The daily grind: 7-23

The Daily Grind provides daily match-up advice based on my every-morning waiver wire search. I welcome advice to help make this column more effective. Ownership rates are from Yahoo!

The Fanduel picks are a mixture of Daily League specific advice and information for the more typical fantasy owner.

Today’s grind

There is no table for yesterday, but I do have some quick picks below.

The Fanduel Daily League Players of the Day are:

Pitcher (to start): I guess Clayton Richard against the Giants is the match-up to go with today. If that doesn’t sound convincing…

Francisco Liriano against the White Sox seems like a worthwhile throw of the dice if you’re open to an all or nothing gamble.

Pitcher (bum): I’d expect the Angels to smack Bruce Chen around. However, it’s hard to roster many Angels as they tend to be expensive. You can also try Red Sox players against Scott Feldman. A more under-the-radar play is Gavin Floyd against the Twins.

Hitter (power): John Mayberry Jr. matches up well against soft-tossing lefties like Randy Wolf. If you’re looking for someone less widely available, Alfonso Soriano might be able to swat one against Erik Bedard.

Hitter (speed): Go with Ben Revere, Denard Span, and Craig Gentry. The latter has more potential as a five category presence.

Tomorrow’s grind

It’s another one of those days where there really isn’t a freely available pitcher worth streaming. Mike Leake against the Astros might come the closest.

Jonny Gomes against Brett Cecil seems like a perfect match-up (for Gomes).

Adoption rates for Lorenzo Cain and Salvador Perez are picking up. They’re both worth owning in most formats. Cain is actually batting clean-up with some frequency.

Rajai Davis has the best pure speed match-up against Travis Blackley. As I noted in the past, the pitcher match-up is slightly less important for burner types. They tend to follow the “put it in play and see what happens” model of hitting.

David Murphy has a good match-up to show off his well-rounded talent against Clay Buchholz. However, Buchholz has looked pretty good since coming off the disabled list.

Reliever watch

Looks like Francisco Cordero is a closer again. Unless you desperately need those saves and have some ERA and WHIP to spare, you may want to let an opponent swallow that bitter pill.

Jose Valverde is battling another day-to-day injury. Joaquin Benoit locked down the save yesterday but he doesn’t seem poised to take over the role despite Valverde’s struggles this season.

Javy Guerra blew a save opportunity, further solidifying Kenley Jansen’s standing. Jansen had gone a couple days in a row and was unavailable.