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Posted at 11:45 AM EST

8:10 PM EST. Boston signed Hector Velazquez in February 2017 after he pitched seven seasons in Mexico. A consistent strike-thrower, he has been mostly a starter in his pro career. The athletic right-hander owns a deceptive delivery that messes with hitters’ timing. His fastball only touches 92-93 at maximum, but he commands it well to both sides of the plate. He also has the ability to cut and sink it, thus giving him a groundball option. Velazquez uses both a slider and curveball, though neither generates many swings and misses. His change-up exhibits splitter action and is tough to make hard contact against. He throws any pitch in any count and his feel for pitching gives him value at this level. Velazquez takes Brian Johnson’s spot in the rotation for now. He has done a good job in his 49 innings at AAA-Pawtucket controlling walks and home runs (0.2 hr/9), but has not yet shown those skills in his limited 2017 time in the majors (three BB, three HR in 8.1 IP). Still, his .189 oppBA in the minors stick out and this will be his second time being called up. Often, the second call-up is much better than the first. Aside from that, when we can fade Jason Hammel in an evenly priced game, pencil us in.

In 13 starts covering 71 innings, Hammel has a weak BB/K split of 24/55. He also has a weak batted ball profile of 34% grounders, 22% line-drives and 43% fly-balls. Throw in an appalling 1.47 WHIP and a 5.09 xERA and you start to get a true picture of just how ineffective Jason Hammel truly is. His 5.05 ERA is right on the money. Hammel’s ERA/xERA combo along with pretty much everything else says nothing has changed in his weak profile and there is no reason for optimism either. Below average skills across the board dominates this profile so we’ll attack it at this bargain price.

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