The daily grind: 9-14
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
Those in leagues with same-day moves should refer back to yesterday’s table.
The Fanduel Daily League Players of the Day are:
Pitcher (to start): You have your choice today. You can choose one of two reliable starters against a strong lineup. That’s Ross Detwiler against the Braves or Hisashi Iwakuma against the Rangers.
Or you can choose one of two high upside prospects against a weak lineup. That’s Tyler Skaggs versus the Giants or Andrew Cashner at Petco against the Rockies.
Pitcher (bum): You have some choices here as well. The Reds face Jacob Turner in one of the most exploitable match-ups of the day. The Tigers will see Corey Kluber.
Hitter (power): Jonny Gomes, Chris Carter, and Cody Ross are the power plays of the day.
Hitter (speed): I stick by my assertion that Will Venable is hot, even if that isn’t strictly true in the last two weeks. It’s all a matter of perspective. Coco Crisp is a nice alternative.
Tomorrow’s grind
Phillies fans have pretty much accepted that Kyle Kendrick is now a good pitcher, but I’m not buying. He’s reduced his repertoire from three pitches to two and while his command and control are very sharp at the moment, I’ve seen similar stretches from him in the past and they’ve ended in time. There’s a decent chance he holds it together through the end of the season and against the Astros there’s all the more reason to roll the dice.
Jenrry Mejia will be starting for the Mets against the Brewers. I wouldn’t try him, but he’s certainly interesting enough to mention.
What’s going on with Jarrod Parker’s ownership (40 percent)? He should be owned in twice that number of leagues and that statement has been true for months now. Is it because he’s an Athletic?
Plenty of power choices today.
Chris Johnson will get some hacks against Barry Zito. Elsewhere, Gomes, Carter and Crisp will be at it against another lefty opponent in Zach Britton.
Carlos Ruiz is surprisingly over-owned for a guy who starts every couple of days—53 percent. However, I’m told he is expected to start today and Sunday and he doesn’t seem to have missed a beat during his time off. He will join John Mayberry Jr. with a strong match-up against Dallas Keuchel.
Maybe you’re saying, I need a speedster. I have a hunch that Quintin Berry will get the start against Justin Masterson.
Reliever watch
Joe Nathan blew his second save of the season, which at this late stage is probably all I need to say. Nevertheless, I will specifically state that Nathan’s job is very secure.
More likely to start tonight – Pedroia who left other dayy because wife was in labor or Cain who left injured last night? Need to start 1
Cain
As much as I want to start Skaggs, SF is actually quite decent (even sans their roider) away, and ARI plays in a serious hitters park, so I’m staying away.
That’s an accurate assessment, yet that counts as a fairly advantageous match-up for late season waiver fodder.
Who out of the 3 below would you like for weekly 5×5 playoffs next week (all categories will likely be competitive):
Rajai Davis
Justin Ruggiano
Lucas Duda
Um…yikes.
You’ve got the full gamut of mediocre there. Davis can be expected to help R/SB and hurt elsewhere, Ruggiano can contribute to every category, but at a below average rate, and Duda is a pure HR/RBI option.
I think I’d take Ruggiano as he’s likely to get the most starts. All three have 6 games.
Good luck finding an alternative. And I’m sure you need no reminder that in so small a sample, almost anything can happen.
You might want to go back and quickly delete your pitching suggestions for yesterday.
Thanks for an overall good column, but some days the bear eats you.
I’ve had more than a couple days where I’ve felt that way.
I plan some “how to Grind” columns for over the offseason for related strategy. I think the purpose of the column is to offer up the best options for a particular day, but you have to pick your spots in order to translate it into success. For example, I probably take ONE of my own recommendations on 2 days our of 5.
That sounds like a great idea.
To me, the hard part is deciding which players are “borderline” and you should feel o.k. to drop to pick up Brad’s “grind of the day” pick in an attempt to sneak in one extra HR, and which players you should really stick with through thick or thin. For example, right now I’m really tempted to drop a slumping Panda for a couple more SB, but our team could also use offense in general.
To answer that simplistically, I usually have 1-2 roster spots that are on open rotation. Sometimes those fill up with permanent guys and sometimes they don’t.
I prioritize SP match-ups that I really like, especially for guys who I think might be outright rosterable.
Next priority is split between decent SP match-ups and position players who might be outright rosterable. The position players have the additional caveat in that there must be a place to start them. Then come position players who fill a slot for a day (if there are no SP).
Last, but maybe most important are the RP. Depending on the format, they may need to be SP/RP like Furbush or Davis.
If you have one stream spot open for the entire season, you would ideally get 60 SP innings, 60 RP innings, and about 35 position player games. Breaking that down over a 170 day season, it’s 10 SP games, 40 position player games, and 120 RP games.
You have to really micromanage to get 60 IP out of 120 reliever games, but it’s easily achievable.