The Daily Grind: Aumont, Bettis, Hechavarria

Agenda

1. 98 With Movement
2. Daily DFS – Aumont
3. GB / FB Splits
4. Tomorrow’s Targets – Bettis, Lohse, Norris, Hechavarria
5. Factor Grid

1. 98 With Movement

For those of you who don’t regularly participate in the social experiment known as Twitter, you’re not missing much. If you were to carefully curate a list of the 400 best personalities in baseball, you’ll still mostly read play-by-play from people who assume you’re watching their game. However, the occasional gem shines through. Behold.

98 with movement pic.twitter.com/zBjBSLlas9

— Forbes to Federal (@ForbesToFederal) June 19, 2015

Woof. The initially trajectory looks like it’s heading towards the catcher’s cup. Then the ball decides of it’s own accord to fly free and clear. That’s perhaps the filthiest fastball I’ve seen this season.

2. Daily DFS – Aumont

Yesterday’s Grind

The Phillies will start Phillippe Aumont. He’s the final piece remaining from when the club traded Cliff Lee to Seattle. Aumont has long possessed major league quality stuff, but his command has never taken a step forward. He prefers to start although it doesn’t really show up in his numbers. He had a 2.35 ERA in 14 Triple-A appearances with 8.03 K/9, 5.68 BB/9, and a 4.04 FIP. I half expect a patient Cardinals offense to knock him out of the game before the end of the fourth inning. If it comes to that, the Phillies bullpen is one of the weakest in the league.

Stack Targets: Marco Estrada, Mike Wright, Nate Karns, Dan Haren, Mike Leake, Matt Wisler, Colby Lewis, Yohan Pino, Phil Hughes, Taylor Jungmann, Jorge de la Rosa, Rubby de la Rosa, Roenis Elias

3. GB / FB Splits

The following hitters are recommended based on the works of Shane Tourtellotte and Dan Fansworth. They show ground ball hitters perform better against fly ball pitchers and vice versa. Using three-year values for hitter OPS and pitcher GB%, here are today’s top recommendations. Use this link for Jeff’s full list.

We have 35 names for ya today. My favorites are below.

Adam LaRoche, Geovany Soto, Jose Abreu, Adam Eaton, and J.B. Shuck vs Colby Lewis
Brayan Pena, Joey Votto, and Jay Bruce vs Dan Haren
Carlos Santana vs Nate Karns
Carlos Gomez vs Jorge de la Rosa
Adam Jones and Manny Machado vs Marco Estrada
Dexter Fowler vs Phil Hughes

4. Tomorrow’s Targets – Bettis, Lohse, Norris, Hechavarria

Pitchers to Start: I’m not sure I’ve ever considered streaming somebody at Coors Field. Chad Bettis will face the hapless Brewers. Bettis has 7.89 K/9, 2.70 BB/9, and a 3.74 ERA on the season. He handled the Phillies with aplomb in two starts. The Brewers offense is comparably bad. It’s a risky pick – it’s Coors. Your alternatives are just as dangerous to your ratios. I’d be leery of using any waiver wire guy if I was in a roto league.

I wouldn’t start Kevin Gausman against the Blue Jays, but do note that he’s returning from the disabled list.

Also consider: Carlos Rodon, Jesse Hahn

Pitchers to Exploit: Kyle Lohse is another reason I like Bettis. The Brewers starter is suffering from an elevated HR/FB ratio and a league average BABIP (he’s usually well below average). His 4.16 xFIP is right in line with his career norms. If I ran a real team, I’d happily buy for pennies on the dollar. However, I doubt he’ll turn things around at Coors Field.

Also consider: Mark Buehrle, Rick Porcello, Tom Koehler, Nate Eovaldi, Tim Hudson, Robbie Ross

Hitters (power): Derek Norris is hitting reasonably well against right-handed pitchers, but he rises to the occasion against lefties. The Diamondbacks have tabbed Robbie Ray for tomorrow. Norris is hitting .341/.396/.477 against southpaws this season (.500 BABIP).

Also consider: Preston Tucker, David Murphy, Gerardo Parra, Chris Coghlan, Kyle Blanks, Delmon Young, Steve Pearce, Nolan Reimold

Hitters (speed): Adeiny Hechavarria isn’t much of a runner, but he has been promoted to the two-hole. A .347 BABIP has helped him to a .295/.327/.405 line. At a thin position, sometimes hitting ahead of Giancarlo Stanton is the difference between a useful middle infielder and waiver fodder.

Also consider: Anthony Gose, Adam Eaton

5. The Factor Grid

The table below indicates which stadiums have the best conditions for hitters today. The color coding is a classic stoplight where green equals go for hitters. The weather conditions are from SI Weather’s home run app. A 10/10 means great atmospheric conditions for home runs. A 1/10 means lousy atmospheric conditions.

Lots of rain throughout the country, but it’s mostly avoiding the stadiums. Conditions changed rapidly yesterday and could today too.

The Link.

This post is not brought to you by any DFS platform. The current author is quite pleased to present a DFS ad free environment.