Roto Riteup: March 27th, 2012

Today’s Roto Riteup isn’t nearly as exciting as FanGraphs: The Game, which you should totally acquaint yourself with.

–  Baseball starts tomorrow morning! Can you believe it? Don’t forget to set your lineups in anticipation of the Seattle Mariners’ matchup against the Oakland A’s in Japan.

–  Marco Scutaro may not be the sexiest player in the world, but he deserves to be owned in more than the 23% of Yahoo! leagues in which he is currently employed. How many shortstops can manage to hit .290-plus while batting ahead of run producers like Troy Tulowitzki, Carlos Gonzalez and Todd Helton? Not many. If you decide you don’t want to spend on a shortstop, nab Scutaro later to help raise your average (or OBP) while contributing a good number of runs.

–  Johnny Giavotella may have been sent to the minors, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have value in dynasty or large AL-only keeper leagues that count batting average over OBP. Giavotella has shown good bat control in the minors, having never posted a K% over 11.3%, and there’s a good chance he manages to hit for a good batting average in the majors. Giavotella isn’t being blocked by anyone special, and if he continues to hit over .320 in the minors, it’s going to be hard for Dayton Moore and Co. to keep the good man down.

–  The Nationals have now made it clear that left-hander John Lannan will be their fifth starter to open the season. Lannan has a career 4.00 ERA through 751 innings of work, but the 27-year-old’s K/BB ratio is going to scare aware some saber-savvy owners. Lannan isn’t a bad last starter in NL-only leagues thanks to a nifty infield defense complementing his GB%.

A Pitcher For Today: n/a

A Pitcher For Tomorrow: Brandon McCarthy
Odds are that McCarthy is owned in your league, but he’s the less likely to be owned than Felix Hernandez.