About a quarter of the regular season remains, so fantasy baseball players can’t expect much of an influx of talent in their leagues’ free-agent pools. What talent does hit the wire is running out of time to have a say in the standings, too.

The players I wanted to audition for a second entry in my WW this week have been profiled in the last few days. I hoped to find an American League player, one who had just come into some playing time or has an attractive schedule upcoming.

I should have known better than to think that anyone would beat Mike Podhorzer to a write-up on Carlos Carrasco. I like the Cleveland Indians’ latest starter more than Eno Sarris seems to like him – not so much because I think there’s a change, and more so because the news gives me a little hope that he’ll buck the confidence issue which has plagued him. Now that Cleveland has pretty much given up, there won’t be much pressure on him, relatively speaking. I like J.A. Happ for the reasons Brett Talley cites, especially the LHP’s upcoming schedule – in spite of last night’s hiccup at the Seattle Mariners. And Podhorzer jumped on Jake Marisnick about a week and a half ago. The Houston Astros’ deadline acquisition figures to play regularly, at least for the next couple of weeks thanks to a George Springer (strained quadriceps) setback.

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If you need middle infield help, you’ve come to the right place. Whether it’s power or speed you need, there’s a name for everybody.

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Episode 153

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

Eno Sarris and Nicholas Minnix discuss, among other players and situations, Josh Willingham; Rymer Liriano; Pedro Alvarez; Rafael Montero, Jacob deGrom, and Noah Syndergaard; Buck Farmer and Justin Verlander; Phil Hughes; Jenrry Mejia; shaky bullpens; and some requests – Stephen Strasburg, Scott Kazmir, Jake Odorizzi, and Jeremy Hellickson.

As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions so that we may answer them on our next episode.

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One thing we know about strikeout and contact rate is that the stats stabilize quickly. In other words, those stats tell us more about future work in those categories quicker than other stats. But players make changes all the time, and it’s not just the first month of the season that we care about.

So who’s changed the most in the last month? Let’s look at the biggest differences in contact rate over the last month, and it what might tell us about these relevant players.

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Chicago White Sox catcher Tyler Flowers hasn’t exactly been a prime target for those in mixed leagues, even of the two-catcher variety (say, with 12 teams), since his 2009 debut. It’s possible, however, that he’s in the midst of a breakthrough, in his age-28 campaign, which would earn him a shot at a membership to that club, at least.

Flowers has batted .351/.407/.635 in 81 plate appearances in the past month. He’s reportedly been working on his approach for some time, doing some things differently, he says. In addition, the backstop has usually worn contact lenses, but just before the All-Star break, he went with a pair of sport goggles. H/T to commenter Jonathan Sher, again, for pointing out the latter fact. It’s what prompted me to become curious about the ChiSox’s backstop in the first place.

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Like a pack of ragged animals picking through the trash bins of a poor neighborhood, us dumpster-divers come to these pages in search of the leftover scraps from the fantasy table. It’s coming to the end of the line in 2014, so let’s not waste any time looking at two deep-leaguers who could offer help in NL-only leagues.
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Yesterday, I discussed some of the starting pitchers who have underperformed their xBABIP marks the most. Today, we’ll check in on the other side of the coin — those starters who are significantly outperforming their xBABIP marks. Whether it’s great defensive support, some mystical ability to consistently induce weak contact or at ’em balls or good old lady luck, xBABIP thinks these levels are unsustainable.

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• Good news on the production front from Gerrit Cole. In his last start he struck out three, walked none and allowed no runs. It seems like there are differing opinions on his velocity tough.  Here is a tweet from his last start.

Gerrit Cole has another 1-2-3 inning in 3rd. His velocity was 91-92 consistently, and reached 93 and 94 on a few pitches.
— Brian Peloza (@BrianPeloza) August 10, 2014

While the team is reporting his velocity to be higher.

As for his velocity? His last pitch of the game was clocked at 95 miles per hour.

“I’m sure there was more in the tank,” Indianapolis manager Dean Treanor said. “That was a good sign.”

Cole’s velocity was consistently in the 95-96 mph range during the first few innings of his rehab start on Tuesday, but dipped to 91-92 mph during the late innings. The dip in velocity was labeled as intentional and ordered by the organization after Cole said he felt “brutal” following his first rehab outing.

“He wasn’t tied down to anything like that (on Sunday),” Treanor said. “What was good when he felt he needed some velocity, he was able to ramp it up a little bit and he had the OK to do that.”

Cole consistently reached 93-94 mph over the final three innings of Sunday’s outing, throwing 73 pitches, 49 for strikes. He was scheduled to throw either 90 pitches or six innings, whichever came first.

At least both were an improvement over his previous start.

Gerrit Cole’s velocity at the end of his rehab outing last night was 91-92 mph. Potential red flag there. #Pirates — Jason Shetler (@Jason_Shetler) August 6, 2014

His 2014 season average before the injury was 95, not a peak of 95 mph. He could be down one to three mph once he returns.
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We call it The Change, but in today’s case, we might have three instances where change looks like it’s happened… but it hasn’t. Is it possible that Carlos Carrasco, Shelby Miller and Trevor May have the same pluses and minuses they’ve always had?

In fact, that’s more likely than change. As much as we look for it.

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Yesterday was the trade deadline in the keeper league I’ve been in for over a dozen years. I’m in the midst of a full rebuild, and was spending the day shopping around my spare parts in exchange for draft picks and prospect upgrades. (Without boring you with too many details, each of the 12 teams keeps eight major-league players per year.)

Daniel Murphy is one guy I was openly shopping. Without even really thinking about it, I envisioned him as one of my more valuable spare parts; someone who wasn’t in my long-term plans, but could bring back a nice haul. It was only when I started getting offers for him that I started to really evaluate the way I view him as a fantasy commodity.

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