Time for another installment of recent hot streaks—which I’m thinking of making a regular feature by the way. Hot streaks one week, cold streaks another. Seems like a decent plan.
Besides, with ESPN right now (literally the entire site is down as I write this) what better time to write a story.
Jake Peavy, SP
Peavy’s last start was only okay, but the four before that were very good. But hang on a second—those four starts came against the Indians, the Cubs (twice) and the Nats. Not exactly the 1929 Yankees. His K/9 is down and more importantly his swinging strike percentage is way down. I’m not a fan.
Chone Figgins, 2B, 3B
Figgins is stealing like a kleptomaniac. He’s a career .287 hitter, so he’ll pick it up. Safeco doesn’t help, but it’s not like he was going to hit it out of the park anyway. As I mentioned yesterday, in my second consideration of Figgins I bumped him up my rankings a good bit.
Adam Jones, OF
Cautiously optimistic here. Jones has been on fire lately (especially in the HR department), but I’m a little concerned that he isn’t walking at all. Still, I’m buying.
Yovani Gallardo, SP
Very high strand rate and a bit of a disproportionate K rate considering his swinging strikes (see K-Efficiency article). I think Gallardo is going to come down a little bit to the area he was drafted this year.
Carlos Quentin, OF
Don’t count on Quentin to have solid production for all of the second half. Heck, don’t count on him being healthy. But right now, grab him if you can, we know what he can do.
Gavin Floyd, SP
A little bit lower down the "hot" list, but: yes, yes, yes. Go get him.
Will Venable, OF
With batting average so scarce, I hate picking up guys that are really going to kill you in that category. Venable will hit for power and has some speed, so if you can afford to lose batting average (or are punting it) then by all means. Otherwise—not worth it.