The Daily Grind: 5-27-14 – Presented by FanDuel

Agenda

1. Your Final Roster Spot
2. Daily DFS
3. Wednesday Wends
4. Table

1. Your Last Roster Spot

Probably somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of the questions I get go like this: “I own player X, but I could drop him for player y, z, a, b, or c. What should I do?” Usually, all of these players are sufficiently similar that your specific roster concerns will decide which, if any, are “best.”

In situations where the league is relatively shallow and there aren’t specific rules against it, why not stream? A streamed spot is usually about two starts per week, two position players, and three relievers (of which you might get an inning half the time). I’ll take that over about 1.3 starts per week from a marginal starter. Eventually, you’ll probably even pick up a guy you want to keep, like Dallas Keuchel.

2. Daily DFS

All 15 games fall into the late contest tonight. A combination of pitchers parks and decent pitching have limited the choices for our process. I consider this a good thing. Happy hunting.

The Milwaukee Brewers face Orioles left-hander Wei-Yin Chen. While they’re expensive, Ryan Braun and Carlos Gomez are among the best lefty mashers in baseball. For his career, righties have a .328 wOBA against Chen compared to a .312 mark for lefties. It’s actually a pretty unremarkable split.

Some owners have noticed Matt Garza’s struggles this season. His 4.98 ERA is quite a bit uglier than his 4.17 xFIP. His peripherals have declined this season, but not very much. The Orioles have a decent offense and Chris Davis is supposed to return tonight. At the end of the day, Garza is a fly ball pitcher in a hitters park.

Eric Stults and Wade Miley present an interesting paradox. Both pitchers are quite mediocre and exploitable. However, the same can be said of the Padres and Diamondbacks offenses. This game might be a good place to grab a few bats, but I’d avoid a full stack.

I’m loathe to recommend against Justin Masterson. When I watch him pitch, he still has unhittable movement. His command and control seem a little off this season, but the drop in velocity doesn’t seem to be the culprit behind his lesser performance. Bottom line, he has the stuff to shutdown an opposing offense, even at U.S. Cellular Field.

3. Wednesday Picks

Pitchers to Start: Through the first eight weeks, I’ve tossed Charlie Morton’s name into both the start and exploit sections of the column. He borders on the edge due to his low strikeout profile. He’ll face the Mets tomorrow, which is why he appears as a “to start.”

If you have the balls for it (and I’ll admit I do not), the always erratic Danny Duffy will face the Houston Astros. The ‘Stros haven’t struck out the most in the league, but they are tied for the second most strikeouts and fourth highest strikeout rate. So good things could happen for Duffy. Could.

Usually I would be cautious about even mentioning Tim Stauffer and Chase Anderson. Since they both face two of the worst offenses in baseball, they’ll probably pitch just fine for waiver fodder.

Pitchers to Exploit: The Kansas City Royals lack explosive offense, but they possess plenty left-handed hitters. Cosart is back to doing his low strikeout, high walk rate thing he debuted last season. It’s working considerably less well this season.

Roberto Hernandez is known to allow his share of home runs. Some sinker ballers seem to have this problem, especially when they face opposite handed fly ball hitters. The Rockies have a few such lefties, but most of them are high priced.

Liam Hendriks survived his first outing of the season with a 1.59 ERA and a 6.40 FIP. I’d snag whatever Rays are available for tomorrow.

T.J. House versus Hector Noesi at The Cell smells like a mash fest.

The Twins offense has ceased their ridiculous mashings, but they’re still a righty heavy offense set to face a very hittable lefty in Joe Saunders.

Hitters (power): If he plays, Corey Dickerson is an excellent pick for tomorrow. But he’ll have to push Michael Cuddyer to the bench in order to start.

Hey, it’s Matt Joyce and David DeJesus. Fancy seeing you two here.

Lonnie Chisenhall, David Murphy, Nick Swisher, Dayan Viciedo, and Gordon Beckham are just some of the options available to you in Chicago.

Josmil Pinto has a fantabulous matchup tomorrow against Saunders.

Juan Francisco and Adam Lind are solid power threats against Chris Archer.

Hitters (speed): I needed a speed pick, so how about Gerardo Parra against Stauffer? Or perhaps Anthony Gose versus Archer is the answer.

4. Table

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.

So many scattered storms tonight. It’s early yet, so we should have a clearer picture as to which games will be affected in a few hours. Watch out for games in Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Minnesota, and St. Louis.

The Link. You have some clear choices today, just watch out for those storms.

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