The daily grind: 8-29-13

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

Minnesota has a low chance of seeing storms today. The rest of baseball is in the clear.

Today’s grind

Thin Thursday is truly thin.

Tomorrow’s grind

Pitcher (to start): Taijaun Walker gets the call against the Astros. He’s on a strict innings limit this season that may mean he won’t be working deep into games. He takes heaping helpings of strikeouts but also walks a few more than you’d like to see from a stream starter. While he’s an exciting pitcher for keeper leagues, don’t fret if you missed out on him in a redraft format.

The rehabbing Roy Halladay is available and extremely dangerous for fantasy purposes. I would keep an eye on him and maybe even stash him for H2H playoffs if you have the space, but it’s too soon to use his starts unless you’re desperate.

Dillon Gee has been a frequent guest of the column and appears to have the best match-up of the day. He’s just slightly better than the typical fantasy replacement level, which his 28 percent ownership rate supports. He’ll see the surprisingly light- hitting Nationals.

As much as I’d like to recommend Zach McAllister and Hector Santiago, they have terrible match-ups against the Tigers and Red Sox respectively. If you’re desperate, they’re both fairly talented pitchers.

Pitcher (bum): Liam Hendriks is a good bet to get shelled against the Rangers.

The Mariners have already gotten to Brad Peacock before and I still believe they pair well against his fastball-heavy repertoire.

The Reds get Jeff Manship at Coors Field. You can’t ask for much more than that.

Hitter (power): Justin Maxwell will face lefty Mark Buehrle.

There aren’t many Reds available to stream, but Ryan Ludwick is still at nine percent owned after returning from the disabled list.

I like Justin Smoak’s match-up against Peacock, but I also just cut him in a linear weights league. In standard leagues where his non-existent counting stats hurt more, he’s much harder to own or stream.

Jonny Gomes will face the lefty Santiago and David Ross is also more likely to start.

Hitter (speed): Chris Denorfia sees another lefty—Hyun-Jin Ryu.

Adam Eaton has a solid match-up against Tim Lincecum at home.

J.B. Shuck will face Wily Peralta, who has flashed upside while also showing inconsistency this season.

Give Leonys Martin one more try. This match-up may get him over the 50 percent owned hump.

Pitchers to come

Saturday: Yesterday I picked Zack Wheeler from a field of about five similarly talented choices and today I’m having trouble figuring out how I picked everyone. Most of you will have an attractive option for Saturday.

Sunday: Sunday isn’t as deep as Saturday, but there are a couple great match-ups headlined by Alex Wood versus the Marlins.

Monday: I don’t know what to make of Monday. It’s a pretty ugly field at a time when most fantasy owners have no margin for error. At first glance, Charlie Morton looks like the best pick.

Noteworthy news

The Dodgers signed Edinson Volquez, so his name will continue to be available to exploit. In other news, the Orioles recalled Kevin Gausman, though he’s not likely to have any impact on fantasy rosters.