The daily grind: 6-4-13

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): Scott Kazmir should be playable against the Yankees, but he’s also burned me on more than one occasion, so be careful about deploying him.

A.J. Griffin has the best combination of match-up, talent, and low ownership rate today. He’ll face the Brewers.

Pitcher (bum): There’s a whole laundry list of exploitable pitchers to chase today. I’m betting most heavily against Josh Johnson and Jeremy Hefner.

Lucas Harrell, Samuel Deduno and Clayton Richard could all get beaten up.

Hitter (power): Jayson Werth is available in some leagues and is returning from the disabled list.

Brandon Belt will face Johnson in his return from the disabled list.

Juan Francisco should be starting at first base against Griffin. He reminds me of Wily Mo Pena.

Hitter (speed): Ted Lilly will start for the Dodgers, making Chris Denorfia a good play.

Tomorrow’s grind

Pitcher (to start): Bartolo Colon has the match-up to start, but his low strikeout total excludes him from use in some formats.

I’m surprised to find Dan Haren at 69 percent owned. I like his start against the Mets.

I’d like this Alexi Ogando versus John Lackey match-up a lot more if both lineups weren’t among the best in the bigs.

Pitcher (bum): I’m actively betting against Yovani Gallardo at all opportunities. The scrappy A’s lineup should do well.

R.A. Dickey needs to stop pitching hurt. The season is nearly over for the Jays and they should forcibly shut him down as soon they’re ready to throw in the towel. In the meantime, start Giants.

The Orioles should continue to take advantage of the Astros tomorrow. Dallas Keuchel will start.

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

Hitter (power): Try Scott Hairston against Jason Vargas.

Continue to hold Belt.

It might be worth betting on the Cards squeezing Matt Adams into the lineup against Wade Miley.

Hitter (speed): Try Gerardo Parra against Joe Kelly.

As reader Will H pointed out awhile back, Drew Stubbs is sneaky good against lefties. CC Sabathia isn’t an easy assignment, but he’s not the same Sabathia as years past either.

Noteworthy news

Top prospect Jonathan Gray has tested positive for Adderall. With the draft on Thursday, it couldn’t have come at a worse time. To provide some insight, I’d estimate that anywhere from a fifth to a third of my college teammates used Adderall. In our team’s case, the drug was used for purely academic reasons.

Weather watch

A few scattered storms in Kansas City, where the Royals take on the Twins.


You can follow me on twitter @BaseballATeam
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Motley Yu
10 years ago

How disproportionately large would my balls have to be to pick up Skaggs to start against STL?

fhod_dj_x
10 years ago

Do NOT do that lol Look at the average Cards lineup, 7/8 batters are owned in most leagues, not a good team to test. And as far as Kazmir today, his ERA vs NYY is 9.64 since 2010 and It’s also worth noting that Teixeira will be in the lineup most likely. Tex is 7/14 with 8 BB and 4 2B against Kazmir…Wells and Overbay have similar lines, so if 2 of them are in the lineup STAY AWAY!

Brad Johnson
10 years ago

The Cards do have a tough lineup to stream against. Skaggs still isn’t a terrible option though.

None of those Kazmir numbers mean anything to me, they’re all noise. The player match-ups are practically no sample and the 2010-2012 period was when Kazmir would have allowed a 9.00 ERA to a lineup of Miguel Cairo. The whole reason he’s getting recommended is that he’s showing his 2007 skill set not his 2011 skill set.

What I do know is that if Tex plays, he’s coming off injury and likely to be rusty. He’s not that great these days when firing on all cylinders, so that’s not intimidating. Lyle Overbay is very likely to still be Lyle Overbay, aka the guy who’s wearing out the journeyman phase of his career. Vernon Wells seems to have morphed back into Vernon Wells too.

fhod_dj_x
10 years ago

You could be right, and Kazmir is certainly back to rare form, but allowing a batter to reach 15/22 PA is a less than desirable matchup regardless of circumstances, especially to a guy fresh off a grand slam vs Masterson.

Patrick Essex
10 years ago

fhod_dj, I don’t think Skaggs will do too badly. He might not get the win (against Wacha) but he’ll be impressive against a very good line-up.

Patrick Essex
10 years ago

Patrick Essex said…
fhod_dj, I don’t think Skaggs will do too badly. He might not get the win (against Wacha) but he’ll be impressive against a very good line-up.      …..2 days later.  Well…. He didn’t walk anyone!