As a player owed in just 2% of Yahoo! leagues, Luke Scott can be an attractive option for teams in need of power from the utility or first base spot. His availability depends on the league, I own him in a CBS league where he only can be played as a utility option but in a Yahoo! league where he can be played at first as well. For reference, he played six games at first base last year.
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Back in February of 2012, as we were getting ready to start discussing potential sleepers for the upcoming season, I wrote a quick piece on Astros catcher Jason Castro that, for lack of a better way to say it, was unflattering. I discussed his run of injuries, his coma-inducing levels of offensive production, and of course, the question of whether he was even worthy of a one dollar pick-up in even the deepest of leagues. The only comment the article received was from someone asking me how I would feel if I were Castro’s wife or mother and saw this piece and my response was both snarky and apropos for the time. Well here we are a year and three months down the road and based on the first two months of the 2013 season, it’s about time I apologized to the women in Castro’s life.

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If you are like me, you spend 10 or so minutes every morning going over your rosters, making moves, and setting lineups before you head in to work for the day (or… whatever you do during the day). While I also come home and typically glue myself to MLB.tv, there are days when those early morning roster moves have to hold for that night’s games. So I got a bit above and beyond using that period for merely making sure I have a lineup in the event of a simultaneous power and cell phone network failure.

In a daily league like Draftstreet, understanding which players will play on any given day is a necessity. In roto, if a guy gets benched for platoon splits, oh well, you still have that game to use under the cap later in the season. However, in a daily salary cap league and you aren’t near a computer and player X isn’t taking the field for his 9:05 start? Big fat zero. Fangraphs posts lineups on our leaderboard as soon as they are posted, so you have ways to tease out guys riding the pine hours before the game. However, you also should be keeping an eye to the sky. Well, not literally, but always, always, always check the weather.

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Today we go real deep to find you potential hidden treasure that will catapult your fantasy teams into Yoo-Hoo shower stardom. Then again, you’re all definitely in first place already, because you read RotoGraphs every day and get the best advice on the planet.

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Today’s Roto Riteup lacks a certain pizzazz, but makes up for it in hustle and grit.

On today’s agenda:
1. Wacha Wacha
2. Carlos Zambrano stops in at Single-A
3. Brandon Morrow has a sore forearm
4. Brett Lawrie has a boo-boo

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• Chris Perez was placed on the 15-day DL yesterday with a shoulder injury and after an MRI today, we now know he has rotator cuff tendinitis. While the news could have been worse, as shoulder injuries are always worrisome especially considering Perez had a few shoulder flare ups earlier this season, the Indians are glad he won’t have to miss any significant time due to the injury. In his place in the ninth inning will be Vinnie Pestano. Pestano has been an ace reliever the last couple of years but has struggled in 2013. Pestano has never had great control with a career 3.62 BB/9 but he compensated for it with terrific swing and miss stuff. This year his control has eluded him a bit (5.25 BB/9) as his strikeout rate (9.0 K/9) is down from his career numbers (10.87). Add it all up and Pestano is pitching to an ugly 4.99 FIP.

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Episode 18
Today’s episode of The Sleeper and the Bust stars yours truly and features RotoGraphs editor Eno Sarris. I debut a surprise game for Eno to take part in and we discuss another closer injury and a pair of rookie call-ups.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @mikepodhorzer or @enosarris on Twitter and tweet us any fantasy questions you have that we may answer on our next episode.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or via the feed.

Approximately 38 min of joyous analysis.

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He is owned in just 16% of Yahoo! leagues and has posted consecutive seasons of a sub 100 wRC+, but Colby Rasmus is attempting to march towards relevance once again. He made a similar move at the start of last year when he hit 16 home runs in his first 327 plate appearances. His relevance then faded over his next 298 plate appearances, hitting just seven home runs and recording a .256 on base percentage.
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There’s no way to know how often players push through injuries they shouldn’t; it certainly happens with some frequency, but the times when one can pinpoint the exact moment a player should have been placed on the disabled list and wasn’t are few and far between.

I have no idea when in 2011 John Lackey tore his ulnar collateral ligament – if my life depended on guessing, I could talk myself into a late July tear, which would mean he made an additional 11 or 12 starts carrying an injury that used to be career-threatening – but I do know that it affected his performance rather negatively. The problem is that there’s still not a good way to determine how much of his abominable 2011 was due to the injury and how much was simply a bad season. Read the rest of this entry »

Young pitching is killing it this year. My staffs, full of Matt Harvey, Shelby Miller, Jose Fernandez and David Phelps are treating me very well right now. From one standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to plan this kind of staff. The work done by Bill Petti and Jeff Zimmerman shows that, as a pitcher, you’re busy dying as soon as you’re born. So get the younger pitchers!

The problem is the lack of track record. In the case of two hot young things, we’re left with one start and a decision. When it comes to a redraft at least — in dynasties, those dudes are long gone.

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