Seeing that it was a lazy Sunday without much in the way of majorly impactful news, today’s Roto Riteup looks into the little things.

On today’s agenda:
1. Various news and notes
2. Streaming Pitcher Options

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Episode 224

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Jason Collette discuss the news related to T.J. House, Desmond Jennings, Zack Cozart, Blake Swihart, Billy Burns, Dilson Herrera, Miguel Castro, Drew Hutchison, Evan Gattis, Stephen Vogt, Nate Karns, Chase Anderson, Brett Anderson, Julio Teheran, Sonny Gray, Trevor Plouffe, and Craig Kimbrel.

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Jordan Walden was placed on the 15 DL by the Cardinals on Sunday morning. He’d pitched only once in the past nine games. Sam Tuivailala has been recalled from Memphis to fill the hole in the pen. He’s had a WHIP of 1.00 and struck out 12 in nine innings as the closer for the Redbirds. I don’t think it makes a big pile of sense to run out and grab him, because Tyler Lyons will be activated on Tuesday, and Tuivailala is likely going back to Memphis to make that happen. Seth Maness and Matt Belisle will likely be leaned on a little more to help set up Trevor Rosenthal, with Kevin Siegrist spotting in against lefties, like he did today coming in for Belisle to face Pedro Alvarez with two outs in the eighth. Rosenthal had pitched on Friday and Saturday and in three of the last four, so there was zero chance of him coming in for a four-out save after Siegrist walked Alvarez to bring up Jordy Mercer. With Mitch Harris warming in the pen, and Tuivailala sitting on a bench, Siegrist fanned Mercer. The Cards are in the midst of a stretch of 20 straight days with no off days, and the pen is going to need all hands on deck. The 14 inning game may necessitate another move tomorrow to get a fresh arm in the Cards pen. Tuivailala pitched two innings and Rosenthal pitched his third day in a row(giving up a homer to Jung-Ho Kang in the process). You would have to think that neither of them would be available Monday.

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The Roto Riteup is the unanimous victor of the 7:15 and 10:15 am time slot.

On today’s agenda:
1. Corey Kluber’s “cold” start
2. Injury Updates in Tampa Bay
3. Various news and notes
4. Streaming Pitcher Options

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It was another bleak week, as my selections last time around got peppered pretty good their first time out. As a result, we’re back to where we started after week one. That’s OK, it’s a marathon, not a race, right? On the bright side, we finally are moving past the Minnesota Twins-level strikeout rates, though we’ve brought the K/BB down and the WHIP up with it. We’ll get there friends, I am confident.

Here are the totals through half of week three:

4-7 record
4.89 ERA
6.0 K/9
2.1 K/BB
1.33 WHIP

Here’s a look at this week’s recs, with team wOBA in parentheses. Y! recs pulled courtesy of twitter pal @Adams_Steve, who is one of the great folks over at MLB Trade Rumors whom you should definitely follow:

RHP Travis Wood – 26.2% ESPN/23% Y! – @STL (.318), @MIL (.276)

The Milwaukee matchup is killer for Wood, as the Brewers have the No. 29 offense in terms of wOBA. Even with Carlos Gomez coming back, it’s an offense that is hitting .225/.276/.347 and is taking virtually no walks (5.5%). I’ll take my chances there. The Cardinals could be pretty tough on the front end, as they have a top-10 offense wOBA-wise — like always — and are doing so with a pretty balanced team triple-slash of .268/.335/.393. On his own, Wood has been really good, fanning just under 10 batters per nine innings with an improved walk rate and FIP numbers that generally back up his 3.04 ERA. The strand rate is a bit high and he’s fly ball heavy, so that could lead to him being somewhat blowup prone, but I think there’s enough intrigue to stream him here. Maybe even hold onto him if you see a little bit more this week. Read the rest of this entry »

Brad Boxberger struck out the side and collected his sixth save on the season for the Rays. He did it in a rather interesting fashion, with eight of his nineteen pitches being curveballs. According to Brooks Baseball, he’s only thrown the curve 3.33% of the time this season. He only threw the change once on Friday, after having used it over 40% of the time up to this point. Three weapons for Boxberger just isn’t fair.

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This morning’s Roto Riteup welcomes you to the first Saturday in May, which just may be the greatest sports down of 2015.

On today’s agenda:
1. Welcome to the majors: Blake Swihart
2. Daniel Norris down, Marco Estrada to rotation
3. Various news and notes
4. Streaming Pitcher Options

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Agenda

1. Three Minor Leaguer Catchers
2. Daily DFS – Sanchez, de la Rosa
3. GB / FB Splits
4. Tomorrow’s Targets – Gee, Fister, Forsythe, Iglesias
5. Factor Grid

 
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I will continue to implement player grading on the scouting scales of 20-80. I will use Kiley McDaniels scale he discussed in this article.

I will give a value for where I think the pitcher could currently fit in on the average team (CV=current value) and where they could end up (FV=future value). I am sure I will disagree with some grades from others, but I am only looking at one game.

Note: If I say a pitch moves 11-5, it is from the pitcher’s perspective.

Michael Lorenzen (CV: 50/FV: 60)
4/29/15 vs Brewers

Game Thoughts
• This game was the 23-year-old righty’s first MLB start.
• His fastball was 93-95 mph with either no break or just a bit on the release side. It was his only called strike pitch of the night. He nibbled with it around the zone seeing a ton of full counts. Also, he got too much of the plate at times with it thereby giving up three homes.
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Welcome back to “Scheming for Relief.” Again this week we’re looking to for a handful of players that you could slot into your relief pitcher slots in holds or solds (saves + holds) leagues, but this week we’re going to dig a little deeper. Knowing that most standard leagues may not value holds or solds (holds + saves), I looked for players owned in one percent or less in both the Yahoo! and ESPN games.

To qualify for the chart relievers needed at least five appearances, at least one hold, a K%-BB% greater or equal to 10%, an ERA under 4.00 and a WHIP under 1.50.

As always, I’ll list ownership in both Yahoo! and ESPN, simply because those are the outlets I frequent the most.

Here’s three of the names that search uncovered that we have yet to speak about and could be available in your leagues:

Evan Scribner | Athletics | 1% Y!, .1% E
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