The daily grind 4-17

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!

Today’s grind

As I mentioned yesterday, the pool isn’t great for starters today. While Justin Masterson remains an automatic start against the Mariners, his ownership rate is at 78 percent.

Joe Blanton is facing the Giants and is available in all but four percent of leagues. The downside to Blanton is that his skill set isn’t such that he will reliably dominate bad offenses. Further, the Giants aren’t nearly as bad offensively as they’ve been the past few seasons, although they aren’t exactly good either. It’s worth mentioning that I took a long look at Blanton for my own roster and decided against it.

Several bad starters are pitching today, including Kevin Millwood, Tyson Ross, Jeff Karstens, Anthony Bass, Jamie Moyer, and Bruce Chen. The Indians have several position players, including Casey Kotchman and Shelley Duncan, who should benefit. Jason Kubel (facing Karstens) and Jesus Guzman (facing Moyer) also look like good match-ups that are generally available.

Tomorrow’s grind

Three starters stand out as solid plays tomorrow. R.A. Dickey against the Braves is a fair bet to have a solid outing. He’s only 28 percent owned at the moment. Juan Nicasio has the Padres for his third outing of the year and is only eight percent owned. The other pitcher of note is Mark Buehrle who is surprisingly owned in 47 percent of leagues. He has an easy match-up against the Cubs.

There is a lack of hitters with obviously exploitable pitching match-ups tomorrow. It might be a day for any boring vet you can find lying around like David DeJesus (faces Buehrle). You could also try Darnell McDonald against Derek Holland.

Reliever watch

Hector Santiago blew his first save yesterday. Addison Reed owners rejoice. Santiago actually looks like a fairly good reliever, so those telling you that Reed absolutely will have the closing job by midseason are lying to you. It might happen, it might not.

Yesterday’s news

If you took my (very) lukewarm advice and picked up Philip Humber yesterday, you were rewarded with a solid outing, though he had a no-decision: 5.1 IP, 7 K, 1.68 ERA, 1.68 WHIP.

Dillon Gee did even better: a win with 7 IP, 5 K, 1.28 ERA, .71 WHIP

I can’t really claim any credit for those lines since I ultimately suggested that you pass on the match-ups.

Nolan Reimold had a big day: 2/3, 2 R, HR, 2 RBI, 0 SB, .667 AVG

Casey McGehee did not: an empty 1/4

Wilson Betemit did not play. I warned you that could happen.