Roto Riteup: Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

– Unofficial crowdsourcing question: Will Dan Uggla be overvalued next season because of his hitting streak, or will he be undervalued because of his extremely slow start? You may not say he will be valued appropriately, because we all know that never happens.

– Granted, he’s only been back in the big leagues for a little over a week, but Justin Smoak seems to be hitting much better now that he’s healthy. He’s already raised his batting average ten points, and he’s hit a couple homers. A few days ago, the Smoak Monster went up and got a fastball from Luke Hochevar that caught the top of the strike zone, crushing into the right field seats. His hands didn’t look overly quick, but he clearly got around on it enough to hit a dinger.

– I hate the Diamondbacks’ organization for ruining Brandon Allen’s fantasy value. He was all set to be a monster in the NL West since he would have been playing over half his games in hitter friendly ballparks. Now, he’s stuck in Oakland, where his power will be dulled down to mere mortal status. I doubt Kevin Towers is an evil genius out to ruin my life, but I don’t doubt that he is a meanie and should be punished.

– It should come as no surprise that Chris Carpenter decided to stay in St. Louis for another couple of years, and that is good news for fantasy owners. St. Louis is still a great pitchers’ park, and as Carpenter ages, we may see him rely more on his ballpark to put up a good ERA. His 2011 has been nice, and it looks like he’s primed for another season with an ERA under 3.60 and a WHIP under 1.30.

A Pitcher for Today: Matt Harrison vs CLE
The Indians like to run out a lefty-heavy lineup, so Harrison could have an absolute field day.

A Pitcher for Tomorrow: Rich Harden vs LAA
Harden’s ERA hasn’t been real pretty this year, but he’s been a strikeout machine at times, and I’m going to do everything I can to get him when he pitches at home against a non-elite offense.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.

PickSix Lock of the Day: Matt Harrison ($.50) vs CLE
You’ll have to excuse me for double-dipping, America, but this is just too good to pass up. Were you aware? Now you’re aware.
Prediction: 6 IP, 2 BB, 9 K; 21 points
Last Week’s Results: 3 players, $72.50, 19 points





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

3 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Soam
14 years ago

Is the Matt Harrison thing a joke? Lefties hit .299 with a .808 OPS against him.