The daily grind: 4-15-13

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 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): Dillon Gee might not like the cold, but if he can stay warm and if the two teams play, he should do well.

Erik Bedard and Tommy Milone face each other today. Bedard is eight percent owned while 51 percent of leagues have a Milone owner. The A’s have raked in the early going so be aware.

Pitcher (bum): None of the pitchers going today are particularly bad. My gut says Joe Blanton against the Twins will do slightly worse than Gavin Floyd versus the Blue Jays or Bronson Arroyo against the Phillies.

Hitter (power): Dayan Viciedo has the platoon advantage today.

Domonic Brown is holding his head above water thus far, but I expect more before long.

Josh Donaldson could give you some production from a thinner position (third base). Teammate Nate Freiman should get to take some swings out of the designated hitter slot today, but I’m not rushing to own that match-up.

Hitter (speed): Jackie Bradley Jr. is working toward a demotion, but he’s still a solid speed play.

Aaron Hicks has been struggling even more than Bradley, but he has a match-up that should help produce balls in play.

Tomorrow’s grind

Pitcher (to start): There are lots of ugly ducklings tomorrow. A.J. Griffin has a great match-up against the Astros. That’s the best of any tomorrow, but he’s less available than you might think at 48 percent owned.

Chris Capuano is getting his first start against the Padres. I like to avoid starts in which a bullpen guy is getting stretched out. There is increased risk that he will not go five innings. Unfortunately, the list of tolerable choices is thin tomorrow.

From a pure stuff perspective, Wily Peralta against the Giants is a no-brainer. He has trouble converting that stuff into success and every start has the risk of being a bumpy ride.

Pitcher (bum): Break out the dart board again. Here are a few of the most flammable names going tomorrow:

{exp:list_maker}Mike Pelfrey against the Angels
Jonathan Sanchez against the Orioles
Kyle Kendrick against the Reds
Ubaldo Jimenez against the Red Sox
Jeremy Guthrie against the Braves
Aaron Laffey against the Rockies (likely to be postponed or changed) {/exp:list_maker}

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

Hitter (power): Daniel Nava seems to be getting plenty of work against right-handers and that should continue.

Hop on the Evan Gattis bandwagon for a day. He’ll likely find himself over-exposed soon due to his aggressive approach, but soon is not yet.

Hitter (speed): I’ve always been over-fond of Xavier Paul. He will face Kendrick if the Reds opt to play him tomorrow, which is a fine match-up for any lefty.

Dan Haren is quite hittable so far, which means that Juan Pierre should be able to put every ball in play, potentially reach base multiple times, and maybe attempt multiple steals.

Noteworthy news

Johnny Cueto has a strained lat, which means the story of the minors, Tony Cingrani, should be called up soon.

Weather watch

Rain, snow, and sub-freezing temperatures are going to make the entire four-game series in Denver quite difficult for the Rockies and Mets.


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Will H.
10 years ago

I looked to confirm that Brown’s power hasn’t translated to the higher levels, and while true (and his speed seems to have cooled a bit) I also didn’t realize how young he still is… seems like he’s been around forever.

Brad Johnson
10 years ago

Prior to this season, Brown battled various leg injuries and a broken hamate bone, which throws a lot of noise into the signal. I’m expecting about 20 HR and 15 SB with health. He might have the second best plate approach on the Phillies outside of Utley (at least until Ruiz returns).

I think he might be my new Dexter Fowler.

Flag
10 years ago

Rain/snow/cold/sunshine/hot/humid/not-humid, I can’t think of any reason Dillon Gee should do well.

Brad Johnson
10 years ago

Well the main issues this year are that he’s showing a loss of 2 MPH on the fastball and 2% on his swinging strike rate. If that holds up, an ERA slightly north of 4.00 is expected. If he reverts to his peripherals from last year, a 3.50-3.75 ERA is expected.

Many pitchers with expected 3.50-3.75 ERA’s are widely owned and highly regarded. Zimmermann, Burnett, Sanchez, Kennedy, Wilson, Gallardo, Moore, Hudson, Weaver, Peavy all come to mind as guys who most people will fight to own yet don’t project to be much better than Gee’s 2012 production.

If you want to say you’re convinced he lost something from his injury, I would be open to that argument pending further evidence. But the short answer to your question is that most pitchers who can strike out about 7 K/9 while walking about 2.5 BB/9 tend to do well more often than not.

John S.
10 years ago

Pre-draft, I had targeted Haren as a good bounceback candidate.  Fortunately, others pulled the trigger before I did!

But
10 years ago

Free Brown, Domonic.

Fowler worked the ‘Coors’ effect well.  I know Philly is a bandbox too, but hoping he is better than the aforementioned.  Against lefties, not so much.

“,not humid” would have been a wee bit snarkier with dry; yep, that’s the word.

To be fair though, I’d take the under on “most pitchers who can strike out about 7 K/9 while walking about 2.5 BB/9”, on Gee.