Alright, we went 3-for-4 with our Friday and Saturday streamers last week! Things are looking up after a rough first weekend. Let’s dive right in for this weekend’s potential streaming candidates, and look forward to an update on how that “stream quality” metric looks after we have another weekend to work with.

As usual, I aimed for a 50/25/15/5 percent ownership streamers to play to all league types. Unfortunately, it’s a terrible couple of days for streaming, so we’re going a little deeper (and therefore a little riskier) for these ones.

Jarrod Parker (35.5% owned) – I don’t feel great about this one, so if you’re going to avoid one of these, let this be it. But there aren’t many great options this weekend, and I’m going to give Parker one more chance to show us something, despite the 10.80 ERA and 2.66 WHIP. The Rays strikeout 20.5% of the time, slightly above this year’s league average, and have a terrible .277 wOBA so far which only rises to .282 against righties. The Rays aren’t much more potent than their state counterparts so far, it seems. Plus, Parker has far more talent than he’s shown in three starts – he’s walking a lot of guys and striking out very few, possibly due to pitch mix changes post-Tommy John and some trouble with his change-up. But I’m willing to give him one more chance. Call it the Eno Sarris Effect, I guess. Or the Chris Cwik Effect. Just don’t blame me, is what I’m saying.

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You probably know my deal by now. I am extremely patient. It takes a lot for me to change my valuation of a player. After three or so starts, not much is going to alter my views of a pitcher. Unless I see a significant change in velocity, pitch mix or rumblings of some sort of injury, I stick to my pre-season guns for the most part. So with that in mind, let’s take a look at a couple of American League starting pitchers making waves early on.

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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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It’s hard to remember Trevor Cahill is only 25 years old. After starting 32 games as a 21-year-old, Cahill established himself as a useful major-league starter. Like most 21-year-olds, he was hardly a finished product. Over the last four seasons, Cahill has steadily improved his game, the way most prospects his age might improve in the minors. But because Cahill has done it at the major-league level, he almost seems like a disappointment. That’s not the case, as Cahill has blossomed into an above-average starter. One of the biggest reasons for Cahill’s emergence has been his increasing strikeout rate. Last season, the development of a cutter helped Cahill strike out more hitters, leading to a career-high 3.0 WAR season. If his first three starts this year are any indication, Cahill’s cutter is going to be even more of a weapon this season.

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It’s true, it’s true. Wednesdays aren’t usually filled with excitement. But wait! It’s deep league waiver wire day and I am positive you have been waiting for this week’s edition since the second you finished reading last week’s. Today I look at two National Leaguers who may be able to help you in a deep mixed or NL-Only league, though they are both likely already owned in your standard NL-Only.

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How real is Paul Maholm’s start? The soft-tossing left-hander has not allowed a run to score in 20.1 innings while striking out over 25% of the batters he has faced so far. With a fastball velocity of 86.9 miles per hour, it is easy to expect the strikeout rate to drop and the ERA to subsequently rise. Even with those certainties, Maholm is still a better than thought of starting pitcher. He is essentially what Mark Buehrle was when he was Maholm’s age, a starter who will rely on command and deception to get hitters out, but Maholm has seen his strikeout rate steadily climbing over the past four years, from 12.1% to 14.1% to 17.8% and this year’s 25.3% rate.

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Chris Capuano | Los Angeles Dodgers | Home to San Diego on Tuesday

One man’s folly is another man’s fortune, right? Well the bizarre and unfortunate injury to Zack Greinke after the altercation with Carlos Quentin and the Padres gives Capuano the fifth spot in the Dodgers rotation. Had I been making decisions in LA, he might have had that spot this season to begin with.

Capuano is coming off two straight seasons in which he topped 180 innings and had an xFIP under 4.00. He displayed some serious skill in 2011 with an above average strikeout rate (21%), an above average walk rate (6.6%), and a solid xFIP of 3.60. Unfortunately he was a little unlucky with balls in play (.311 BABIP), and he let a few too many fly out of the park (1.31 HR/9) which led to a 4.55 ERA. But the next year he was basically luck-neutral (.284 BABIP, 1.13 HR/9), and his ERA fell to 3.72. His strikeout skills weren’t the same but were still slightly above average (19.8%), and his walk rate was equally good.

Capuano can obviously pitch, and I am glad to see him get the chance to start again, even if I wish it had come via less unfortunate circumstances. He’s got a good matchup at home against the Padres on Tuesday. He’s currently owned in just 2% of ESPN leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

Jarrod Parker has failed to make it out of the fourth inning in two of his three starts this season. After Sunday’s drubbing from the Detroit Tigers, it’s time to start wondering what’s wrong with the 24-year-old. Keep in mind that he’s only tossed 11.2 innings this year, so small sample caveats apply. But he’s also had time to work on improving over his last three starts and that hasn’t helped. Looking over his game logs, there’s some evidence that his best pitch from last season, hasn’t been much of a weapon in 2013.

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Relief pitchers who have starting pitcher qualifications are a valuable resource in leagues who have both starting pitcher (SP) and relief pitcher (RP) slots and daily moves. If a team can’t use all their starting pitcher slots on a particular day, a good SP qualified reliever can be used to help with rate stats and maybe holds. These type of pitchers have become so useful, they were effectively outlawed in Ottoneu because of a rules change (only pitchers starting can get stats for SP slots and non-starters can only get stats on the RP slots). Today I am going to look at few useful candidates to use with this strategy.

Truthfully, the list of ideal candidates are slim this year. I far as I could tell, no SP qualified pitcher is currently a full time closer or set up man. A few fall into the category of middle relief, but most are long relievers. Here is a quick look at some of the better option in 2013.

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Between 2008-2011, Tim Lincecum was arguably the best pitcher in baseball. He won back-to-back Cy Young Awards in 2008 and 2009, while posting four-consecutive seasons with at least 200 innings pitched. And in three of those seasons, he featured an ERA under 2.75.

In short, he was dominant. He earned the nickname “The Freak” and became a media darling across the country. His face was seemingly plastered on the cover of ESPN the Magazine or Sports Illustrated every other week, and SportsCenter did numerous featurettes on him throughout the baseball season.

All of the praise and attention was certainly deserved. Only Cliff Lee compiled a better FIP (2.79) than Lincecum’s 2.81 FIP amongst qualified starters in those four seasons, and the right-hander also had the fourth-lowest ERA (2.81).

That’s why it seems so awkward to say the following: fantasy owners should flat-out avoid Tim Lincecum.  There, I said it.

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