The daily grind: 8-20
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
The Fanduel Daily League Players of the Day are:
Pitcher (to start): Today we have several mediocre pitchers you could gamble on against bad lineups. Joe Saunders might be the best of the bunch and he’s matched up with a scuffling Marlins lineup.
Mark Rogers has pitched fairly poorly this year, but he faces a Cubs lineup that is the worst in the league by some measures.
Mike Leake is extremely variable. Against the Phillies, anything can happen, especially because their lineup of scrubs has been scoring runs in bunches.
Pitcher (bum): The recommendations for today aren’t far removed from the bum column. That said, Alex White against the Mets and Will Smith versus the Rays should take the worst of it.
Hitter (power): Jonny Gomes is back to meet with Brian Duensing. You could also try Chris Carter, Eric Thames, or Raul Ibanez.
Hitter (speed): Eric Young has a rough match-up against R.A. Dickey, but he’s still a solid bet to swipe a bag. David Murphy hardly counts as a stolen base threat, but including him here rounds things out nicely.
Tomorrow’s grind
Marco Estrada against the pitiful Cubs lineup is the top match-up of the day. Estrada has struggled recently, so it’s worth keeping that in mind.
Trevor Cahill against the Marlins’ weak lineup is another solid choice for tomorrow. Dan Straily offers the most upside and the Twins’ lineup is merely decent.
Andruw Jones is back again. This time he’s joined by Todd Frazier against the home run prone Cliff Lee (I’m going to keep saying it until he shows otherwise) as the top power options of the day. Other quality options include Delmon Young, Eric Young, Eric Thames and Coco Crisp.
Reliever watch
Nothing much to report. I will say that having watched Steve Cishek a number of times this season, I’m convinced that he’s merely a good ROOGY in the mold of Vinnie Pestano. Don’t think to keep him as a closer for next year because he can’t get lefties out.
Eric Young suffered a calf strain yesterday.Devalues him for a couple of days in the speed department.
Damn Rockies are killing me…
Do you like Dempster today or no?
As for injuries I am in a 1 DL league and have had Garcia,Morrow,Bonifacio,Tex,Robertson,Hanley,Harper,Tulo,Freeman,Heyward,Altuve,Kipnis,Morse,Craig,Guerra,Jennings to name a few (yes it is so bad I can’t remember them all) the kicker is 10 moves a week limit.
Yet I am in 1st with only 2 teams within 10 games of me.However it is H2H so meaningless right now.
Dempster’s a mess. I’m starting him today in the one league I own him, but I don’t like that I’m doing so.
I look at it this way. If I’m not going to start him against a mediocre lineup like the Orioles, then I shouldn’t own him. I seem pretty convinced that I should own him and hence I’m going to start him. Backwards logic, I know.
I’m just in a weird roster situation where I am poised to make the playoffs and potentially a deep run (only 2 teams within 10 games of me).So it’s really just the question of what cold streaks do I ride now vs what can I improve now to help me in playoffs.
C – Weiters
1B – Rizzo
2B – Pedroia
3B – Frazer
SS – Hanley
OF – Granderson/Bonifacio/Gordon/Morse
UTIL – Aybar
BN – Tex
SP – Grienke/Bumgarner
RP – Soriano/Holland
P – Frieri/Ogando/Maholm/Billingsley
BN – Dempsterr/Gallardo
Look at Dempster’s numbers vs current Orioles hitters. If he’s going to get it together it will be tonight. I’m going with him.