The daily grind: 8-4-13
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
The league should be rain free for a day.
Today’s grind
Today features a ton of starting pitching.
Tomorrow’s grind
Pitcher (to start): Corey Kluber has an unpleasant match-up against Anibal Sanchez and the Tigers. I think he’s still good enough to start, but you may want to avoid him.
John Lackey is still only 63 percent owned due to what I assume are fantasy trust issues. Tomorrow he faces the Astros and newbie Brett Oberholtzer.
Jose Quintana has been listed as the top pick for today for four days running now. He’ll face a Yankees lineup that is susceptible to left-handed pitching.
Martin Perez isn’t a strong choice against the Angels, but tomorrow is a bit thin on choices.
Pitcher (bum): Jerome Williams may be a bit over-matched against Texas. He allows too many base runners to be more than a true replacement level pitcher.
The Red Sox will probably get to Oberholtzer early and often. He shows more promise out of the bullpen.
Hitter (power): Oberholtzer is a lefty, which means Jonny Gomes will have the rare pleasure of facing an exploitable left-hander. Go ahead and throw Nava into the mix while you’re at it.
You may want to consider Alfonso Soriano against Quintana.
Justin Smoak has been hitting well and should get the start against R.A. Dickey.
Juan Francisco will see Chad Gaudin. Gaudin is actually showing the skill set of a mid-3s ERA pitcher over a growing sample. I continue to expect implosions, but could be wrong.
Hitter (speed): Leonys Martin continues to be an available leadoff hitter.
Pitchers to come
Tuesday: Zack Wheeler got bumped, making Edwin Jackson the choice of the day.
Wednesday: Hector Santiago looks to be the choice of the day. He’s part of a deep pool of fringy options.
Thursday: Gerrit Cole is the top choice for Thursday. Those in keeper leagues where Cole is already owned can turn to Dillon Gee.
Noteworthy news
We’re expected to learn the fall out of Biogenesis tomorrow. That will open up several options for the Grind since several holes will be plugged with platoons.
Thanks for the great weekend work!! Picking up Hughes today and skipping tomorrow.
Apparently Nava is hitting the paternity list, and will be out for the next 3 days, just FYI. Soriano is also basically 100% owned.
I’m thinking of picking up Neil Walker for the week. Two starts against non-JoFer Marlins pitchers, and 3 starts in Colorado. He also seems to have gotten his swing back since coming off the DL.
Wow, no respect for Hector Santiago-“Fringe”?
If the White Sox were a better team or Santiago was slightly better, then he would be a core performer.
I think Santiago’s walk rate makes him fringy. It keeps his WHIP from being good and makes him susceptible to blowups. That’s at least my opinion on those high BB-high K guys.