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After picking six for over 20 days straight, I’ve won one day. One stinking Bobby Valentine. Perhaps I’m not the best person to turn to for strategy in this particular game. I’ll offer it up anyway.

Mimicking my general fantasy strategy, I’ve been pushing money away from pitching. There are so many good matchups every day, why not find a good, cheap pitcher against a terrible offense? Last night, I chose a $17.75 Shaun Marcum (at home against New York), but that’s about the most expensive I’ll go for a starter. I was severely tempted by a $10.75 Daniel Hudson in Pittsburgh, and even Jonathan Sanchez at home against the Nationals made sense at $6.25 (or his opponent, the $3.50 Jordan Zimmermann). Don’t spend on starting.

If you are not going to spend on starting, there’s really no reason to spend on relieving. If a starter is no guarantee to perform on any given night, at least he’s guaranteed to show up and, you know, play. The ottoneu Dark Lord Niv Shah was kind enough to give me the points per position in the Pick Six game so far. Clearly, relievers are the red-headed step-children of the game.

After all that blabbing about not paying for pitching, it might be surprising to see that starting pitchers have the best number in this table. But the point wasn’t that pitchers are not worth spending money on, the point was that there were plenty of bargains. Niv is nothing if not eminently bug-able – he graciously gave me the points per dollar spent for each position.

Ah-hah. So, even just by groping my way through the dark with intuition instead of the numbers in front of me, it looks like I stumbled onto a viable strategy. Spend where you get the most return for your dollar: non-catcher offense.

Oh, and while you are at it, join a group! Now Pick Six has groups so that you attract like-minded players easily. Oh, and with groups you might be able to put a little friendly gummy-bear wager on the thing. If you like gummy bears or whatever. I’m in #PraiseBeltran and I started RotoGraphRegulars. Pimp your group here if you want others to join in!

Third Base has been a scramble for most owners this season. The position has been riddled with injury and ineffectiveness all season long and it has sent many owners to their respective waiver wires for help. Below I’d like to quickly highlight some guys who have returned from fantasy irrelevancy in part because of their recent production and in part because of just how God-awful the position has been thus far. In deeper leagues, they’re probably already on a roster, but their ownership rates right now suggest that there are plenty of teams that might need their services.

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These speedy outfielder dudes should be rostered in leagues in which they should be rostered, know what I mean?

Nyjer Morgan (Yahoo 11% owned, ESPN 7.1% owned)
Say what? What did Nyjer Morgan do to you to deserve these low ownership rates? Yes, he’s a little… excitable. Yes, he has an inflated BABIP (.465) that will return to earth. Yes, he has some plate discipline problems (4.4% BB, 25.4% K). Yes, this power he’s showing right now (.237 ISO) is not real when looked at in the context of his career numbers (.084 ISO). Oh, and yes, he’s a lefty with a poor platoon split so far in his career (.574 career OPS versus LHP in 300 at-bats) that might be platooned with Carlos Gomez in the outfield (.663 OPS versus LHP in 467 at-bats). All those things are true. Also true are the facts that Morgan has good speed. He has a strong enough glove to ignore some of his offensive faults. And Morgan is no offensive sinkhole like Gomez. Lastly, being able to play righties is much more important than playing lefties. There are more of them! Morgan should easily out-produce his ZIPS projection for plate appearances the rest of the way (287 plate appearances), given that two-thirds of the season remains and he should start in at least two-thirds of those games. Even with his plate discipline problems, Morgan mostly puts the ball on the ground and uses his speed to put up decent batting averages. Expect him to manage at least .280 in that category. This is one of those flawed real-life players that should be owned in most leagues that have twelve or more teams.

Eric Young Jr. (Yahoo 6% owned, ESPN 6.6% owned)
Amid rumors of a possible demotion headed his way, Dexter Fowler was instead disabled this weekend. A strained left abdominal muscle means that he’ll be out at least two weeks and a couple of interesting names will get some burn. First in line is Eric Young Jr, who has the wheels of his father but maybe not the infield glove. Now, with center field open, he’ll likely play every day and rack up the steals. His lack of power and line drives, and average-ish strikeout rate, mean that he won’t likely have a batting average even as nice as Nyjer Morgan’s, so he’s more of a deep-leaguer. The second-base eligibility is icing on the cake. Keep an eye out for Charlie Blackmon, too. He’s raking in the minor leagues (.346/.402/.582) and is a long-time NERD high-scorer. He’s probably more of a natural center fielder, and the team could play both him and Young if they want to avoid playing Ty Wigginton or Jonathan Herrera on any given day.

There has been a lot of shared pain at third base this season. We’re to a point where manning third base is like trying to find a reliable bat for the extra middle infielder slot: there are only a handful available and those who have, hold tight. There were several players many owners were relying on to emerge as useful fantasy regulars, and while the majority of those names haven’t lived up to expectations, there have been a couple guys contributing in surprising ways to help fill injury or ineptitude gaps.

When updating rankings back in May, my general feeling was that we ought not be too quick to throw players under the proverbial bus or to crown new kings after 100 at bats. But today, the gloves come off so to speak as there are some major moves up and down the third base tiers a third of the way through the season.

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Two days ago we updated our closer rankings, so now it’s time to turn our attention to the guys setting them up. If you’re reading this site, then chances are you understand that the setup guys often pitch in the biggest spots of the game, only to be rewarded with a silly little hold. Unfortunately those don’t mean much at the negotiating table. A number of these guys have big time value because they throw a lot of innings (more than a typical closer) with elite peripherals and ERA. Here are the May rankings for reference.

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If there’s one player I never thought I’d be writing a waiver wire post about, it’s Brent Lillibridge. When you have a .194/.253/.298 triple slash line in 298 PA’s coming into this season there’s little reason to. Even his Triple-A numbers aren’t very good. Yet, somehow, here we are.

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I’m ready.

It took me ~230 plate appearances, but I’m ready. Like most of you I was skeptical in the beginning. That’s evident in the lack of articles written about Cabrera’s amazing start. There’s only been one and it was written 12 days into the season, and it wasn’t on RotoGraphs. That’s my fault. I cover shortstops for this site, but up until now I wasn’t sure how to properly address the situation.

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Middle relievers have to bring a lot to the table to be worth a fantasy roster spot, even in holds leagues. Keeping the ERA and WHIP down isn’t enough anymore, and anyone with a mediocre strikeout is at a natural disadvantage. There’s almost always someone else available that can help you just as much in the other categories while contributing more whiffs. Let’s take a look through the reliever strikeout leaderboard and pick out the non-closers who have struck out more than a batter per inning this year (min. 20 IP) …

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