The daily grind: 7-21-13

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 weather watch

There’s a 30-40 percent chance for scattered storms in Washington, Boston, Kansas City, and New York.

Today’s grind

Long long ago (last Friday), I recommended Dan Haren and Joe Blanton for today. Both are K/BB fiends who otherwise have struggled a bit. You can add volatile youngsters Brandon Workman and Tyler Skaggs to the options today.

Rajai Davis is facing a lefty, which is go time as far as I’m concerned. This is the golden goose for the day, but ask in the comments if you need help with another hitter match-up.

Tomorrow’s grind

The Reds and Giants have a double-header tomorrow, so look to see if you can snag a two-for-one special off the waiver wire.

Pitcher (to start): Tony Cingrani will be back in red tomorrow to take on the Giants. His ownership rate has crept down to 45 percent thanks to the NA tag floating next to his name for the last 10 days. Cingrani is good enough to own, but I do worry about his long term viability so I am selling him whenever possible. I’ve actually traded him twice and Jason Kipnis came my way in both deals (once straight up and the other time in a blockbuster).

Alexi Ogando doesn’t have a great match-up (Yankees), but he’s returning from the disabled list tomorrow and will likely see a sharp spike in his 54 percent ownership rate.

Rick Porcello, 13 percent owned, will face the lowly White Sox tomorrow. He’s a good bet for a win and otherwise average stats, which is good enough for me to make him the top pick of the day.

Tomorrow features Jarrod v. Jarred—66 percent owned Jarrod Parker will face the Astros and six percent owned Jarred Cosart. Parker is the better catch here. While Cosart nearly spun a no hitter in his debut, I consider him exploitable.

Old column buddy Zach McAllister is back from the disabled list just in time for a friendly match-up against the Mariners. He’s opposed by Erasmo Ramirez who had a bit of a meltdown in his first and only start of the season, but may well be worth owning in most leagues.

Pitcher (bum): Carlos Torres has been superb out of the pen and in one spot start. The key to his success has been walking fewer than one batter per nine innings (0.79 BB/9). This stinginess is an outlier in the 30-year-old’s resume. If he reverts to his previous habit of walking more than four batters per nine innings, the ERA will get ugly fast.

Jason Hammel versus Bruce Chen smells like a slugfest.

Kyle Gibson versus Tommy Hanson also looks like an early bullpen kind of game.

Hitter (power): I imagine that the Diamondbacks will work Cody Ross into the lineup against lefty Travis Wood.

Juan Francisco is still out there swatting bombs. He’ll face Tyson Ross and he has that lovely third base eligibility.

A few of you may have access to Wil Myers for his start against Jon Lester. He’s only 65 percent owned.

Hitter (speed): The Astros have promoted Jonathan Villar to be their starting shortstop. He should be on waivers for most of you, but he has some upside to be a solid shortstop option with 10 home runs and 30 plus steals over a full season.

Davis gets another hittable lefty tomorrow. I’ll be holding on to him.

Pitchers to come

Wednesday: A.J. Griffin is the man of the day, although there are some nice alternatives.

Thursday: My early money is on Wade Miley, but there are enough TBAs for this to change.

Friday: Too many solid but unspectacular choices to pick one now. That write-up is going to take awhile.

Noteworthy news

Kris Medlen will be pitching for his job tomorrow. The Braves are looking for ways to add both Brandon Beachy and Alex Wood to the rotation and Medlen to the pen is one of the most likely moves.