Roto Riteup: April 1, 2015

Rather than go with some April Fool’s type thing, lets us instead observe the television classic “So It’s Come to This: A Simpson’s Clip Show.” This is the episode where Bart shakes up a can of Homer’s beer, and it is a particularly outstanding episode. You’ll need an existing cable subscription to view it, however.

On today’s agenda:
1. More bad news for Anthony Rendon
2. Drew Hutchison gets the Opening Day nod
3. The San Francisco Giants turn to Tim Lincecum

More bad news for Anthony Rendon
After first consulting with team doctors and then the famed Dr. James Andrews, Rendon and the Washington Nationals attempted to see Dr. Steven Singleton yesterday. Getting a third opinion is Rendon’s idea and not the team’s wishes for dealing with this probable knee sprain. Dr. Andrews concurred with team doctors regarding the knee sprain, and until the club reveals what their next step is no recovery timetable can be set. Expect to see Yunel Escobar gain third base eligibility — in addition to shortstop — as the Nationals have fully moved Ryan Zimmerman to first base. Don’t count on Yunel hitting close to the offensive output Rendon provides and it would be best to look to a different team’s third baseman while Rendon is on the disabled list.

Drew Hutchison gets the Opening Day nod
The Toronto Blue Jays have tabbed Hutchison as their starter to kick off the 2015 season. The 24-year-old Hutchison performed better than his 4.48 ERA indicated last season as his 3.82 xFIP and even better 3.59 SIERA show. In addition to his strong estimators, he posted a K/BB ratio near 3.00 and a great 10.8% swinging strike rate. Among 88 qualified starters, Hutch’s SwStr% rated 14th highest, just a tick behind Jeff Samardzija. Count on plenty of strikeouts and a good number of wins given the offense around Hutchison, but be careful as he is prone to giving up the long ball. Despite bouts of gopheritis, Hutch makes a great post-draft pickup — or late round pick — as he is owned in 58% of CBS formats, 56% of Yahoo! leagues and a mere 36% of ESPN leagues.

The San Francisco Giants turn to Tim Lincecum
While it isn’t a massive surprise, the Giants have named Lincecum as their fifth starter. At worst he is still a quality stream option, and Lincecum is actually very useful when pitching at home. Since 2012, he has allowed a wOBA at minimum 29 points lower at AT&T than on the road.

Some of the road starts happened at Coors Field and Chase, both notorious hitters parks, but the contrast is surprising. Again going back to 2012 (and with a minimum of 200 home innings) Lincecum’s .308 wOBA allowed ranks 54th out of 92 starters, perfectly adequate. Timmy may only be worth a late round flier, or even left to the waiver wire in shallow formats, but not utilizing his home park for your ratio and win potential would be overlooking a league average pitcher on the cheap.