The daily grind: 8-18-13

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 weather watch

It doesn’t look good for baseball in Atlanta today. Games in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh have a lesser risk of seeing rain.

Today’s grind

There are a handful of pitchers to use today. I just selected Todd Redmond for my own use in a H2H league upon learning that my Julio Teheran start is in doubt.

Garrett Richards’ start was pushed back to today while Jason Vargas now starts on Monday. Ignore Vargas and use Richards if the opportunity is still available.

Tomorrow’s grind

Pitcher (to start): Dillon Gee is opposed by the light-batted Twins. After a rough start to the season, Gee has settled in to provide average fantasy numbers. Based on his peripherals, he’s closer to fantasy replacement level, which makes him a pure streaming candidate.

Danny Salazar takes the reins against the Angels. He’s coming off his worst outing to date, but he still features elite peripherals aside from a “bad luck” 26.7 percent HR/FB ratio.

Pitcher (bum): Jeff Manship versus Ethan Martin could be a high scoring affair. Manship is a finesse righty who seemingly isn’t up to par while Martin has substantial control issues.

Jordan Lyles is coming off a strong start, but he remains a mediocre starter with a bad match-up. This time he faces Texas.

Aaron Harang has the tough job of shutting down the platoon-happy A’s.

Hitter (power): Ryan Raburn will get the start against Vargas.

Try Seth Smith and Brandon Moss against Harang.

Andrew Lambo will face hard thrower Andrew Cashner.

Try Phillies minor prospect Cody Asche against Manship.

Hitter (speed): Try Leonys Martin against Lyles.

Drew Stubbs will also face Vargas.

Chris Denorfia is paired against Francisco Liriano.

Guess who rounds out the speed options for tomorrow? It’s our old friend Eric Young Jr.

Pitchers to come

Tuesday: I’m sticking with Dan Haren, but you’re going to have some choices.

Wednesday: Brandon Beachy has a good match-up with the Mets, but he is up to 47 percent owned, so you may need to move in advance.

Thursday: I guess I have to recommend Jose Quintana against the Royals until a better option reveals himself.

Noteworthy news

Alex Rodriguez is making some hullabaloo about the Yankees being out to get him, but this doesn’t really interest me. What does interest me is that Stephen Strasburg was ejected yesterday after throwing two pitches behind Andrelton Simmons. He had hit Justin Upton earlier in the game.