More Streaming Options for Stolen Bases

I covered matchups last week for some players who run often and aren’t full-timers but aren’t purely pinch runners. For fantasy baseball players who are lagging in the SB category but could gain substantial ground in it in the season’s final few weeks, such possibilities may be appealing. The return on this kind of investment is probably not great, as mentioned, but the forecasts can be pretty simple. Again, the greater challenge for a batter is to reach base, not to steal one.

First, there might be some players in your league’s free-agent pool who are more appealing than the streaming plays, however. (Ownership percentages are in parentheses.)

Naturally, the week that Anthony Gose, listed as a potential streamer last week, becomes a pseudo-regular, he doesn’t attempt a stolen base. Karl de Vries went over Gose’s appeal on Tuesday.

David Wiers noted yesterday that Alejandro De Aza (CBS, 20%; Yahoo!, 20%; ESPN, 19.0%) has been playing against right-handers, basically since the Baltimore Orioles acquired him. He runs a little and hits for a bit of power, and he’s on the good side of a platoon there.

Similar production is possible from A.J. Pollock (CBS, 30%; Yahoo!, 18%; ESPN, 7.4%). Ben Duronio, on Tuesday, urged fantasy owners to search for the Arizona Diamondback’s name because it seems that few have reacted to the outfielder’s return from a broken hamate bone earlier this month. Pollock could play every day again, but it seems as if Kirk Gibson hasn’t been willing to run him out there so often yet and doesn’t need to do so.

Fantasy owners seem to have caught on to the streaking Gregor Blanco (CBS, 18%; Yahoo!, 14%; ESPN, 38.8%), who runs occasionally.

Rusney Castillo (CBS, 27%; Yahoo!, ?%; ESPN, ?%) could join the Boston Red Sox as soon as this weekend.

The Detroit Tigers have played Andrew Romine (CBS, 1%; Yahoo!, 0%; ESPN, 0.5%) at shortstop lately. Eugenio Suarez is healthy, but manager Brad Ausmus said he’s elected to write Romine’s name on the lineup card because of the quality of switch hitter’s glove and (I have to assume only relatively speaking) his hot bat. How long will this last? No idea. Romine has speed, but he hasn’t reached base often enough to use it a lot.

Again, for the matchup players, I tried to determine which parts of the calendar appear to be most advantageous in terms of thefts. Schedules for the couple of repeated players are for the week of games beginning on Monday, Sept. 15; last week’s analysis was comprised of 11 days’ worth of estimates in order to get on this timetable for the sake of waiver periods and weekly lineup deadlines. The newbie includes the upcoming weekend. Relevant statistics, in parentheses, are since the first post.

I stated last week that all my streamer recommendations were of players in the American League because they were all I noticed in a brief survey. I overlooked a possibility in the Senior Circuit, however.

2B/3B/OF Emilio Bonifacio, Atlanta Braves

(11 PA, 0 SBA, 0 SB) | @TEX (3), WSN (3), NYM (3)

The visit to the Texas Rangers may get Bonificio into the lineup three times. Colby Lewis and Scott Baker are enticing, doubly so if Tomas Telis does the squatting. Derek Holland isn’t as good a matchup, but Telis would temper that. You may want to pass on the Washington Nationals series, however; Stephen Strasburg appears to offer the best bet. The New York Mets’ Travis d’Arnaud is beatable, but in that set the club will likely be throwing its three best controllers of the running game. The weekend is promising; next week, less so.

OF Craig Gentry, Oakland Athletics

(14 PA, 0 SBA, 0 SB) | skip, TEX (3), PHI (3)

I pointed out that Gentry had been facing a difficult stretch for multiple reasons. It gets better next week, somewhat. Oakland will see RHPs until Derek Holland, who isn’t a great matchup. Throw that out if Telis is behind the plate, though. The A’s are at home against the Philadelphia Phillies. Pro: Runners can victimize David Buchanan and, surely, A.J. Burnett. Con: All the Phils’ starters in that series are likely to be RHPs. Updated: Unfortunately, how quickly Gentry returns from a concussion obviously affects his availability to take advantage.

OF Jarrod Dyson, Kansas City Royals

(6 PA, 1 SBA, 0 SB) | skip, CHW (3), DET (3)

Lorenzo Cain appears to be back to near full-time duty, especially given that KC faced all RHPs in the past week. The ChiSox have two left-handers scheduled, and one of them is the elite – including versus the running game – Chris Sale. Edited: The best SB date the Detroit Tigers offer may be against Kyle Lobstein, a soft-tosser, but he’s left-handed. RHP Justin Verlander isn’t bad, but Motown catchers are good, and the matchup really loses steam when it gets to Max Scherzer. It doesn’t look great … so watch Dyson take three bases next week.

Los Tigres have been deploying Don Kelly as Rajai Davis’ foil in center field, leaving Ezequiel Carrera, a streamer rec last week, holding the bag, not swiping it. Given that news, the speedster’s solitary steal from the past week – in a pinch-run appearance – ain’t bad. If this continues, and it might, then Carrera is just one of those bench players who pinch runs.

That’s basically Jimmy Paredes’ role. He was another rec last week but lost his PT, as expected, once Steve Pearce returned from abdominal soreness this past weekend.

Jake Marisnick, Tyler Holt and Daniel Robertson have been playing a couple of days a week. Their prowess as base-stealers isn’t top-level, unfortunately. The problem for Robertson (four steals in attempts and 169 plate appearances) has been efficiency, so if he doesn’t start to receive red lights, then his lack of discernment could come in handy, sort of.