The daily grind: 10-1

The Daily Grind provides daily match-up advice based on my every-morning waiver wire search. I welcome advice to help make this column more effective. Ownership rates are from Yahoo!

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

Today’s grind

The Fanduel Daily League Players of the Day are:

Pitcher (to start): It’s thin today. Too thin.

Alex Cobb and Wei-Yin Chin face off today in a heated battle of tolerable waiver starter.

Jarrod Parker would be a better option if he weren’t burdened with defeating the Rangers.

Pitcher (bum): The Tigers will deliver the coup de grace to the White Sox if they can defeat Bruce Chen and the Royals tonight.

The Nationals are in a similar position, although their victory will merely ensure that the Braves host the Wild Card game. The Nationals and Reds are currently tied for the best record in the National League, so the Nats have plenty of incentive to finish hot. They’ll try their hands against Kyle Kendrick tonight.

The White Sox are praying to stay alive and correct their season-killing slump. Corey Kluber and the Indians are likely to cooperate, but they need to sweep and see the Tigers swept in turn.

Hitter (power): Darin Ruf, the minor league home run king, has an everyday job for the remainder of the season. I don’t think a right-handed power hitter could ask for a better match-up than John Lannan.

Delmon Young’s become popular around these parts. I recently recommended him in a start against Chen and I see no reason not to repeat it.

Jonny Gomes and Martin Perez will meet to discuss philosophy and whether Perez will allow Gomes to hit a ball 400 feet.

Hitter (speed): Will Venable wants to finish the season on a high note. I know his motivations.

Carlos Gomez has the platoon advantage against Clayton Richard, and good things happen when Gomez has the upper hand.

Tomorrow’s grind

Pitcher (to start): Carlos Villanueva has had a solid season, despite that I’ve rarely if ever recommended in his favor. If you need the innings, his match-up against the Twins is tolerable.

Jacob Turner has pitched well of late. I’m extremely skeptical, but I also haven’t seen these outings, so maybe he has turned a corner. In any case, good recent performance plus a Mets match-up plus the end of the season equals a playable pickup.

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

There are others I want to recommend, but they’re just not good picks for tomorrow.

Pitcher (bum): Chris Volstad keeps facing crappy teams, which might be the difference between his current high sixes ERA and an ERA over eight. He’s having some kind of horrible season, but the Cubs have stuck with him.

I wanted to recommend in favor of Patrick Corbin, but young pitchers sometimes crumble at the end of the season. He’s looked quite bad in his last few outings.

Hitter (power): Tomorrow will quite possibly be a tune-up outing for Gio Gonzalez, which makes me more comfortable recommending Ruf again.

Andruw Jones gets one last crack at Jon Lester this year.

Hitter (speed): Adam Eaton can do a little bit of everything. Jhoulys Chacin on a low pitch count is a fine match-up to do that.

Norichika Aoki is fighting for a starting role next year. The battle is likely out of his hands, but that shouldn’t stop him from trying.

Reliever watch

What, you think relievers can save you now?


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Michael
11 years ago

Brad-

Didn’t Adam Eaton break his hand over the weekend? Don’t think he’s an option this week.

Brad Johnson
11 years ago

And this is the problem with the DL going away. I don’t have a filter that pushes this information to me and it wasn’t mentioned around my usual haunts.

Bob
11 years ago

Tied 10-10 in a league that counts holds and saves? I not only believe relievers can save me,I think they’ll be the deciding factor.

Brad Johnson
11 years ago

Let’s put it this way, reliever usage patterns are going to be almost unpredictable for 2/3 of the teams over the next 3 days. So pick a good arm on a team that’s playing for something.