Roto Riteup: April 3, 2019
When you thought your team couldn’t get any more injured and then the Fantasy Gods look at you like:
Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! pic.twitter.com/BTYIAOULZe
— MLB GIFS (@MLBGIFs) April 3, 2019
On the Agenda:
1. Trades!
2. Various News and Notes
3. Streaming Pitching Options
Trades!
The San Francisco Giants acquired Kevin Pillar for Derek Law, Alen Hanson, and Juan De Paula. This is a strange trade from the Giants perspective as they are clearly in a rebuild and have little need for a light hitting defensive outfielder. A move from Rogers Centre to Oracle Park will do little to help his fantasy value outside of getting to hit higher in the Giants batting order. From the Blue Jays perspective, the get a raw lottery ticket in De Paula, who has decent stuff, but needs a lot of work. The Giants designated Michael Reed for assignment to make room for Pillar.
The Blue Jays also traded for Socrates Brito after was designated for assignment by the Padres. Brito may be able to stick with the Jays after they traded to Pillar. The Blue Jays also promoted Anthony Alford from AAA. Both Brito and Alford have had fantasy hype at points in their careers, but neither have been able to get more than hype. It will be interesting to see if either can carve out a role for themselves.
Various News and Notes
Anthony Swarzak was activated from the IL and came in and got the save against the Angels. Apparently the Mariners have decided to not to ease him into the closer’s role which gives us a good indication that they feel he is the guy moving forward. He should be picked up in most formats.
Trea Turner was removed from yesterday’s game after being hit on the hand while attempting to bunt. Yeah, I said it. He was trying to bunt. #NeverBunt. Following the game, the Nationals announced that Turner suffered a broken finger. The fracture is a non-displaced fracture which is a good thing. For now, Wilmer Difo will likely get the majority of action at shortstop, but we could see top prospect Carter Kieboom fairly quickly if this injury is serious.
Brandon Nimmo was removed from yesterday’s game after being hit on his left hand with a pitch. X-rays on the hand were negative following the game. He is considered day-to-day at this time.
Edwin Encarnacion is dealing with a sore hand and was a late scratch from the lineup on Tuesday. The team may have decided to give him some extra time as the team has a day off today. E5 has been one of the cooler members of the Mariners, starting off the season with one home run and a .238 average. If this injury turns into a longer term issue, Dan Vogelbach will be in line for more work.
A clearer timetable for Francisco Lindor is expected to be announced on Wednesday. Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote that the Indians expect that Lindor, who is dealing with calf and ankle issues, won’t return for at least three weeks. We should continue to get more clarity later today.
Streaming Pitching Options (Less than 50% owned)
Pitcher for Today: Matt Shoemaker vs BAL
I feel like I could get burned by this one, but Shoemaker looked good in his first start of the season and Baltimore is a team that can strike out a ton.
High Risk Option: Derek Holland @ LAD
Holland struggled in his first start of the season, but the Dodgers struggled against lefty Pomeranz on Monday (until he went full Pomeranz and gave up some bombs.) This could be an interesting stream, but there’s a bit of risk to it.
Pitcher for Tomorrow: Aaron Sanchez @ CLE
Sanchez looked good in his first start and gets a lackluster Cleveland team on the road.
High Risk Option: Tyler Mahle @ PIT
Mahle showed promise last season in spite of poor surface numbers and the Pirate lineup doesn’t scare me at all.
Justin is the co-host on The Sleeper and The Bust Podcast and writes for Rotographs covering the Roto Riteup as well as other periodic articles. In addition to his work at Rotographs, Justin is the lead fantasy writer/analyst and co-owner for FriendswithFantasyBenefits.com, and the owner of The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational. He is also a certified addiction treatment counselor. Follow Justin on Twitter @JustinMasonFWFB.
Here’s all a manager needs to know in regards to having his superstars bunt. Mike Trout in his breakout year of 2012, when he was leading off, attempted 6 bunts in his quest to get on base in any way possible. The Angels shut that down in 2013 and he hasn’t attempted a bunt since.
Don’t let your superstars attempt to bunt.
That’s a hard sell with a speed guy like Trea Turner. I mean sure, maybe bunt less often. Or better yet get better about keeping your hand out of the way…there wasn’t any kind of weird late movement on that pitch.
I can understand being okay with Dee Gordon bunting but not Turner, he has good power and doesn’t need to try that to get on base .
Bunting seemed to work for many decades and was practiced by the best players. It is a great play to move a runner over to second when you are playing for one run late in the game.Also is a good way for a left handed hitter to beat the shift rather than be a moron and ground out to the third baseman playing short right field. Good fundamentals matter and every player should be able to execute such a basic skill without maiming himself.
PS “Now get off my lawn!” I get it .. I sound like that guy🤬
most players don’t know how to bunt anymore because they are never asked to. and that’s because bunting is dumb and bad and never a good strategy. I’d rather a guy ground out into the shift 3 times out of 4 and get a real hit that 4th time, because one real hit is more valuable than 4 bunts.
Um, went a little too far there my friend. Bunting absolutely makes sense in some situations. the sabermetric take has always been that there are far fewer situations where it makes sense than teams used to do it. Pitchers bunting makes all the sense in the world. Even though it reduces your total run expectancy, bunting over men on 1st and 2nd actually increases your chances of scoring 1 run so it makes sense in some late game situations.
Funny, I was watching the Reds/Brewers game yesterday and Thom Brennaman and whoever the color commentator was were talking about bunting against the shift after Grandal tried it against the shift. The color guy said Craig Counsell had said guys would say they could do it 5 out of 10 times but COunsell thought it might be 3 of 10 and it isn’t worth it at 3 of 10. Brennaman started to argue that was a .300 batting average so it was a good play. 🙂 I think they kind of started to realize that they were leaving a lot of XBH on the table and then left it there when the action restarted. The other problem is all the walks you leave on the table. A .300 OBP would be terrible.
I think bunting is when you are tied, not down a run, correct? I.e down a run and bunting decreases likelihood of winning, but tied it doesnt as much?
Mets say Nimmo’s preliminary xrays was negative, but they’ll check him out again today so we’re not totally out of the woods yet. Hopefully Turner’s not out long but if he is they should call up Kieboom because Difo can’t hit water if he fell out of a boat. I would guess Robles gets moved up to the top of the lineup or at least he should.
I would love for Keiboom to get the call. That being said he has just AA experience but I remember another National last year that got the call with barely A level experience and that turned out pretty good… but Juan Soto’s don’t grow on trees.
Crap, you mean those Juan Soto tree seeds I purchased from a traveling salesman are frauds? Damn
Those seeds are fake. I have the real Juan Soto tree seeds if you want to buy them$😎
For today the big beneficiary is Dozier who has been moved from 7th to 2nd in the lineup. We’ll see if that holds going forward. . . .
Possible to make it so that when you click the “RotoGraphs” bar at the top of the page it takes you oto RotoGraphs and not the FanGraphs general site? I currently don’t know how to navigate to RotoGraphs without entering the address manually in the URL bar of my browser.
For now, under “Blogs” in the banner, you can find Rotographs.
Did not know that. Thanks.
I like that clicking on the banner takes you to the main page and not the individual blog pages. Just a difference of preference.
TL;DR on why the Giants traded for Pillar:
“Oh God we’ve lost 4K more STM’s already this year! We can’t say we’re rebuilding or we’ll lose even *more*. Quick, Farhan trade some roster clutter for an outfielder!”
“But I-”
“DO IT. Do it NOW.”
“*sigh* how do you feel about a light-hitting rental outfielder who’s got a great defensive rep but is now declining?”
“OMG, that just *screams* SFGiants, we’ll keep attendance up now!”