NEW YORK YANKEES

Three of the older Yankee hitters, Jorge Posada, Jason Giambi and Bernie Williams are having productive seasons.

Posada turns 35 in August and is in his tenth season as a major league catcher.  One would expect the wear and tear of playing such a demanding position to catch up with him, but he is hitting .294 with 10 home runs and 42 RBIs.  His power has declined since his prime days, but he is making up for it with an improved batting eye and a higher contact rate.  Another reason that he is a good bet to keep it up is that his first and second half season splits in 2004 and 2005 did show any major differences.

Giambi is now 35 year old and has recovered nicely from the controversy of early last year to hit 20 home runs, with 56 RBIs so far this season.  These numbers are not so far off from his big years from 1999 to 2003.  The only real difference is that a lower contact rate has lowered his batting average from the .300’s to a still very acceptable .268.  With all his other underlying skills still intact, look for his big year to continue.

Williams’, who turns 38 years old in September, mini-resurgence to a .290 batting average has been the product of an increased contact rate.  The problem is that the combination of a decrease in power skills and batting eye means he is not hitting the ball that hard.  Once some of those balls stop finding holes, his batting average should decline.

BALTIMORE ORIOLES

The Orioles sent Adam Loewen to the minors and are replacing him in the rotation with Diamondback castoff Russ Ortiz.  In 6 starts with Arizona, Ortiz averaged almost a strikeout per inning, which is way above his career norms.  Unfortunately, he also averaged a walk per inning.  The amounts of walks he issues are now in six year downtrend.  Pitchers with that kind of control problems are never recommended.

Only on a team with this many injury problems could Jeff Conine see this many AB.  His power has declined to below league average and at age 40 don’t expect a rebound.

Erik Bedard turned in three quality starts before pitching an exceptional 8 inning, 2 hit, 12 K and 0 BB game against the Marlins.  What is also encouraging is the improvement in his G/F ratio to 1.66 from last year’s 1.15.  Pitching in Camden Yards seems to agree with him more than road starts as his home/road ERA split is 3.50/7.60.  That makes him a good play at home against the struggling Phillies this week.

After swatting 18 home runs last year, Brian Roberts has yet to go deep this year.  The power outage can be traced to the second half of last year.  In the first half of 2005 he had 15 home runs (8 in April), 22 doubles and 5 triples.  The second half saw those numbers decline to 3 home runs, 23 doubles and 2 triples.  His 2006 numbers of 0 home runs, 15 doubles and 2 triples look more in line with his pre-2005 and 2005 second half numbers.  It looks like the power display he put on in early 2005 was a fluke.

BOSTON RED SOX

The talk around baseball is that Jason Johnson’s extreme groundball pitching approach will be a good fit with the good defense of the Red Sox infield.  However, his G/F ratio of 2.85 is so high above his previous career best of 1.74 that there should be some regression to the mean.  It is also worth noting that with this high of a G/F ratio, he was only able to put up a 5.96 ERA with Cleveland.  Another reason to avoid him is his history of fading in the second half of the season.  In 2004 his second half ERA was 6.41 and last year it was 5.34.

Josh Beckett has recovered nicely since his 1.1 inning, 7 ER pounding against the Yankees.  In his last three starts he is 2-0, with 20 K’s and a 3.26 ERA.  His K/9 had been in a steady decline from a high of 9.6 in 2003 to last year’s mark of 8.4.  He was able to offset that decline by lowering his BB/9 from 3.7 in 2003 to 2.9 last year and keeping his G/F ratio in the 1.25 to 1.33 area.  His problem this year is that his K/9 ratio has further eroded to a career low of 7.56, while his G/F ratio has gone down to 1.09.  While he can still be a good pitcher, until he improves in those areas, he will not be a dominant one.

Wily Mo Pena is about a week away from returning from a hand injury.  When he comes back he will share time with Gabe Kapler on the wrong end of a platoon with Trot Nixon, making both of them worthless in fantasy leagues.

TAMPA BAY DEVIL RAYS

Tim Corcoran becomes the latest pitcher given a shot at the starting rotation.  At 28 years old and in his third organization, he is past the prospect stage.  For his major league career, he has pitched in 31 innings with a K/9 of 4.94, a BB/9 4.35 and a G/F ratio of 1.03.  With those kind of numbers, look for his stay in the rotation to be short.

In the ever revolving Devil Ray bullpen, Brian Meadows received and converted two consecutive save opportunities.  Meadows’ K/9 of 4.6 is right in-line with his career and is not enough to be an effective closer.

Toby Hall is having a horrible month of June, hitting just .145, lowering his average for the year to .231.  With a very high contact rate of 92%, enough of those batted balls should fall in for hits to raise his average to the .260 area.

TORONTO BLUE JAYS

Troy Glaus has now appeared in six games at shortstop, allowing him to qualify as a middle infielder in some fantasy leagues.  All of those appearances were during interleague games in NL stadiums.  Manager John Gibbons said that he was open to the idea of Glaus playing shortstop in AL parks, which would allow Glaus to qualify as a middle infielder in leagues that require more appearances.

Since his return to the major leagues Josh Towers has allowed 10 ER in 9.1 innings, which is not any better than his performance before being sent to the minors.  Stay away from him.