One of my favorite things to do during the first couple months of the season is to scour other rosters and/or the wire for guys that are performing poorly fantasy-wise but have more projectable underlying peripherals. This happens with hitters (see Jason Heyward and his 0.091 BABIP this year) but I feel pitchers are a better target. It’s tougher to “see” a pitcher’s luck. You can watch a guy smash liner after liner to the left fielder, but even when a starter gives up five bloops over short, he gets tagged as “hit around.” So, while very early on, here are the top three big league starters sorted by ERA-FIP (as of last night). These guys have ugly, ugly raw lines after three starts but, hey, there’s reason for hope.

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• #LOLCubs. Remember those awful days last summer when we had to sit here and figure out who was the least terrible option between James Russell and Shawn Camp? Yeah, I trepanned myself, too. But apparently those days are here again after Kyuji Fujikawa hit the disabled list yesterday. Shawn Camp got first dibs on a save chance which meant he got to be the first to do his best Carlos Marmol impression. Well, I guess he didn’t walk the house, but he did give up  an earned run in the ninth to blow the save and then another three in the tenth to take the “L.” While he hasn’t been as bad as his (to date) 12.46 ERA indicates (.471 BABIP, 52.1% LOB%), he’s still not very good, with a career 4.35 SIERA and a paltry 15.9% K%.

As Ben pointed out in yesterday’s Bullpen Report, Russell may get the shaft as the lefty in the platoon, but his 17.8% K% and 3.79 SIERA isn’t blowing any doors off either. Expect the two to continue splitting opportunities based on handedness, but, honestly, I wouldn’t be bothered rostering them unless I was desperate for a couple saves. Even then, their ratios might hurt you more than the “SV” helps. Also keep in mind, that the longer the ninth inning is a problem post-Marmol, the closer Marmol himself comes to seeing save situations again. Try to erase that thought from your head.

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• After my post deadline last night, the Royals’ Kelvin Herrera racked up his fifth career save by striking out the side (around a lone hit) against Minnesota. Before anyone gets too excited, current Royals closer Greg Holland was getting a day off after a laborious 27-pitch save the night before and Herrera’s appearance did not signal a changing of the guard. While he had a solid 22.4% K% in 2012, Herrera’s stuff has been eye-popping during his few outings this season. His fastball velocity is down a tick, but he’s also thrown the pitch less and gone to his changeup a whopping 42.1% of the time. For comparison, he went straight offspeed only 27.2% of the time last season. His SwStr% on the changeup was 21% last season and is up to 33% so far this year, so getting ahead of hitters and pulling the string could mean a serious jump in strikeout rate.

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• Joel Hanrahan had a night to forget in Boston. Coming on with a two run lead, he gave up a leadoff shot to the red-hot Chris Davis and things only went downhill after that. A few walks and a wild pitch later and the save was blown, and that was still before Manny Machado jacked a three-run moonshot over the Green Monster to put a five-spot on the Red Sox closer. Hanrahan was great in 2010 and 2011 but suffered major regression last season, seeing his velocity dip (97.1 mph to 95.9 mph) and his walk rate soar (5.8% BB% to 14.2%). He hasn’t been good this year, either, with an 11.69 FIP (6.63 xFIP) through 23 batters faced. Even though his velocity is back up over 97 mph, the control continues to trend downward with his F-Strike% down another few percentage points from 2012’s career low.

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• It looks like it is over (again) for Carlos Marmol. For the second year in a row, he’s lost the ninth inning job in the Windy City after opening the season as closer, although it only took six games in 2013. Since 2010, Marmol has only trailed Craig Kimbrel, Kenley Jansen, and Aroldis Chapman in K% among big league relievers — certainly not bad company. Unfortunately, the fact that I do a better job hitting a target while playing darts after, let’s say, a few beers, is extraordinarily problematic for him. On the short season, Marmol’s K%-BB% is zero. Yup, he’s walking exactly as many batters as he’s whiffing, and you don’t need advanced metrics to tell you that’s bad.

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• Phil Coke got a second crack at closing a game for the Tigers but ended up being far less successful than he was in his first. After Joaquin Benoit walked Trevor Plouffe to start the ninth (never a good thing), Coke induced a fly out, but then gave up single, double to turn a 2-1 lead into a 3-2 loss. In his defense, the double really should have been caught had it not been for some outfield miscommunication, but it still wasn’t an effective outing by any metric. I have been bearish the past week on Coke’s potential given his .275/.346 versus LHH/RHH wOBA splits and this outing only underscores his platoon concerns (all of the baserunners who reached today were right-handed hitters). The walk was really Benoit’s lone blemish today, so he’s likely still an option in the ninth, although Jim Leyland could just as easily roll with Al Alburquerque or Octavio Dotel, too. Your best bet with this pen may be to just pick up one of the four, hold them on your bench for a little bit, and gamble on them picking up the hot hand. It feels like picking names out of a hat right now.

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Leagues with daily lineup changes can be a blessing or a curse. If you play in a league like a couple of mine — ones filled with old friends from college who cling to fantasy baseball as a tie to their more carefree days — you probably hear a lot of “Daily lineups? Ain’t nobody got time for that!” But to the right group of guys, daily leagues can be bliss, spurring constant motion within a team’s roster and keeping every engaged on an almost an hourly level. Total immersion. Leagues allowing daily moves also have another side benefit that many fantasy owners ignore. While it may take another five minutes of research per day, there are gains to be had by platooning certain hitters, just like their major league teams do. “Gluing” a few $4 players together and alternating them when they are against their dominant split could return as much as a “set it and forget it!” guy who went for $25. Here are a few options sitting around on benches or wires that could prove useful in the next few days.

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Night one is in the books! Only one game tonight, but hallelujah, baseball’s back! No blown saves or bullpen drama tonight, but the odds are that’s not going to be the case tomorrow!

• Drum roll, please. The season’s first save goes to… Erik Bedard? If I was a wittier Rotographs writer, I’d make some elaborate April Fool’s quip about rushing to your wire to pick up Bedard (maybe while messing around with the closer grid), but there’s a reason I’ll never be allowed to write for NotGraphs. Bedard piggybacked off starter Bud Norris; throwing 3 1/3 scoreless innings and satisfying the last option in MLB Rule 10.19 (a pitcher can earn a save by finishing a game effectively while pitching 3+ innings). Congrats to you if you backed into a “SV” while actually starting Bedard at the back end of your fantasy rotation. Don’t be offended that I’m taking the under on 0.5 saves the rest of the way, though.

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• Bruce Rondon was optioned to AAA Thursday, ending speculation as to whether the flamethrowing, but wild, 22-year-old was going to break camp as the Tigers closer. Rondon didn’t help his case by allowing 17 hits and nine walks in 12.1 innings this spring, but has a live enough arm that he should climb into the Tigers bullpen at some point (whether or not as closer remains to be seen).

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This is my first venture into the Rotographs “Bold Predictions” series and mainly I’m just hoping a big league general manager notices my predictive prowess and I rule baseball by August 2015. I will admit, I am a bit concerned I asked my Magic 8-Ball how spot on these prophecies were and I just got an f-bomb back in return. Oh well. Go big or go home.

Clay Buchholz will be a top-25 mixed league starter.

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