I wasn’t a fan of Danny Salazar heading into the season. In fact, I foolishly made the bold prediction that Jaime Garcia would outearn him. HA! It wasn’t due to doubts about the quality of his stuff, obviously. It was concerns about the health of his arm paired with a walk rate that spiked in 2016. And I was right to question his health, though last year it was his elbow which worried me, this time he landed on the DL for his shoulder. And before hitting the DL, his ERA swelled to 5.40. But after missing over a month and a half, Salazar has returned to make five starts and has absolutely dominated like a completely new man. Or maybe just the man we always dreamed he could be.

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It’s time to speculate and to latch on to a new starter that could provide a boost to your counting stats.

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Yesterday, I shared with you a trade I made in the keeper league in which I took over for an inactive team a couple of months ago. It was a classic dump deal, with me acquiring who I considered one of the top two keepers in the league — super prospect Yoan Moncada. We’re still in the middle of August, so we’ll have another month and a half worth of Major League stats with which to evaluate Moncada and put together a 2018 projection. But I don’t want to wait a month and a half and you probably don’t either. So let’s take a stab at an early 2018 projection, along with a dollar value for that stat line.

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About two months ago, I was asked by a member of the local league I commish to replace an inactive owner in the league he commishes. I replied that I don’t have the time to monitor another team, but if all I’m asked to do is respond to trade offers and ensure I maintain a healthy active lineup (I totally failed at that task), then sure, I’ll take over the team. This is a keeper league in its inaugural year that I was actually asked to join before the season began, but declined for several irrelevant reasons. The league rules are relatively standard, with mixed rosters, 14 teams, and a limit of three keepers. An auction was conducted to roster players and keepers could only be selected from players acquired via the auction, with a salary $5 above their auction price.

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As we march toward the final month of the season, we will continue to see many new faces in starting pitching rotations. Let’s discuss a trip of such in the American League.

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If you’re fishing in the bottom of the ocean, or even the middle layer, you might uncover these hidden gems…

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While we feel like pitchers change far more quickly than hitters, that doesn’t mean that hitters never adjust, regress, or improve during the season, moving their true talent level to another level. So let’s take a look at some of the more interesting names on the HR/FB rate leaderboard over the last 30 days.

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A week ago, I discussed some of the surprising and notable names atop the American League starting pitcher last 30 day strikeout rate leaderboard. Today, let’s check in on those pitchers that find themselves at the bottom.

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It’s a good time to need roster help as seemingly every day there’s a new player that falls into an every day job. Here are two of the most recent.

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It was a relatively unexciting trade deadline as fewer big names switched uniforms than usual. No, I don’t have any actual data to back that up, but I feel like I’m probably right. Anyhow, one of the bigger names to switch teams was Sonny Gray, as he departs the West coast for the East, joining the New York Yankees. Let’s analyze the park factors, the team defenses, and offensive support to help determine how this affects his value over the rest of the season.

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