Roto Riteup: August 26, 2012

Apologies to the dear reader; this will be a bit of an abbreviated Roto Riteup. It being the weekend and all, I’m sure you understand. People over the internet are always the most caring and compassionate, right? Don’t answer that.

• Even though Brandon Belt won’t be used very much in the outfield in the wake of the Melky Cabrera fallout, that doesn’t matter much. Belt already has outfield eligibility and perhaps more importantly has been hitting recently. Over the past two weeks Belt has hit a robust .366 in 41 plate appearances. With regular playing time secured at first base, Belt deserves to be picked up. He is owned in less than 20% of ESPN and Yahoo! formats. I’d go grab him.

• Now that the massive Red Sox/Dodger trade is finished and the dust is settling, one man remains in the Boston outfield and has been producing this season. That man is Cody Ross. At the time of writing the Red Sox are in the the fifth inning against the Kansas City Royals and Ross already has a pair of hits and an RBI. I’ve said this several times in the recent past: go grab Ross. His ownership rate is just 42% of Yahoo! leagues and only about 65% of ESPN formats. Given his essentially guaranteed playing time combined with his production to date, Ross makes for an attractive late season addition.

• Justin Morneau had himself a 4-for-4 day at the plate yesterday, including a home run. He is up to 17 homers on the year now and seems like a very viable fantasy option. ESPN leaguers have already discovered this as his ownership rate there is a hair above 90%, but Yahoo! league players are still a little slow to come around. Morneau is owned in just 55% of Yahoo! formats.

• Another guy who the ESPNer’s are ahead of their Yahoo! counterparts is Josh Rutledge. ESPN has him at an acceptable 46% ownership rate whereas Yahoo! lags behind at just 32%. Rutledge hit his seventh home run of the season yesterday, in a pinch hit role of all things, and he is still crushing the ball in a variety of ways. Using the past two weeks numbers, Rutledge put up a .367 average with five RBI’s and five runs. As thin as shortstop and middle infield can be, I don’t see a reason not to own him.

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: Adam Wainwright at CIN
This is of course a pick for FanGraphs: The Game. I mean, unless you play in a league where Wain-o is available to stream or something wild, and that is the case, can I join your league?

A Pitcher for Tomorrow: Brett Anderson at CLE
I’m an A’s fan. I swoon over BA. That being said, he is an excellent pitcher and his post-TJ surgery showed no reason to be worried about him against a weak offense.

A Hitter for Today: Brett Jackson vs COL (Joulys Chacin)
Jackson (in a small sample size) has an excellent HR/FB ratio. Chacin on the other hand has a terrible HR/FB. I’ll roll the dice on Jackson here, despite his massive K%.