Week 4 Preview: Two-start pitcher rankings for Week 4 | Top-10 sleeper hitters for Week 4
Bartolo Colon was special on Sunday night. He was absolutely perfect for seven innings, and in the end held arguably the best offense in baseball to one run over 7.2 innings. If this was a one off performance it would be easier to overlook. But Colon has now thrown 18.2 innings this year and he's allowed just three runs. He's struck out almost a batter per inning and he's walked just two all season.
Now Colon is an extremely popular figure, so when I looked at his ownership on Monday morning I was shocked to see that he's owned in just four percent of leagues on CBS Sports. Sure, his swinging strike percentage (9 percent) is pretty terrible. And I know that .217 BABIP against won't last. But four percent?
The elite control is back for now. He's getting more swinging strikes than he has at any point his career. I added Colon in my 12-team AL-Only league, and I'm going to try in my 16-team mixed categories league. I'm not saying he should be universally owned, but you guys need to get a little more excited about Bartolo Colon.
We've spent a lot of time taking about whether Keynan Middleton or Blake Parker is the Angels closer. After the weekend we shouldn't need to talk about it again for a while. Middleton recorded a pair of saves against the Royals, giving him four on the season. Parker has one save for the entire year, and gave up another run on Saturday.
The funny thing is Middleton's peripherals don't look near as impressive as they did last year. Which means there's still some volatility in his value, but let's talk about the upside. In 68 career innings he has a K/9 of 9.3 and an ERA of 3.44. If he keeps the Angels job and posts similar numbers to those he's easily a top-20 closer.
Ian Happ has been a disaster. Jason Heyward has an OPS below .600. Anthony Rizzo is hurt. And Ben Zobrist is taking advantage.
We'd largely written the 36 year-old off this spring, but Zobrist is swinging a hot stick right now and the Cubs are finding places for him to play. He's walked more than he's struck out and his ground ball rate is at a career-low. I'm not sure how long this can last, but I'd rather start him than Happ this week. I'm adding Zobrist in any league where I need a middle infielder or help with average.
I'll make this brief, because we've talked plenty about Lucchesi, right? Apparently not. Lucchesi spun another gem on Sunday, striking out nine Giants over six innings and walking none. Yet he's still not universally owned. I'll try one more time to convince you this is real.
Amongst qualifies starters Lucchesi ranks seventh in FIP (1.90) and 15th in SIERA (2.67). HIs K-BB% is the 14th best and his swinging strike rate is 13th. Two weeks ago I added Lucchesi in my deeper leagues. Last week I added him in anything 12 teams or deeper. Today, I'm adding him anywhere he's available.
Lucchesi shouldn't feel too bad about people not believing his numbers. We've been doing it to Jed Lowrie since last year. In 2017 Lowrie was a very serviceable middle infield option, providing good batting average and even better plate discipline. At the start of 2018 we've seen his hard contact rate go up (40.4 percent) and with it, his performance.
Lowrie is hitting .348 with a .227 ISO as part of a suprisingly good Athletics offense. With his good plate discipline it's just really hard to imagine there isn't a roster spot for him in all 12-team points leagues, which means his ownership should be closer to 90 percent.
