The daily grind: 4-12-13

The Daily Grind provides daily match-up advice for tinkers 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 Fanduel picks are a mixture of Daily League specific advice and information for the more typical fantasy owner. Use the team-by-team TDG eligible players spreadsheet for more detailed information.

Today’s grind

The Fanduel Daily League Players of the Day are:

Pitcher (to start): It’s hard to trust a pitcher in a cold weather, wet, and windy game. It could strongly favor him or really hurt his odds. Carlos Villanueva will get those conditions today.

John Lannan is hardly impressive, but even he can handle a futile Marlins lineup.

Patrick Corbin is a fairly reliable option for waiver wire fodder. He’ll struggle to win tonight against Clayton Kershaw, but his overall numbers should be acceptable. However, when you stream starters, you should usually be aiming at the win above all other things.

Pitcher (bum): I’m mistrustful of Jose Quintana and don’t really expect much out of him this year.

Tommy Hanson is just the latest veteran on my list of guys who used to be really good.

Jon Garland isn’t on that list, and facing the Padres in Petco park might even make this a favorable match-up.

Hitter (power): Jedd Gyorko against Garland seems the like kind of contact hitter versus contact pitcher match-up that could generate a couple line drives.

Chris Carter should bring the power stick against Hanson.

I recommended Lucas Duda yesterday, but let’s pass based on the crazy weather. To clarify, the weather is crazy for baseball, not Minnesota. That’s why nobody understands the decision to forgo a retractable roof on Target Field.

I don’t know if the inner Phillies fan is capturing my objectivity on this one, but I really love Domonic Brown this year.

Hitter (speed): Will Venable has a solid match-up against Garland and a decent base running match-up against Wilin Rosario

Tomorrow’s grind

Pitcher (to start): I found out that Jason Hammel is lightly owned at 49 percent. After his breakout last season, somebody should be rolling the dice on him in most leagues as a regular rosteree.

The Phillies have this thing where they don’t hit ANYBODY that they haven’t faced before, giving Jose Fernandez a solid second match-up. He’s only 56 percent owned, so pick him up, reap the rewards, and then trade him for a boat before the league figures him out.

The same goes for Hyun-Jin Ryu (59 percent owned), except his match-up against the Diamondbacks is less exploitable.

Jhoulys Chacin has maybe my second favorite name in baseball and it feels good to be recommending him again. He’s only 21 percent owned but does come with a couple warts. He’s scrapped his strikeout pitch in favor of inducing more ground balls in any count, which might be prudent in real life, but hurts the fantasy bottom line.

Pitcher (bum): Joe Saunders start. Rangers go boom… Is what any three year old would say about this match-up.

The Angels should do similarly well against Lucas Harrell. You might even want to try Garrett Richards since he should be able to pick up an easy win.

Edinson Volquez has looked fugly this year. The Rockies prefer to hit at Coors Field, but they aren’t entirely inept away.

I’m going to guess that Yovani Gallardo is still a couple starts from settling down.

Hitter (power): Madison Bumgarner is a tough assignment, but Scott Hairston likes to mash lefties. Similarly, Jonny Gomes will look to square up a David Price pitch.

I’m just going to keep name dropping Dom Brown until I can’t any longer.

Hitter (speed): Craig Gentry has looked sharp in the early going and has glowing reports from Ron Washington.

Chacin’s contact-oriented approach benefits Venable since it will give him more opportunity to use his speed.

Weather watch

The Mets and Twins will see temperatures in the 20s, wind, and some flurries. The Giants and Cubs might have it worse with temperatures in the 30s, wind, and some passing showers. The Rays and Red Sox will see similar weather to the Cubs, but rain is more likely to intervene with that game. They might be able to avoid playing altogether.