The daily grind: 5-13-13

The Daily Grind provides daily match-up advice for tinkerers and daily fantasy players. I welcome advice to help make this column more effective, including notice of impending weather events, new injuries, and changes to platoon situations. Ownership rates are from Yahoo!

The daily picks are a mixture of Daily League specific advice and information for the more typical fantasy owner.

Today’s grind

Pitcher (to start): Hector Santiago will face the Twins today. He sports a 23 percent ownership rate and has posted strong peripherals including an increased whiff rate that has led to a strikeout per inning and low walk rate.

Justin Grimm has a solid match-up away in Oakland. The Athletics can be a challenge for stream-quality pitchers, especially if they don’t have their best command and control that day.

Juan Nicasio might be a bit of a stretch, but a game against the Cubs’ mediocre offense should help him.

Pitcher (bum): Luis Mendoza will face Joe Blanton—a game that promises to be high scoring.

Jeremy Hefner may have a hard time against the Cardinals.

This could be a big day for the Indians offense. Both David Phelps and Vidal Nuno are exploitable.

Hitter (power): It’s a good day for a double play from Travis Hafner.

Travis Snider is off everybody’s radar, but Marco Estrada is a good place to target his first long ball of the season.

Hitter (speed): Michael Brantley might get into two games, but I’m guessing he’ll actually platoon with Drew Stubbs today.

Eric Young Jr. should be starting quite regularly with Michael Cuddyer on the disabled list.

Lorenzo Cain should like facing Blanton.

Tomorrow’s grind

Pitcher (to start): Scott Kazmir is coming off two strong outings. In a very small sample, he’s pitching like it’s 2008 again. The Phillies are exploitable by lefties, which makes it easier to overcome my general distrust of Kazmir.

I never thought I’d still be able to recommend Andrew Cashner. He should be owned in most keeper formats, although his redraft value is probably in line with his ownership rate of 27 percent.

John Lackey will struggle to win the game since he’s opposed by Matt Moore, but a match-up against the Rays is fairly friendly.

You may not want to start him, but keep an eye on John Gast. He’s filling in for Jake Westbrook and his minor league numbers suggest the potential for solid results.

Pitcher (bum): I don’t play feelings very often, but I have a feeling the Blue Jays are going to tee off on Barry Zito. R.A. Dickey’s turned into a bit of a punching bag too; he really needs to go to the disabled list and recover.

Jeff Francis starting means Cubs hitters should go wild.

Dillon Gee seems like he needs to reboot. St. Louis is not the place to do it.

Hitter (power): Scott Hairston should see action against Francis.

Patrick Corbin is going to turn pumpkin eventually. So is Chris Johnson, which makes this an interesting platoon option. My money is on Corbin winning.

Jonny Gomes has that tough assignment against Moore.

Hitter (speed): Gerardo Parra is worth streaming tomorrow.

Hang onto Young Jr.

Noteworthy news

I have a graduation to attend today, so don’t expect any responses. Oh, you expected real major league baseball news…

Apparently there was a kerfuffle over the use of some pink-labeled bats yesterday. Louisville Slugger owns exclusive rights to brand pink bats used by MLB players. Other manufacturers can make pink bats, but they cannot be labeled. I’m not sure why that qualifies as noteworthy, but I’ve noted it.

Anthony Rizzo was the latest beneficiary of the now common, pre-arbitration contract extension. He’s inked for another seven seasons.

Weather watch

No weather to speak of although the Yankees and Indians doubleheader will be chilly and windy.