Today’s Roto Riteup is a Jack of all trades, but a master of none.
• With Kyle Farnsworth being transferred to the 60-day DL, Fernando Rodney’s hold on the job only grows stronger. Rodney has been shockingly great this year, which could be due to magic voodoo or his increased reliance on his two-seam fastball. I still don’t have the utmost confidence in Rodney, but I’d feel pretty good if I owned him right about now.
• After sucking the life out of Detroit’s lineup for the past couple of years, Brandon Inge has somehow managed to find a starting job in Oakland after passing through waivers. If you pick Inge up in any league, you probably aren’t someone who reads RotoGraphs.
I’m not going to compete with fellow contributor David Weirs when it comes to the number of bullet points. Tenure is a beautiful thing.
• After early struggles, Angels’ closer Jordan Walden has lost his title, at least for the time being. Walden’s role will be handed over to left-hander Scott Downs while the 24-year-old flamethrower rights the ship. Walden’s issue has been his control, and he’s fallen behind to more batters than he’s gotten ahead of. Walden’s velocity has also been off a touch, but he’s still throwing 97 mph with his fastball, so it’s really nothing to worry about. Don’t drop Walden yet, as he can be far too dominant to give up on.
In order to one-up Zach, I bring you 5, yes five bullet points today for the Roto Riteup today:
• Now to add to Zach’s Roto Riteup yesterday, after Carl Crawford visited Dr. James Andrews it was discovered that Crawford has a sprained ulnar collateral ligament. His recovery is supposed to be played out in phases, and phase one is a suspension of all baseball related activities. A possible 3 month downtime was discussed, but Crawford maintains that he’ll be back sooner than that. Boston fans and fantasy owners are most assuredly upset and frustrated at Crawford for his struggles last year and injury this year. I was optimistic of his ability to bounce-back, but a quality 2012 bounce-back is looking less and less likely. Expect his ranking to plummet on Monday.
• Ryan Zimmerman missed yesterday’s start. It has now been six days (probably seven today) since he saw any game action. He’s been held out of the lineup due to shoulder inflammation, specifically in his throwing AC joint. The most likely scenario at this point is a cortisone shot and a DL stint retroactive to April 20th. After missing most of April and all of May of last season with an abdomen injury, Zimmerman still can’t quite shake the injury bug. If you can find the (potentially) disgruntled Zimmerman owner in your league, I would e-mail them an offer. When healthy, Zimmerman is a top three third basemen. Read the rest of this entry »
Today’s Roto Riteup is back in full, so that’s sort of cool.
• Chris Narveson has now undergone season-ending surgery on his left shoulder. Narveson was never a fantasy stud, but he was a good candidate for wins and a few strikeouts in NL-only leagues. Narveson may now be out in Milwaukee, depending on what happens with free agents to be Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum. Even if you have him cheap in a very deep dynasty league, I’d cut bait.
Today’s Roto Riteup is shortened, because meetings are a real bitch.
• Hideki Matsui is going to be signing a minor league deal with the Tampa Bay Rays, if sources are to be believed. Matsui is going to be relying on a major-league injury to force his way into the lineup, but you should keep him on your radar just in case something bad goes down.
• Adrian Beltre has a strained hamstring, but it’s not as bad as last year’s injury that kept the star third-baseman on the bench for more than a month. Beltre has started off hot, but injuries are always a concern with the slugger. Be sure to have a backup plan in place just in case this becomes serious.
• Yes, Yu Darvish held a high-powered Detroit offense to one run in 6.1 innings. Yes, he struck out five guys and only allowed seven baserunners. It’s too bad that five of those baserunners were walks. Control like that is going to hurt him in the long run, if only because it will keep him from racking up longer outings and TeH WiNZ. From watching him, it seems like he has decent control, but that something is still off. Maybe it’s getting used to the new strike zone. Maybe it’s a mechanical issue. It’s tempting to say we know what Darvish is — another nibbler from the NPB — but even the complete sample of pitchers that have come to America from that league is small. And three starts certainly isn’t enough to condemn him. It might be interesting, if you have a fungible hot-starting pitcher (Matt Harrison, Kyle Lohse and Barry Zito come to mind), to attempt a buy-low that won’t hurt you if it goes wrong.
• Last night Bartolo Colon held the Los Angeles Angels to 4 base runners over the course of eight frames while striking out five. Colon hasn’t had a SwStr% that was within 2% of the league average since 2005, but nonetheless has managed to post strikeout rates that approach average. Don’t expect him to start fanning eight batters every time he takes the mound, but he limits the walks and keeps the ball in the park. He’s owned in less than one fifth of Yahoo! leagues. He’s a very handsome streaming option. And yes, that is the first time that someone other than his wife has called Colon “handsome” in quite some time.
• Jayson Werth has seemingly put his struggles of 2011 behind him. Though his nine game hitting streak came to an end yesterday, he did have an RBI and a stolen base after one of his two walks. Though he is yet to rediscover his home run swing, Werth does have three doubles and one triple already. The stolen base yesterday was the first of 2012, I think Werth still has the power and speed to go 25-20. Looking at his current Pitch f/x plate discipline, Werth is swinging at less pitches outside the zone and more pitches in the zone. Essentially his discipline has reverted back to what is was in 2010, and that is a good sign for fantasy owners. I’d look to buy low on whomever is currently owning him. Read the rest of this entry »
