The daily grind: -9-5-13

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 aren’t many games today, but they shouldn’t be affected by weather.

Today’s grind

There are a couple great picks today despite the thin slate of games.

Tomorrow’s grind

Pitcher (to start): Left-hander Felix Doubront will face the Yankees. Doubront’s been a frequent visitor of the column due to acceptable peripherals and plenty of run support.

Scott Feldman is usable against the White Sox. He can be expected to post an ERA in the high threes over any given stretch while striking out batters at a slightly below average rate.

Zack Wheeler versus Scott Kazmir provides a fringy pairing of streamable pitchers. I would focus on Kazmir in this outing as the Indians offense is just substantially better than the Mets, even if Wheeler might be a slightly better pitcher.

A.J. Griffin’s match-up with the Astros looks mighty fine on paper. Griffin’s having another fine season with a great BABIP and close to three strikeouts per walk (2.88 K/BB). Because he’s such an extreme fly ball pitcher, the low BABIP isn’t entirely hinky.

Pitcher (bum): Chris Capuano is coming off his first strong outing in awhile, but I believe in the general trend of mediocrity that he’s shown over the last month. The Reds are a difficult match-up, too.

Mike Pelfrey’s worked his way back to being a solid yet unspectacular pitcher. However, the Blue Jays still have a little thump in their lineup even with Jose Bautista shut down for the season.

Juan Nicasio versus Burch Smith looks like your classic 11 piece bucket o’ runs.

Hitter (power): Kyle Blanks hasn’t really shown the mash skill that you’d like to see out of a big-bodied guy, but maybe he has it in him tomorrow.

Oh for the days when Josh Donaldson was available. A game against Dallas Keuchel does seem like the time when Michael Choice would get a start.

Also try Christian Yelich against Dan Haren.

Ryan Ludwick remains largely available and has a friendly match-up with Capuano.

Josh Satin and Andrew Brown might be worth a look-see versus Kazmir.

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

Here’s another column regular: Jonny Gomes sees lefty Andy Pettitte. Keep an eye on David Ross, who’s a great start against lefties but isn’t used predictably. Jarrod Saltalamacchia is a bit banged up though.

Hitter (speed): Sometimes I can just lock players into the column for a stretch. It’s getting that way with Adam Eaton, though Gerardo Parra’s just along for the ride.

New extendee Will Venable has a lovely match-up with Nicasio.

Also try our old favorite, Eric Young Jr. against Kazmir.

Pitchers to come

Saturday: Alex Wood is the guy for Saturday with all of the other options coming with substantially more risk for less reward.

Sunday: Danny Salazar has the Mets on Sunday, which is good enough for me.

Monday: I’m leaning toward Erasmo Ramirez against the Astros.

Noteworthy news

The AL pennant race is looking mighty interesting, while things are much less exciting in the NL. At least the NL Central is providing some drama.


You can follow me on twitter @BaseballATeam
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ChuckR
10 years ago

Isn’t Yusmeiro Petit at least somewhat tempting for tomorrow?  He had 10 K’s against the same Diamondbacks earlier this week and has had a few good outings in a row.

Brad Johnson
10 years ago

I don’t trust him on a stuff level and his track record is far from endearing.

FeslenR
10 years ago

I’d gamble on him, sometimes you never know….

Brad Johnson
10 years ago

Here’s the thing with Petit, he’s an extreme fly ball pitcher with underwhelming stuff who limits walks. That makes Colby Lewis a best case scenario comp. The DBacks have a pretty solid lineup and that success Petit had last time around cuts both ways – they’ve seen him recently.

Abdoozy
10 years ago

“Past performance does not indicate future results” is what they say in the stock broker commercials and should be a disclaimer on all player cards.

Example: Jason Vargas, last two starts..

8/29 @TB: 7.0,  2 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 7 K, W
9/3 vs TB: 4.0,  10 H, 5 R, 2 BB, 3 K, L

Maybe Petit has a big game. I wouldn’t bet on it.