The daily grind: 6-11-13

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 grind

Pitcher (to start): Today features several intriguing prospects including Gerrit Cole, Michael Wacha and Tony Cingrani. All three face middling offenses.

Corey Kluber has posted excellent peripherals including a 6.0 K/BB ratio, but his ERA and WHIP have suffered from an elevated BABIP against and HR/FB rate. I have him in two leagues and I’m advising others to buy.

Pitcher (bum): Wade Davis’s conversion back to starting pitcher is not going well. He will look good for short stints and then blow up unexpectedly. The Tigers have a brutally effective offense and should pounce.

The Astros have a good shot to win today with their ace Bud Norris facing the inflammable Aaron Harang.

Dan Haren has a very similar story to Corey Kluber, but his start is at Coors Field.

Hitter (power): Jason Castro and Carlos Pena face Harang.

David Murphy has a decent match-up against Kluber, but I prefer Drew Stubbs against Derek Holland.

Hitter (speed): Will Venable draws another contact-oriented starter—Tim Hudson.

Rajai Davis might get the start against Jose Quintana.

Tomorrow’s grind

Pitcher (to start): Jerome Williams has seen surprisingly good results this season. His peripherals indicate that a 4.00 ERA is to be expected, but that kind of performance might be good enough for the win against Jason Hammel.

Mike Leake is a more solid version of Williams, but he’s also 43 percent owned.

Pitcher (bum): Too many exploits tomorrow…

The aforementioned Hammel is not who he was last season.

Edinson Volquez will struggle to shut down the Braves.

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

I still like Dillon Gee more than most, but a match-up against the Cardinals is an easy pick to exploit.

Tyler Cloyd versus Mike Pelfrey may produce runs in bunches.

Chien-Ming Wang had his debut pushed back to today.

Jeremy Bonderman will start against the Astros.

The Red Sox and Nationals will use TBA.

Hitter (power): Hang onto Castro and Pena for the Bonderman match-up.

Oswaldo Arcia should get some swings against Cloyd.

Murphy’s match-up against Ubaldo Jimenez is worth owning.

Hitter (speed): Chris Denorfia has the platoon advantage versus Paul Maholm.

Weather watch

No major weather events are expected.


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Jim Diffley
10 years ago

Tomorrow’s Bosox-Nats game should be a thriller:  TBA vs. TBA!! What a classic matchup…..it will be a nail-biter!!!

Sarge6
10 years ago

I like Kluber a lot overall, but not tonight at Texas. Third highest home OPS in MLB.

Brad Johnson
10 years ago

Yea, that note didn’t make it over from yesterday. Use Kluber if you must.

The Sox and Nationals are both using TBA but are not playing each other.

Abdoozy
10 years ago

Struggling at 2B this year. Drafted Weeks, dropped him after a month for Kelly Johnson. This was great for about three weeks in May. Now Johnson has reverted to his expected form (or worse) and Weeks seems to be finding his stroke. There just aren’t any other decent options out there. Would you stick it out with Johnson or roll the dice on Rickie again?

Will H.
10 years ago

Nat’s TBA will be Ross Ohlendorf, though I have no idea why they picked him over Danny Rosenbaum.

Brad Johnson
10 years ago

Thanks Will.

Ab, if you can run both in a platoon until Weeks gets his job back uncontested, do so. KJ is a very easy guy to platoon and should give decent production if used right. But a platoon guy will only take you so far by himself. Weeks seems to be showing signs of life, but that can change suddenly too.

I’ve been struggling with 2B this season as well fwiw. Lost Utley and Gyorko in one league, and drafted Weeks in two. Have also had Walker, Johnson, Profar, and Kipnis in my various shufflings (Kipnis I acquired right before he started hitting again)

G. Shumway
10 years ago

Who gets the best start today of Bartolo Colon, Bud Norris, and Andrew Cashner? All three are available to start in my league but I don’t feel very good about any one of their matchups today.

Brad Johnson
10 years ago

Those are three solid options. I would rank them Norris, Cashner, Colon, with Bartolo being the clear third place choice.

Both Norris and Cashner are high variance options – meaning they could dominate or asplode all over you. And everything in between.

I think Cashner can be expected to be the more volatile of the two since he’s facing a stronger offense.

Charles H
10 years ago

It’s fair to say that any pitcher might implode on any given day. I don’t understand the love for Cingrani with the 5 plus x-fip before his demotion.

Charles H
10 years ago

Just to clarify Cingrani’s season long x-fip is 3.09 but his last few starts it’s 7.

Patrick
10 years ago

Lind over Swisher for rest of year?

Sarge6
10 years ago

Note to self: believe in Kluber’s excellent road xFIP.

Brad Johnson
10 years ago

Only if you’re trying to be ballsy. Swisher’s much more likely to outperform Lind RoS, though I suppose Lind may have the higher upside. I’m not even sure the latter is true though.