Daily TIPS: Tuesday's Recap

Nick Markakis has had quite a curious season to date. He has a disappointing .258 average, but a solid .374 OBP. He has nine homers — good for sixth in the league — but only six other extra base hits, thus resulting in a disappointing .444 SLG. He also has 32 walks and 48 strikeouts, both of which are well off of his career numbers. 

What’s causing all of these skewed numbers? Let’s take a look at his new plate-discipline and how that’s affecting his other numbers:

With the exception of batting average, each of these categories has seen an increase over the three-year time frame. Markakis is seeing more pitches per plate appearance this season (#P/PA), causing a significant increase in his number of walks, which leads to a higher OBP. However, it also has increased his strikeout total, which is bringing down his batting average. 

What’s going to happen the rest of the way? It seems that Markakis will do one of two things: Hone his eye a little more to cut down on the number of strikeouts, and experience a boost in both his batting average and slugging percentage; or keep doing what he’s doing and continue to strike out quite a bit while achieving a career high in home runs. It’s hard to bet on Markakis to dramatically cut back on his strikeouts for the rest of the season, but look for a slight improvement. My final numbers for Markakis: .280 AVG, 30 HR, .370 OBP, .460 SLG

 

Elsewhere...

* Jay Bruce had his big coming out party last night and didn’t disappoint. He showed a little bit of everything — 3-for-3 with two runs, two RBI, two walks, and steal. Could we be seeing the beginning of a Ryan Braun-type of rookie breakout season?

* After a couple of promising starts, Ian Snell was back to his pathetic 2008 ways last night — 5 IP, 4 ER, 6 H, 7 BB, 6 K. Many thought Snell would build on a decent 2006 and an even better 2007 — K/9 rate over 7.6; better than 2:1 K/BB rate both seasons. However, his K/9 is down to 6.08 and he’s walking way too many, as evidenced by his 1.70 WHIP. At this point you have to consider him expendable.

* Johnny Damon went 4-for-5 with a home run and is quietly putting together a fine season. He struggled out of the gate but is now hitting .280/.354/.473 with seven steals.

* Another player who struggled early was Hunter Pence, leaving some to wonder if he was going to fall victim to a sophomore slump. However, after last night’s 5-for-5 performance, he’s now hitting .311 with a .852 OPS.

* Aaron Laffey has now gone at least six innings in each of his last five starts, and after last night’s one earned run performance, he’s allowed a total of three earned runs in those starts. He now has a 1.59 ERA and a 0.98 WHIP. He’s not striking many out, but he’s making up for that by not allowing many walks — just eight so far. He’s definitely a spot-start candidate.

* After tantalizing owners with three quality starts in a row — one with 11 K’s — Ubaldo Jimenez was awful once again. He lasted only four innings and gave up seven runs last night, pushing his ERA to 5.37 and his WHIP to 1.70. He simply can’t be trusted on a consistent basis.

* Edwin Encarnacion had an excellent April — .293/.369/.576, 7 HR — but now has just four hits in his last 33 at-bats and has hit only one homer this month. His young career has been plagued by inconsistency and this year appears no different. Keep an eye on him to see if he rebounds because he’s shown some good skills in the past.

* Jason Giambi appears to be heating up. He went 2-for-6 and hit his fifth home run of the month last night. Over the last three weeks, he’s hitting .370/.509/.739 and has brought his OBP up to .385 and SLG up to .530 for the year. This comes on the heels of an abysmal April showing — .164/.315/.411. He’s available in many shallow leagues and while he’ll possibly hurt your average, he’ll offer decent power numbers the rest of the way.

* Ryan Spilborghs hit his second home run in as many games and is hitting quite well this season — .298/.393/.489 in 94 AB. He’ll continue to see time with Matt Holliday and Brad Hawpe on the DL. He makes a nice stop-gap OF if you’re in need of a pickup, but he won’t get consistent playing time once those two are back.

* After struggling for much of the early season Kevin Kouzmanoff is 11-for-29 with 5 HR and 8 RBI in his last seven games. This is around the same time he started hitting last year as well — last May 13 he was hitting .178/.209/.387. If he’s on your bench get him back in your lineup.

* After allowing four or five runs in each of his last three starts, Ervin Santana got things back on track last night — W, 9 IP, 2 ER, 3 H, 0 BB, 7 K. He’s now 7-2 with a 3.09 ERA and a 0.99 WHIP.

* It’s now being reported by NY Newsday that Joba Chamberlain could make his first start next week. He’s scheduled to throw 50-55 pitches on Wednesday and then 65-70 pitches in his next appearance. The Yankees are apparently thinking they’d be better off having him start to get to that number of pitches… and have a different guy come in as a reliever. Again, keep an eye on the situation when planning your lineup.

* Daisuke Matsuzaka left his start after four innings last night. According to the Red Sox, it was due to “shoulder fatigue” even though he was seen grabbing his lower back. Right now it’s not certain how much time he’ll miss or if he’ll even miss a start.

* Chone Figgins continues to have trouble with is hamstring. Figgins came off the DL and started last Wednesday but he hasn’t played since. If he doesn’t improve he will end up back on the DL.

* In other injury news, Gary Sheffield and Eric Byrnes have landed on the DL and Travis Hafner could be heading there with a sore shoulder. All three have struggled this year — each is hitting under .220 and have been big disappointments to fantasy owners.

 

* Pedro Martinez is expected to return on June 3 after one rehab start. Obviously the Mets don’t want to push their injury luck too much with Pedro, hence the one rehab start.

 

QuickTIPS

Spot-start candidate:
Livan Hernandez at Kansas City. Hernandez has a 2.57 ERA in 14 IP against the Royals. KC also has an anemic .657 OPS versus righties, 50 points lower than their OPS against lefties. 

Avoid:
Jonathon Sanchez at Arizona. Sanchez has been decent his last couple of starts but has a 6.35 ERA against the D’backs. Combine that with the fact that Arizona crushes lefties — .288/.366/.481 — and you have a recipe for disaster. 

QuickTIP Results 

I said start:
Joel Pineiro - Skipped start 

I said avoid:
Jeremy Bonderman - ND, 7.1 IP, 2 ER, 6 H, 1 BB, 7 K