The daily grind: 8-15-13

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

Clear skies on this thin Thursday.

Today’s grind

A bunch of youngsters and Dan Haren are your options for today.

Tomorrow’s grind

The Tigers and Royals have a doubleheader, so load up on Royals if you’re trying to make up position player deficits.

Pitcher (to start): Wei-Yin Chen continues to be usable so long as you can afford low strikeout totals. He’s paired against the Rockies.

Felix Doubront was less than sharp in his last outing, but he draws the lefty-prone Yankees tomorrow. By wOBA, the Yankees are 24th in baseball against lefties and only the White Sox are worse within the American League.

Chad Gaudin versus Nathan Eovaldi offers the opportunity to use fringy pitchers against fringier lineups. Gaudin is the better choice since he strikes out a healthy amount. Surprisingly, it’s not all smoke and mirrors with Gaudin; his xFIP is 3.95. While that’s a full point and a half above his ERA, it’s also usable in the right match-ups—like the Marlins.

Alex Wood is the crown jewel of the day. His ownership is up all the way to 24 percent, so there isn’t much time left to jump on the bandwagon.

Ian Kennedy might be usable at Petco against the Mets’ lineup of scrubs.

Jose Alvarez is expect to start the second game of the doubleheader, but an official announcement has yet to come.

Pitcher (bum): Brad Peacock has a tough assignment against the Angels.

Jeremy Hellickson has not had his best season. He’s been prone to big innings and for once his FIP (3.99) and xFIP (4.00) are below his ERA (4.93). Tomorrow, he’ll have to navigate the Blue Jays’ lineup.

Danny Duffy makes his second start since returning from the disabled list. Duffy is somebody who may feature prominently in the positive portion of this column, assuming he can show health. His first outing was a mixed bag, featuring six hits, two walks, and seven strikeouts in 3.2 innings.

The Orioles have a deep lineup that will likely dispatch with Juan Nicasio.

Speaking of deep, formidable lineups, the Cardinals draw Jake Arrieta in his second start as a Cub.

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

Hitter (power): Jonny Gomes draws Andy Pettitte. Will Middlebrooks and Jarrod Saltalamacchia may be worth consideration as well.

Christian Yelich has five-category potential against Gaudin.

Lefty Derek Holland faces the Mariners tomorrow, making Michael Morse an interesting pick.

Hitter (speed): J.B. Shuck is a league average hitter and isn’t much of a risk to swipe a bag, but he does have a good match-up against Peacock.

Try Chris Denorfia versus Jon Niese.

Pitchers to come

Saturday: Tomorrow is a shallow field of stream-worthy starters, but there are a couple of interest headlined by Jenrry Mejia. So long as he keeps his walk rate in check, he’s a fantasy regular.

Sunday: Sunday is another not-so-deep day with Ricky Nolasco taking the bacon as best available starter.

Monday: Alexi Ogando has the Astros on Monday.

Noteworthy news

MLB’s owners are considering a proposal to expand the use of replay in baseball.


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ABSkippers
10 years ago

Ok, so now I’m potentially looking at Jennings and Villar for Prado and Henderson.  This would essentially leave me with a 4 man rotation of Kyle Seager, Prado, Smoak, and Ike Davis for 3 spots: 3B, MI, and CI.  I’ve never been a Prado kind of guy but that’s why I’m always first in HR’s and near the bottom of avg.  however a mere .0015 separates me from 3 more points in the standings.  Also I still have Leonys Martin I think I can get an additional closer for straig up.  What do you think?  Prado would come via a 3rd party trade.

Brad Johnson
10 years ago

While I think that Jennings and Villar for Prado and Henderson is a crappy trade in a vacuum, it seems like it addresses your roster’s particular needs without hurting you in any way. The only thing I would watch out for is if those who you’re trading with would benefit more. But only if they have the potential to beat you.

S. Urista
10 years ago

If you have Martin, you probably don’t need Villar unless you’re really really trying to make up ground in SBs, and Villar will hit closer to .210 the rest of the season vs .310 the last two weeks.

Prado is one of my must-have go-to guys: He’s a great super-sub, eligible at practically every infield position and OF, and (at least until this year) he was a .300 hitting machine. And after a horrible start to the year he’s hitting .350 with 20 RBIs the last month.

So I think Jennings/Villar for Prado/Henderson is perfectly fine especially if it fills some holes. Should pick you up the needed AVG points, and you should be able to trade for some Saves if you still have excess SBs.