The daily grind: 8-1-13

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

The Northeast may face some storms today. Games in Philadelphia and Baltimore are currently listed at a 60 percent chance for storms while Boston has a lesser chance to see rain.

Today’s grind

Today appears to be light on pitching. On the positive side, a lot of stolen base threats have good match-ups today.

Bud Norris will be paired against his former Astros, making him a strong selection for strikeouts.

Tomorrow’s grind

Pitcher (to start): Chris Tillman’s start was pushed back to Friday with new acquisition Norris slotting in today. Tillman will now face the Mariners, which is a less attractive opponent for streamers.

Gerrit Cole is today’s top selection. He remains 56 percent owned and has demonstrated a power fastball with good command and control. Strikeouts are the shortcoming in his game currently, but they should come as he matures.

Dillon Gee is the epitome of fantasy replacement level in standard 12 team leagues. He performs adequately across four categories but won’t help your team much in any of them. The Royals oppose him today, which is neither good nor bad.

Chris Archer is 65 percent owned and will face a weak Giants offense. Archer’s opposed by Madison Bumgarner, so be aware that a win will be hard to come by.

Alexi Ogando is worth consideration at 55 percent owned. However, be wary of an increased walk rate. His FIP (4.07) is currently a full point over his ERA (3.05) and he’s had luck with the long ball too. I’m staying away, but I know that others will want to acquire him.

Some of you may have noted that I listed Tommy Hanson as a buy on Twitter due to his increased velocity. Well that appears to have been just a one start blip. After featuring 93 mph heat on his July 23 return, he followed it up by dropping back to 91. That’s still better than his seasonal averages around 89 mph, but it tells me that he’s likely to continue struggling. Keep an eye on this.

Samuel Deduno draws the Astros match-up. If you track his individual outings, you’ll see he’s had a weird season. It’s hard to draw any conclusions about what to expect.

Pitcher (bum): Todd Redmond is a nice story now that he’s seeing success after a very long minor league career. An FIP close to 5.00 has me wondering how he will fare against the Angels.

Wade Davis has yet to get his act back together though he is coming off a strong start against the White Sox. Available Mets hitters are a good place to start streaming.

The Phillies and Astros are listed as TBA at the moment.

Hitter (power): Geovany Soto may start against Tommy Milone. The only people who should care about this are those who are behind in catcher starts and don’t have a regular to deploy.

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

I might consider trying Ike Davis against Wade Davis as a power threat.

Juan Francisco will face Jordan Zimmermann. I usually wouldn’t recommend this match-up, but Zimmermann has looked off his last two starts, so there could be potential for a long ball or two.

Hitter (speed): It’s funny to recommend a guy like Chris Denorfia against a longstanding stud like C.C. Sabathia, but that’s exactly what I’m doing here.

Craig Gentry should also get to chip in against Milone.

Column regular Eric Young Jr. will continue to steal many bases and do very little else of fantasy relevance.

Pitchers to come

Saturday: I’m still recommending Zach McAllister, as I have all week. The adventurous should investigate Brandon Beachy. He bombed in his return from the disabled list but did generate an epic 13.1 percent whiff rate. It’s a tiny sample, but the window to jump on the bandwagon is small.

Sunday: Phil Hughes couldn’t ask for a better match-up than the Padres at Petco.

Monday: Currently, Martin Perez is the only pitcher who is both available and worth consideration. About half the starting pitchers for the day are listed as TBA


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Eric Dykstra
10 years ago

Rays & Archer are favored tomorrow. I know because my opponent this week has him…

Ubaldo is also a pretty good start candidate. I’d take him over Gee. I’d also take Milone over Ogando.

Any thoughts on Nava’s playing time? He’s available in my daily league and I’m thinking of picking him up. Might not be worth it if he only starts half of games, though.

Brad Johnson
10 years ago

Nava will probably play around 2/3 of games going forward unless there are injuries.

While I agree that the Rays are favored overall, it’s not by much. Bumgarner is still a much better pitcher than Archer, which reduces the chances that the Rays will hold the lead when the Rays bullpen is called upon.

I can see arguments for Ubaldo and Milone from a wins perspective, but I expect their ratios to undo any positive results.