeoning market for middle relievers over the last few years. There have always been middle relievers with great ratios and vulture win potential, but with strikeouts continually on the rise, a good handful of them have become even mixed league viable with their ability to fan 30%+ of the batters they face. It took some time for fantasy players to adjust, though.

I remember Dellin Betances was out on the wire in many mixed leagues for a large part of his breakout 2014 season even as he logged 135 strikeouts in just 90 innings, more than Rick Porcello (132) and Alfredo Simon (127) logged in 204.7 and 196.3 innings, respectively. Heck, even someone with pretty good stuff (at least back in ’14) like Shelby Miller only fanned 127 in 183 innings that season. After that season, everyone was hot to Betances as he’s was drafted in virtually every mixed league last year and again this year even as Andrew Miller was named the replacement for Aroldis Chapman during his suspension.

Truth be told, I’ve been keen on studly middle relievers for a while now as I like to use a couple at the backend of an AL/NL only league staff instead taking some lame fifth starter who is likely to do more harm than good. The really good ones can have mixed league viability (12+ teams, even Betances isn’t an automatic in 10-teamers) as the wire dries up or if you’re just looking to protect ERA/WHIP while awaiting the return of a DL’d arm or something. Betances, Wade Davis, and Carter Capps have been some of the biggest standouts in this category the last couple of years. Davis has now become a stud closer and Capps was on way to the same fate before losing the year to TJ this spring.

So who are the next guys? I’ve got seven names for you.

By the way, I was going to include Sean Doolittle as he has settled in after a shaky start (15 Ks, 9 base runners, and 1.64 ERA in last 11 IP), but he’s still likely on a lot of teams speculating for saves as Ryan Madson isn’t exactly dominating and taking a stranglehold on the job. But if he’s available, go ahead and scoop Doolittle.

Looking at CBS roster rates, all of these guys are available in 74% or more leagues and because CBS caters to deeper leagues than Yahoo! and ESPN, they are almost certainly more widely available at both of those outlets.

Hector Neris – PHI – 36% K – 19% SwStr – 28% K-BB%

The Phillies bullpen was mess coming into the season with David Hernandez as the assumed closer and not much worth betting on behind him. Hernandez allowed 3 runs without logging an out in his first appearance of the season and it didn’t take long for Jeanmar Gomez to wrest the job from him. Gomez has logged an MLB-high 16 saves, though he’s hardly their best reliever.

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