Tony Cingrani will make his highly-anticipated first major-league start Thursday. Most fantasy owners are already aware of Cingrani, even though he only has five major-league innings under his belt. A recent start, in which he struck out 14 batters in six innings, caught fantasy owners’ eyes. Once it was announced Cingrani would take the place of the injured Jonny Cueto, he quickly became one of the most added players this week. If you play in competitive non-keeper leagues, it might be tough to find high-upside pitchers on your waiver wire. One way around this, if you’re patient, is to target the next Tony Cingrani. Basically, you’re taking a shot on a talented minor-leaguer, in the hopes that he finds a job in the majors soon. If you’re looking for the next Cingrani, you might want to consider adding Chris Archer and Danny Hultzen.

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Alright, we went 3-for-4 with our Friday and Saturday streamers last week! Things are looking up after a rough first weekend. Let’s dive right in for this weekend’s potential streaming candidates, and look forward to an update on how that “stream quality” metric looks after we have another weekend to work with.

As usual, I aimed for a 50/25/15/5 percent ownership streamers to play to all league types. Unfortunately, it’s a terrible couple of days for streaming, so we’re going a little deeper (and therefore a little riskier) for these ones.

Jarrod Parker (35.5% owned) – I don’t feel great about this one, so if you’re going to avoid one of these, let this be it. But there aren’t many great options this weekend, and I’m going to give Parker one more chance to show us something, despite the 10.80 ERA and 2.66 WHIP. The Rays strikeout 20.5% of the time, slightly above this year’s league average, and have a terrible .277 wOBA so far which only rises to .282 against righties. The Rays aren’t much more potent than their state counterparts so far, it seems. Plus, Parker has far more talent than he’s shown in three starts – he’s walking a lot of guys and striking out very few, possibly due to pitch mix changes post-Tommy John and some trouble with his change-up. But I’m willing to give him one more chance. Call it the Eno Sarris Effect, I guess. Or the Chris Cwik Effect. Just don’t blame me, is what I’m saying.

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As we approach the end of week three in fantasy baseball, it’s probably safe to say we can do a decent job of evaluating our team’s strengths and weaknesses. The general rule-of-thumb encourages owners not to panic too early with regards to our stars, but now could be a good opportunity to try and acquire some middle relief as a throw-in via trade (to an owner that IS panicking) or simply from the waiver wire.

Thus far, there have been 77 relievers who have earned a hold. But, there have been just four middle relievers who have notched at least three without allowing a free pass. Now we’re talking! Some are willing to accept the fact that “holds guys” are there to earn you “holds” and will sacrifice their ratios and whiffs to acquire said holds. Don’t settle for mediocrity. Get the reliever who will positively contribute to as many categories as possible.

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It’s a little early in the year to be overhauling preseason position rankings, but that doesn’t mean players have not shown good and bad signs yet. First base is a premium production position, so any change in a player’s projected value is a big deal. It’s almost impossible to win a league without big time first base production. Here are two guys who are improving their stock and two on the way down.

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While it’s still fairly early, we should probably take a moment and see if we can evaluate some of these early starts to the season, both good and bad. We’ve got a guy like John Buck who is clearly playing way over his head right now and most everyone knows that he is clearly a “find the sucker in your league and sell high to him right away” type player but there are a few catchers out there where the jury is still out. Hot starts, cold starts — which do you believe in and which do you not? Here’s my take on three backstops who you might be wondering about… Read the rest of this entry »

I had seen both Tommy Joseph and Ryan Lavarnway before, but when I saw them play against each other on Tuesday the similarities between the two catching prospects were striking. Both are big, bat first catchers. Both strike out a lot. Both hit for a lot of power for backstops. Both have some question marks about their ability to catch every day in the big leagues. What can these guys do for your fantasy team and when?

Tommy Joseph, C, PHI

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You probably know my deal by now. I am extremely patient. It takes a lot for me to change my valuation of a player. After three or so starts, not much is going to alter my views of a pitcher. Unless I see a significant change in velocity, pitch mix or rumblings of some sort of injury, I stick to my pre-season guns for the most part. So with that in mind, let’s take a look at a couple of American League starting pitchers making waves early on.

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Today’s Roto Riteup is a big believer in talking about pitching.

On today’s agenda:
1. Mike Minor and Wade Davis’ pitching duel
2. Chris Capuano and Dodgers pitching
3. Fun early season facts

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• Royals fans must have been anxious this afternoon when Greg Holland was called upon to nail down a 1-0 win. To make matters even more perilous, the first two batters he had the pleasure of facing were first-two-week MVP Justin Upton and Rookie of the First-two-weeks Evan Gattis. Ouch. Break out the dingers? Read the rest of this entry »

Pedro Alvarez and Kyle Seager entered the season ranked 19th and 13th, respectively, in the Rotographs consensus rankings back in March. Although neither were likely to be your first choice to occupy third base on most fantasy teams, injuries to Chase Headley, Hanley Ramirez, Aramis Ramirez, Brett Lawrie, David Freese, among others, likely thrust Alvarez or Seager into lineups with fingers crossed.

So far, Seager hasn’t been useful at all, and Alvarez has been an unmitigated disaster. But I think there are signs that the former might yet prove to be useful, although the vultures are starting to circle on the latter.

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