Agenda

1. Process Reorientation
2. Daily DFS
3. Wednesday Picks
4. Table

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In the comments I’ve had some interesting interactions lately. Because of that I wanted to address a few things here, in case some of you don’t make it down to the comment section.

First off, thanks for reading these. It feels like the pieces are getting bigger responses.

Secondly, when I make picks I’m doing my best to give you value options. For example, the Blue Jays’ offense is ruthless. You know that, and you definitely don’t need me to recommend them four days a week because you’re more than smart enough to do that on your own. I usually pick a stack against one of the pitchers that has a lot of green cells in the chart I embed. I alluded to it last week, but you could probably pretty easily throw together a stack, or play match-ups, against any of the pitchers I mention in the blurbs under the chart.

Lastly, I was asked why I recommend a three man stack instead of a four man option. My response and, later, my further explanation is below:

It’s honestly kind of just personal preference. Most of the time when I enter GPPs I use multiple three man stacks. This is a good read (http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/daily-fantasy-strategy-march-31-for-draftstreet/). I’ve just usually had better a little better luck with a three man stack. Sorry if that seems like a cop-out. I may start including a fourth option for you guys though now that you’ve mentioned it.

…

Yeah, I should have worded that a little better. Usually I have two three man stacks against two of the five or so pitchers I highlight in the blurb. I usually then try to find two upside plays on the same team – around $5,000-$6,000 or so a piece. Then I just fill out the last position with a cheaper guy who happens to have a nice matchup. It rarely works out to where I find three stacks I like, but when it does the results have been nice.

I mostly try to save my money on pitching. Usually I can find two to three options for under $15,000 that I’m comfortable with. Sometimes I get burned on that, but at their price I’m not expecting them to carry me anyways.

I hope that helps explain the process/reasoning I undertake before making my picks. And hopefully we have a little better luck this week. Only Thursday was kind to me last week.

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Okay, maybe I was wrong about the catchers (You can follow along using the rankings links on the right hand navigation bar). The top group definitely wasn’t performing well. I just never shop there, so maybe it was a blind spot.

But I do shop among the top first basemen. No shares of Miguel Cabrera — no number one picks, and no willingness to spend that much — and just a couple shares of Paul Goldschmidt, Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Abreu and the like. Hey! Those guys are doing fine!

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Yesterday, I identified and discussed the five players most added in CBS Sports leagues. So today of course, I’ll check in on those players being dropped. Often I find the dropped players are better than the added players as fantasy owners love to weight the last two weeks of performance infinitely more than the player’s entire body of work. So let’s see if owners are making the right moves when dropping these guys.

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You poor Roto Riteup readers are stuck with me today. Because Wiers and I are swingers, is why.

On today’s agenda:
1. It’s Jonathan Singleton time
2. Robinson Cano returns
3. Jeff Samardzija to Colorado would suck
4. Yordano Ventura to start Thursday
5. The Fudged Five

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• MUST READ: The American Sports Medicine Institute released a position statement on Tommy John injuries. Read the whole thing. Orders.

• Angels pitching coach Mike Butcher has two theories on the increase in Tommy John surgeries. The first:

He’s one of many who believes it’s bad for kids to play only baseball year-round, which often results in them putting too much stress on arms that have not yet matured.

The second one theory I have not heard before:

And just as importantly, Butcher says too many professional pitchers are throwing from the opposite side of the rubber (meaning, a right-hander throwing from the first-base side and a left-hander throwing from the third-base side).

Butcher has found that more than 30 of the pitchers who have undergone Tommy John surgery this year fit that description.

“Some guys do it because they feel like they’ll be in the strike zone more, they’ll have better command that way — there’s all sorts of different philosophies about it,” Butcher said. “But for me, if you’re on the opposite side of your throwing arm on the rubber, you are constantly pronating [Definition] your arm at a higher rate than if you are on the other side. There’s no leverage behind the baseball.

Looks like another stat to track and it will nice little research project for me to do later on this year.

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The conventional wisdom says that your starting pitcher needs three pitches. Fastball, breaking ball, change-up is best, but three pitches by hook or crook. If they don’t, they’ll have platoon splits and a tough time getting through the lineup. That’s largely true, of course, but there are always exceptions.

Let’s see what we can learn from the exceptions.

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This is my first month on the second-base beat, and I can’t wait to hear who I’ve ranked too high or too low, preferably in caps lock in the comments section below or on Twitter. Either way, caps lock is crucial here. Don’t let me down. Jokes aside, I’ve got over 40 players in these seven tiers, and I hope you find them useful.

TIER ONE

Robinson Cano

Even after two solid months of sub-.100 isolated power, I am still placing Cano in his own tier. The first part of my reasoning here is that, despite the fact that he hit just one home run in each of the season’s first two months, he did everything else so exceptionally well in May that he was still the No. 4 2B for the month. His batting line was a robust .355/.393/.458, he struck out just ten times while drawing eight walks, he swiped a couple bases, drove in 19 runs, etc.

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Agenda

1. Random Facts
2. Daily DFS
3. Tuesday Picks
4. Table

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Over the past two years Evan Gattis leads all catchers in home runs. His 32 is four better than the next behind him, former teammate Brian McCann. On top of Gattis leading in home runs, he has fewer plate appearances than any catcher that has even 18 homers. The Braves have been careful with Gattis after he received knee surgery in the offseason and has battled some wrist and sickness issues, so he has seen his plate appearances limited even more than the average catcher so far. Even so, Gattis has provided excess value both in real life and fantasy. To take a quick look at it, Gattis has now played in 147 games with 537 plate appearances and has 32 home runs and 89 RBI, albeit with a .245 average and .294 on base percentage
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