With the season heading into hair-pulling territory, especially for us head-to-headers in the middle of a playoff battle, nothing matters as much as the next matchup. So let’s look at this weekend’s best matchups in each statistical category, focusing on outfielders because they’re the easiest to find and the easiest to plug in. Good luck!
Jim Johnson has 42 saves. You own closers for saves. Ipso facto bingo blatto, Jim Johnson is an elite fantasy closer.
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Jim Johnson has 36 strikeouts in 58.1 innings. The average closer would have 65 strikeouts in that amount of innings. Ipso facto dingo datto, Jim Johnson is a poor fantasy closer.
I’m not having my best fantasy year — more on that another time — and so I found myself on the edge of my seat this last weekend, trying to make sure I made the playoffs in three leagues. (Two others I’m cruising in, and the remaining seven or so are roto). In one of the close head-to-head leagues, I was victorious and squeaked in on the last day. In another, I found out I had another week to make my case. And then there was that one. I won my weekly matchup 7-3 on the last week and felt good about it. The guy ahead of me in the standings lost his matchup 3-7. I went and did the math.
My team had a 118-98-4 record. His team had a 118-96-6 record. I was out, in the closest final standings situation I’d had in a head-to-head league.
Before I get cool story bro’ed, there’s more to this than just my fantasy team. There was at least one universal lesson hidden within all the pain.
One of the main products of the last big Adrian Gonzalez trade debuted for the Padres last night. Though he didn’t allow a run to the Braves in six innings, Casey Kelly’s first start was — much like the rest of his professional career to date — uneven with a chance of sunshine.
It’s like a mad lib! Alex Gordon is… sexy? Misunderstood? Pretty good with a chance of more? Not as good as last year? Better than this year? Let’s try something else. Let’s try to answer it with another name and find him a ‘fantasy comp.’
The trade, as it stands now, is Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto to the Dodgers for Jerry Sands, James Loney, Ivan DeJesus, Allen Webster and Rubby De La Rosa. We’ll have plenty of in-depth analysis over the coming days, but fantasy is often about speed, so let’s try to break down the “blink” style fantasy implications.
With the end of the season looming, it could be time for you to stream for steals. After all, a directed, focused attack on the leaderboard is all that’s going to work right now. There are categories that you won’t make any headway in. And if steals is one of the categories that is ripe with opportunity, picking the best matchups could net you what you need.
But there’s an easy way and a hard way. As there usually is. But in this case, the easy way may be just as good or better.
Last night, Sergio Romo’s slider wasn’t biting just right. Maybe the release point wasn’t quite right, but whatever happened, he didn’t get a whiff on any of his ten pitches. Since he’s shown a 15+% swinging strike rate over the last couple of years, that’s at least one short of a regular appearance.
But that doesn’t mean that his arsenal didn’t predict the end of the game. In fact, his arsenal, along with those of the two other heads in the Giants’ three-headed closer monster, should help us figure out what to do with the Giants bullpen in fantasy baseball.