The daily grind: 7-12

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!

Match-ups are rated from the hitter’s perspective on a one to five scale with one being a weak match-up and five being an excellent match-up.

Today’s grind

My intention is to for this section is to link back to the previous day’s table.

I also plan to provide Fanduel Daily League Players of the Day.

Tomorrow’s grind

This being the first day back from break, the pickings at pitcher are pretty thin as most clubs have opted to go with one of their best. The only guy I’d test the water with is Christian Friedrich against the Phillies.

Team Player Handedness Ownership Match-up quality Opposing pitcher
Orioles          
  Jim Thome L 6% 3/5 Doug Fister
Yankees          
  Raul Ibanez L 22% 0/5 TBA
  Andruw Jones R 1% 0/5 TBA
Rays          
  Sean Rodriguez R 7% 1/5 Franklin Morales
Blue Jays          
  Yunel Escobar R 43% 1/5 Justin Masterson
  Adam Lind L 26% 4/5 Justin Masterson
  Rajai Davis R 15% 2/5 Justin Masterson
White Sox          
  Dayan Viciedo R 29% 4/5 Bruce Chen
Indians          
  Jack Hannahan R 2% 1/5 Ricky Romero
  Shelley Duncan R 1% 1/5 Ricky Romero
Tigers          
  Brennan Boesch L 27% 1/5 Jason Hammel
  Quintin Berry L 9% 1/5 Jason Hammel
Royals          
  Salvador Perez R 31% 4/5 Jose Quintana
  Alcides Escobar R 44% 2/5 Jose Quintana
  Lorenzo Cain R 7% 3/5 Jose Quintana
Twins          
  Ryan Doumit S 29% 2/5 A.J. Griffin
  Denard Span R 17% 1/5 A.J. Griffin
  Ben Revere L 26% 2/5 A.J. Griffin
Athletics          
  Jemile Weeks S 35% 1/5 Francisco Liriano
  Coco Crisp S 31% 1/5 Francisco Liriano
  Jonny Gomes R 1% 3/5 Francisco Liriano
Rangers          
  David Murphy L 11% 4/5 Kevin Millwood
Mets          
  Kirk Nieuwenhuis L 9% 2/5 Tim Hudson
  Andres Torres S 1% 1/5 Tim Hudson
Cubs          
  Tony Campana L 7% 1/5 Ian Kennedy
  David DeJesus L 4% 1/5 Ian Kennedy
Dodgers          
  Jerry Hairston Jr. R 3% 2/5 Clayton Richards

Let’s say the table is still in experimental phase. How much of this information do you think is unnecessary? What information would you like to see that isn’t here?

The 1/5 match-ups that I presented are all those who have some form of platoon advantage and/or are very likely to start. Perhaps there is a better way to present this information

Reliever watch

Everyone’s getting excited about Juan Carlos Oviedo, but I’m not sure I see any reason to. He’s no better than Steve Cishek and is likely worse. Then again, he could find himself a handful of saves anyway.


You can follow me on twitter @BaseballATeam
21 Comments
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Kubrick
11 years ago

You could jettison ownership information.  For the reader, the only thing that matters is if the player is available in their league or not.  Also, I liked the format better without the table and with a little bit of commentary on the matchups, even if it means fewer recommendations.

Brad Johnson
11 years ago

Thanks for the feedback.

Today was my first day going through the process of putting this together. I’m looking to hear more about whether or not people prefer more names or commentary.

Stu Cohn
11 years ago

I like the commentary too. It made for a better reading experience and included useful info on the players that may not fit into a straight graph.

RaysFan4Real
11 years ago

I like the table format and the information – and I really liked the commentary.  My suggestion is add a comments column to the table.  It doesn’t always have to have information in it – but you could add comments as you feel appropriate.

Brad Johnson
11 years ago

That doesn’t format well with the table options available to us. I also don’t really have time to do both.

Andrew
11 years ago

Hey Brad,

I like the new format!  I know they’re only a 1/5 match up, but the Righties against Ricky Romero have faired far worse than lefties have so far this season. 

If there are any available Indians that are lefties in the starting line up tomorrow I’d say they would be more likely to fair better than Hannahan and Duncan.

Andrew

Brad Johnson
11 years ago

Andrew,

That behavior seems to be entirely attributable to BABIP and HR frequency. On a basic statistical level, I expect righties to outperform lefties against Romero.

I don’t have enough info to say that we should expect lefties to have a higher BABIP or HR/9 against Romero than righties. It’s quite possible that they should.

That said, if you want a lefty, Damon, Hafner, and Kotchman all may start. I’d avoid the match-up entirely personally.

Dave
11 years ago

How about eliminate ‘team’ and include ‘position’ of the player?  When I’m looking at a free agent I am probably trying to satisfy some positional need.

Brad Johnson
11 years ago

Position would be a nice inclusion, but I need to use team as the organizing principle as match-ups are at the heart of my methodology.

Jacob
11 years ago

To answer your question above, more comments please. The graph may be to…clinical…not enough commentary. The commentary, notes, et al. were some of my favorite bits.

Andrew
11 years ago

Thanks for the feedback.

On Romero, I think it might have something to do with the Change up Romero throws.  It would tail down and away from Righties and down and In to lefties.  Which many Lefties would either lay off or it would be right in their power zone.  Which could lead to the uptick in HR% LD% and HR/FB.

If the change up is not as effective against lefies it would essentially turn Romero into a FB/SL guy.

Nick
11 years ago

Ownership% not necessary and more commentary would be perfect

Morgan Conrad
11 years ago

Definitely add Position(s)

To tighten things up a bit and save space

1) Change “Handedness” to “Bats”
2) I don’t think you need the tree-like structure for the team.  Instead of

Athletics
      Weeks
      Crisp

just repeat the team on each line, e.g.

Athletics   Weeks
Athletics   Crisp

or, if you prefer

Athletics   Weeks
  ”      Crisp

thalooch
11 years ago

on Romero, his career splits indicate that lefties hit him way harder than righties, across the board.
Lefties – .277/.363/.473 Righties – .230/.316/.351

I would take out ownership %. Considering this looks like a daily matchup column, you could include things like the @ symbol before a pitchers name if that pitcher is at home. Visiting team is guaranteed 9 innings of AB’s, whereas home team is not.

You could include park factors, HR/FB ratio for that pitcher, handedness of the pitcher, hits per 9 innings for the pitcher, last 21 days era/fip/xfip. Recent data for batters, like BA over last 14 days, stuff like that.

Detroit Michael
11 years ago

I don’t think the tomorrow’s grind information is useful at all.  It’s only useful in a league the same depth as whatever you assume and that allows daily roster changes—that’s a very small fraction of the fantasy baseball audience.

I find the reliever watch info helpful and often some of the other commentary about whose playing time or ownership rates are increasing or descreasing.  More tables and fewer comments doesn’t help me.

Just one person’s opinion.

peter williams
11 years ago

love the new format!

duder
11 years ago

Love daily grind but really appreciate commentary. Daily leaguers definitely need to grind.

Telling us the ownership % is not necessary—we can check if the guy is available or not.  As long as you’re using low percentage guys the grind stays useful for most leagues.

Instead of commentary for each player, how about at the bottom you tell us your one or two hitters you’d play out of all in the column, and why (ie Masterson is terrible vs. Lefties, and Lind is hot, so he’s your best bet for tomorrow.)

Brad Johnson
11 years ago

Well, gotta love consistent feedback smile

I’ll take out the ownership stuff tomorrow. Positions might not make it into the table until next week, but they’ll get there.

thalooch,

All great ideas but I’m compiling most of the table by hand every morning. Unless you have a program that does all that stuff for me…

I do like the @ for home pitchers and will incorporate that.

Detroit Michael,

In my experience, almost everyone I know playing fantasy baseball is using between a 250 and 400 player pool. The column is written with a 375 player pool in mind. I’d consider any other player pool size (outside of AL/NL only) to be a novelty format.

Duder,

What I’m thinking I might do is remove the match-up quality column, list any guys with decent match-ups in the table, and then highlight the best couple in writing below.

thalooch
11 years ago

no, i don’t have a program.
I use two main resources for daily matchups/plays

Cbs sports fantasy leagues have a link under “players” called “probably pitchers”. It lists recent data for pitchers and career stats vs that team.

Espn.com daily notes section under fantasy also ranks starting pitchers, and stats for previous 3 starts.

They also have a hitters column which ranks left-handed and right-handed hitters on each team for that day, as well as ranks SB potential.

Pretty useful information in my opinion.

I also like checking out parkfactors.com, but then again I like to overwhelm myself with information!

Jacob
11 years ago

Another item to consider: A “Pick Of The Day” perhaps, as opposed to the highlights on quality matchups (as per usual, the non-obvious players and done by matchup). For Example:

Picks Of The Day:

HR: 1B Carter Vs. Liriano (Carter has career 13 Hr’s vs Liriano)

SB: Cozart Vs. Wainwright (Wainwright/Molina tandem is 3-14 in throwing out baserunners)

Avg: Betancourt Vs. Romero (some matchup stuff here)

K’s: Zimmerman Vs. Mia (more random observations/#‘s)

W: A.J. Griffin Vs. Min (blah blah blah PCL blah blah)

Sv: Hanrahan Vs. Mil (Blarg)

(All #‘s fake, it’s just an example)

—————————————————————————

Jacob
11 years ago

To clarify above: That would be in addition to your current table, not in lieu of.