The daily grind

The Daily Grind is a project to provide daily match-up advice based on my every morning waiver wire search. I welcome advice to help make this column more effective.

Match -ps will provide the backbone of the content. Advice will cover both same-day and next-day selections. I also plan to include the numbers from my previous day’s picks.

Today’s grind

One problem with kick starting a column like this on a Monday is that the pickings are slim.

There are only 10 games today and most of the starters are rostered. If you’re lucky, you can take Daniel Bard, Danny Duffy or Erik Bedard in rough match ups (Rays, Tigers, and Diamondbacks respectively). If, like me, you don’t have those options, you could try Philip Humber against the inconsistent Orioles or Dillon Gee against a flat Braves lineup. I’m putting my money on nobody today.

If you’re looking for a hitter, Casey McGehee is probably available and should be starting against lefty Joe Saunders. If you need to dig deeper than that, try Wilson Betemit against Humber. Neither player is guaranteed to start.

A shallower league might want to try Nolan Reimold, although he was out with leg cramps yesterday.

Tomorrow’s grind

Two potentially available starting pitchers have favorable match ups tomorrow. Justin Masterson against the Mariners is an automatic start, although odds are he’s taken in your league (77 percent owned in Yahoo!).

Joe Blanton is facing the Giants and is almost certainly available (2 percent owned in Yahoo!). The downside to Blanton is that his skill set isn’t such that he will reliably dominate bad offenses. Further, the Giants aren’t nearly as bad offensively as they’ve been the past few seasons, although they aren’t exactly good either.

Several bad starters are going tomorrow, including Kevin Millwood, Tyson Ross, Jeff Karstens, Anthony Bass, Jamie Moyer, and Bruce Chen. The Indians have several position players, including Casey Kotchman and Shelley Duncan, who should benefit. Jason Kubel (facing Karstens) and Jesus Guzman (facing Moyer) also look like good match-ups that are generally available.

Reliever watch

If Santiago Casilla has avoided attention in your league, grab him now. He should see the bulk of save opportunities in San Fran. Sergio Romo is frequently unavailable and Jeremy Affeldt doesn’t have a shutdown profile.

Heath Bell appears to be continuing his multi-year decline. Steve Cishek appears to be next in line for now and Juan Carlos Oviedo may eventually join the picture down the road. Bell will probably rebound and retain his job, but this isn’t a bad place to speculate.

I’ve seen Henry Rodriguez bounce on and off the waiver wire all season. If he’s available and you have room, give him a shot. Brad Lidge is almost guaranteed to break down sooner rather than later.


You can follow me on twitter @BaseballATeam
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Josh
11 years ago

I like this format a lot (and the content).