Daniel Cabrera And Other Baseball News

Baltimore Orioles' enigma Daniel Cabrera threw a complete game last light.  His season ERA is now 3.54, and his WHIP checks in at 1.20 after 53.1 innings of work.  His strikeouts sit at 34 which seems low relative to his walk totals and the hype of his stuff, but the K-rate isn't far off from what he did last season in 200 or so innings.  With a BABIP of .221, a BB/9 of 4.05 and a K/9 of 5.73, one would expect to see Cabrera worsen to the levels we now expect, but what if he doesn't?

The designating-for-assigment rush continued yesterday with the Rangers DFA-ing 1B Ben Broussard in favor of a Frank Catalonotto/Chris Shelton arrangement.  In AL-Only leagues, both players have short-term value.  In the longer-term, Catalonotto is a safer bet as he is a proven major league hitter.  Chris Shelton has yet to prove he was anything more than a one-month wonder and that one month occurred two years ago.

Sticking with the DFA, the Pittsburgh Pirates paid a PTBNL to acquire the Indians' addition to the DFA Pool, OF Jason Michaels.  Not exactly sure what the Pirates want with Michaels as he hasn't had any productive offensive skills for two years, and the team already has productive veterans blocking opportunites for the next generation of Pirates' outfielders.  

The Florida Marlins continue to roost atop the NL East.  With a pitcher-friendly home ballpark working against them, the Fish still rank 2nd in the Nl in SLG.  They are 6th in AVg and 9th in OBP.  None of those team stat would make me think the Marlins are due for a fall depsite the difficulty of this fantasy mind thinking of top notch fantasy hitter beyond Hanley Ramirez.  However, their team pitching and fielding stats offer hope for thr new York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves.

The Marlins rank 10th in team ERA amongst the 16 NL squads.  More disturbing are the team peripherals of Ks and BB allowed.  In those two stats, the Fish rank 15th and 11th respectively.  This means they are not striking out a lot of batters but are allowing more free passes than any Marlins' fan would like to see.  Eventually, this will come back to haunt them because their Fielding Percentage ranks last in the NL.  FWIW worth the staff's BABIP is a middle-of-the-road .289.