The Daily Grind: 8-16-14 – Presented by FanDuel

Agenda

1. Splits
2. Daily DFS
3. Sunday Picks
4. Table

1. Splits

My newest colleague Daniel Schwartz wrote about Corey Dickerson and splits yesterday. It’s helpful information, but more importantly, it serves as an excellent working tutorial on how to use FanGraphs splits pages. Both DFS and regular fantasy owners need to correctly leverage splits. The pages referenced in Schwartz’s article can help.

2. Daily DFS

Yesterday’s Grind

Early: Two games are early today, so don’t expect to find Kyle Kendrick, Tim Hudson, Shane Greene, or Drew Smyly in tonight’s contest.

Late: The other 13 games are late.

Ubaldo Jimenez was shaky in his return to action last week, although he did survive six innings and picked up the win. Against an Indians offense with some lefty power, tonight’s game could be quite adventurous. He’s opposed by Carlos Carrasco, who tends to look a lot better out of the bullpen.

Brad Peacock’s walk rate is his greatest enemy. If he could just cut down on the free passes, I think he’d be a decent major league pitcher. With the scouting report out, you can expect the always patient Red Sox to heap up base runners through walks and advantageous counts.

John Danks will face several powerful Blue Jays, including Edwin Encarnacion who returned yesterday. U.S. Cellular Field has a 128 park factor (28 percent above average) for right-handed home runs.

Dan Straily is making his return to the majors. The former Athletic doesn’t really fit well at Wrigley Field if you ask me. His iffy velocity and fly ball tendencies play well in spacious parks like the Coliseum. Straily seems like the kind of guy who should feature an elite walk rate, but his is closer to average. He’ll face the Mets at CitiField.

Colby Lewis is diligently getting his ERA under control just in time to be considered for 2015 rotations everywhere. What he really needs to do is join up with a team like the Pirates, where a spacious outfield and elite defenders can make him look fantastic. In any case, he’s still pitching in Texas today against a brutal Angels offense.

Dylan Axelrod will make his 2014 debut against the Rockies at Coors Field. That’s such a tough luck assignent. The righty has been a combination of hittable and homer prone in past seasons. Playing in Denver isn’t going to help. On the other side of this one is Jordan Lyles. He’s looked less than sharp since returning from the disabled list, but that’s to be expected. There aren’t too many threats in the Reds lineup, but he could still make some mistakes.

3. Sunday Picks

Pitchers to Start: Collin McHugh will visit a depressed Red Sox lineup. While Boston still has a few threats, it’s mostly a collection of the merely decent. McHugh’s pretty good, I think I’ve recommended rostering him outright more than once.

Pitchers to Exploit: Danny Salazar is extremely inconsistent this season. Just when you think he’s back on track, he unleashes walks or home runs in bunches.

Robbie Ray has pitched poorly enough in the majors that I’ll mention him here even though he’ll have the platoon advantage against most of the notable Mariner hitters.

Speaking of pitchers with good matchups and bad results, Rafael Montero has yet to show much success at the major league level. Growing pains are to be expected, but they’re also to be exploited. There should be several Cubs on your waiver wire.

Drew Hutchison is a solid pitcher, but with Chris Sale on the other side of this matchup, a win is not looking likely. Meanwhile, he also has to contend with the horror story known as The Cell.

The next Ranger to probably get pummeled is Nick Tepesch. I swear they’re all named Nick, except for the ones named Colby and Miles and Robbie. Anywho, Tepesch will wend his mediocre stuff against the Angels. L.A. has Hector Santiago on the hill, who has pitched “better” of late.

David Buchanan has survived the majors better than I ever expected. He might be a back of the rotation starter instead of a swing man. In either case, that’s still exploitable. Even at AT&T Park.

Yohan Flande is pitching at Coors Field tomorrow. Reds hitters rejoice.

Mike Minor will continue to try to right the ship against difficult opponents. A game against Oakland is going to make things hard.

Hitters (power): Jonny Gomes, Derek Norris, and possibly even Nate Freiman are options for tomorrow.

Ryan Ludwick or Chris Heisey should enjoy a start against Flande.

I have a feeling Kole Calhoun’s about to disappear off the wire again after last night’s outburst.

Kendrys Morales benefits from a matchup against Ray.

Hitters (speed): Chris Coghlan (not a speed play) and Arismendy Alcantara could get a little work in against Montero.

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.

Detroit, Minnesota, and St. Louis could all see scattered storms, but the odds are low at this early hour.

The Link. No weather ratings today, my morning is crammed.

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