The daily grind: 8-20-13

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

Nary a drop in the sky throughout baseball’s hosting cities.

Today’s grind

Today is looking good in terms of depth. Those TBAs resolved themselves as Travis Blackley for the Rangers, Tyler Cloyd for the Phillies, Ivan Nova in Game One for the Yankees’ doubleheader, and Phil Hughes in Game Two.

Tomorrow’s grind

Pitcher (to start): Alex Wood has a lovely start against the David Wright-less Mets tomorrow. His 2.61 ERA is supported by a 1.96 FIP and 2.51 xFIP. Combing deeper reveals that his strikeout rate is supported by the number of whiffs he induces and his walk rate is directly in line with his limited minor league work. He’s up to 33 percent owned and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be in the high 90s.

It gets thin after Wood. A.J. Griffin is 60 percent owned and will face the Mariners. Griffin’s a merely adequate fly ball pitcher who has relied on elite defense to prevent hits, as evidenced by his .242 BABIP this season and career .250 BABIP.

Felix Doubront continues to be an adequate streaming option at 28 percent owned.

In the redraft leagues where Gerrit Cole is available, you may want to consider his match-up against the Padres. At the season level, Cole’s strikeout rate looks questionable, but if you assume his first two outings were aberrations, his rate spikes a full strikeout per inning.

Pitcher (bum): Ross Ohlendorf will likely be a frequent guest of the exploit column over the next six weeks, although his return from the disabled list is against a weak Cubs unit.

Nathan Eovaldi exploded last time out in the worst way possible. More importantly, he’ll be facing a Dodgers lineup that has forgotten how to lose.

In college, we played a drinking game called “Crisp.” Everyone sat in a circle and the point was to high-five your neighbor. If the high-five made a sharp, crisp sound, everyone yelled “crisp!” If it did not, everyone yelled “not crisp.” Brandon McCarthy is not crisp, something I expect the Reds to exploit. Now you’ve learned a boring drinking game and how to make a tortured reference.

Kevin Correia has the tough job of squelching the Tigers’ bats.

After blowing up against the Mets, Ian Kennedy shall be a permanent resident of the exploit section. This time around, he faces a much tougher lineup in the Pirates.

Jake Westbrook is worth an dishonorable mention here since he’s been downright terrible over his last four outings. He does face the Brewers, so hope remains.

Hitter (power): Juan Francisco looks like a good place to start against the struggling Westbrook.

Brett Pill will probably get a start against Doubront.

Cody Asche isn’t somebody to get excited about, but he could sneak his way into 20 home runs plus stolen bases over a full season. Juan Nicasio makes for a solid match-up.

Ryan Ludwick has been slow to show signs of life after returning from the disabled list, which also means that he’s widely available.

Hitter (speed): Craig Gentry should get slotted in against Erik Bedard.

Pitchers to come

Thursday: Thin Thursday promises to be thin indeed. Jose Quintana is the only name that I’m certain to recommend. And even that will be done grudgingly.

Friday: Yesterday I said Martin Perez against the White Sox. Today I say Todd Redmond against the Astros. Really you can’t go wrong with either choice.

Saturday: Hector Santiago versus the Rangers is currently the top option listed, but it’s not going to stay that way.

Noteworthy news

I probably should have dropped this news in the comments section yesterday as it’s already too late for those in keeper leagues. In any case, I hope you all noticed that Xander Bogaerts has been activated by the Red Sox. Supposedly he will fill a back-up role, but I find that hard to believe so long as he performs.