Roto Riteup: August 15, 2012

Did you see last night’s popular television program on the popular television network? Because the author of today’s Roto Riteup didn’t.

• Roberto Hernandez — a.k.a. Fausto Carmona — is scheduled to start tonight against the Los Angeles Angels. Shaking off the big league rust against Albert Pujols, Mike Trout, and Mark Trumbo isn’t exactly a prescription for success.

• Ryan Dempster hasn’t had it easy since moving from Chicago to Texas — what with the heat and the need to face a DH — and his numbers reflect this fact. While strikeout percentage is up 0.01%, Dempster is walking more batters and has gotten killed by the home-run ball. Part of Dempster’s problem is bad luck, but no one can say they didn’t expect some of this to happen.

• You know who else needs to go back to the NL? Anibal Sanchez, that’s who! Since coming over to the Tigers, Sanchez has a .400 BABIP and an ERA around eight. Sanchez has had problems getting hitters to swing and miss while in Detroit, even though his velocity is up over a mile per hour.

• With Mike Carp headed back to the DL, it’s Justin Smoak’s chance again in Seattle. Smoak hit .189 with 13 homers before heading to the minors at the end of July. During his time in the minors, Smoak didn’t hit a single homer and batted a mere .242 over 20 games of work. Smoak is 25 years old, has a .292 career wOBA in over 300 MLB games, and is at his last rope. Even though the Mariners aren’t done with him, you should be; his fantasy value is non-existent.

• With that in mind, there’s some talk that Jesus Montero could move over to first base some time in the not too distant future. There’s not much in the way of internal options at first, and the Mariners are going to get more from Montero if he can actually play a position in the field. Montero’s catcher eligibility is the most important part of his fantasy value, but it’s better he end up at first base than only have UTIL eligibility to his name.

For those of you who play daily fantasy games like FanGraphs: The Game, or just like to stream players, here are a couple matchups you may be able to exploit.

A Pitcher for Today: Bud Norris at CHC
Norris isn’t a safe option, but he should pick up some strikeouts today.

A Pitcher for Tomorrow: Kris Medlen vs SDP
Medlen has been dynamite in the rotation, and it’s the Padres.

A Hitter for Today: CWS at TOR (Ricky Romero)
Romero has had big-time troubles this year, and Toronto is an unforgiving venue.





Zach is the creator and co-author of RotoGraphs' Roto Riteup series, and RotoGraphs' second-longest tenured writer. You can follow him on twitter.

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Stuck in a slump
11 years ago

Start Tillman vs Red Sox in Baltimore tonight?

MLBPlayerAnalysis
11 years ago

I’m not going to start him. It’s actually *tomorrow* that he starts though, as Miguel Gonzalez is scheduled to go tonight. In fact, while I picked him up right away and have been happy with the results so far, I’m not sure I’ll be able to use him at all the ROS.

His average fastball velocity has dropped in each start, from 95MPH against Seattle the first time down to 91MPH against Seattle six starts later. Actually, I see he improved slightly in his last start, which is nice at least.

But projecting his starts the ROS, he gets BOS, @TEX, CHW, @NYY, NYY, TB, @SEA, @BOS, BOS. Yikes! Okay maybe I’ll start him in Seattle 🙂

Stuck in a slump
11 years ago

Yeah, after I wrote this I realized I could look up his velocity in his game log, and I’m kinda regretting the decision to drop Dave Cooper.

Though, in his last outing he did have a slight up tick of 1.5 MPH, though it’s still down by more than 2 MPH. He’s only pitched about 6 IP less this season than last, perhaps it’s simply dead arm that he can work through? Definitely coming down with buyer’s remorse.