The Daily Grind: 8-19-14 – Presented by FanDuel

Agenda

1. Baez and McCann
2. Daily DFS
3. Wednesday Picks
4. Table

1. Baez and McCann

You may have noticed, I’ve been mainly using this section to link to other work. At this point in the season, there isn’t much to talk about that isn’t a feature length article.

According to Jeff Sullivan, pitchers are treating Javier Baez like Josh Hamilton. They aren’t throwing fastballs nor are they throwing in the strike zone. Check it out.

Mike Petriello posted about Brian McCann yesterday. I know I’ve been sitting on him in several leagues, but Mike’s post reinforces that it’s ok to quit on McCann. At this point in his career, he seems to have two options. If he continues pulling the ball into the shift, he’ll be a low average, low BABIP guy with declining power (helped by Yankee Stadium). If he begins to use the opposite field, he’ll have a better average/BABIP, but he’ll probably look like a lower average Carlos Ruiz. Or maybe Dioner Navarro is the better comp. The power numbers will crater.

2. Daily DFS

Yesterday’s Grind

Brett Oberholtzer and Chris Capuano kick things off. The pair of lefties will pitch at Yankee Stadium. Right-handed hitters do benefit from the park, with a 112 home run park factor. Being southpaws, the two pitchers should do a decent job of neutralizing the short porch.

Angels are expensive, but I’d still try to run down a couple against Allen Webster. Kole Calhoun is a favorite of mine. Webster seems to have trouble with walks at the major league level. He’s currently at 16 walks and two hit batters through 20.1 innings.

Miles Mikolas isn’t as bad as his 7.71 ERA, but he’s still plenty bad. The spacious confines of Marlins Stadium should help today, but Miami does have a few interesting hitters who can tag Mikolas.

U.S. Cellular Field is always a good place to go for offense. Chris Tillman is outperforming his peripherals – and not in a Johnny Cueto way. The White Sox don’t have a lot of lefties to use against him. Jose Quintana will face a stout, right-handed Baltimore lineup, but he’s been doing that all season with few ill effects.

J.A. Happ has a horrific matchup with the Brewers. Those right-handed beer heathens can put a mashing on any lefty, and Miller Park is especially friendly for such meetings.

Tyler Matzek has never had a K/BB ratio above 2.00. That’s one reason to dislike him. Another is that he’ll face the contact oriented Royals at Coors Field tonight.

3. Wednesday Picks

Pitchers to Start: James Paxton draws the Phillies matchup. Unfortunately, he’ll be opposed by Cole Hamels, so his path to a win requires a gutsy performance. Paxton provides plenty of strikeouts and ground balls for fantasy owners. One are where his production is less certain is with his walk rate. He’s been stingy at the major league level, but he’s never been better than adequate at prevented walks in the minors.

I’m not entirely trusting of Michael Pineda, but the Astros can have their games where they strike out a thousand times. The thing I like least about Pineda is his ability to last deep into the game – he hasn’t shown it once. The thing I like most is his stuff. His velocity appeared to be fine last week.

Pitchers to Exploit: Nick Martinez is the next Ranger to pitch. He’s also at Miami.

Clay Buchholz has two consecutive strong outings, but I’m picking against him anyway. The why should be easy to figure out, he’ll face the Angels tomorrow. Even in those great starts, he’s allowed home runs. Los Angeles hits a lot of those deep flies.

Trevor Cahill is turning some good outings, but I continue to naysay. He may have straightened some things out in the bullpen, but even a fully effective Cahill will toss the occasional clunker.

Edwin Jackson is the anti-Cueto. He allows a lot of very high quality contact. The Giants will try to take advantage tomorrow at Wrigley Field.

The White Sox have enough righties to turn a Wei-Yin Chen outing into an adventure. His platoon splits aren’t great, but neither are most of the Sox. On the other side of this one is favored target Hector Noesi. He hasn’t had a true nightmare outing in awhile, but he still has plenty of bad days.

Danny Duffy and Jorge de la Rosa should be examined simply because they’ll be at Coors Field.

The Dodgers will see lefty Eric Stults. The former Dodger is a put it in play and see what happens kind of pitcher. I nearly hyphenated eight words together.

Hitters (power): Scott Van Slyke should get the start against Stults. He probably won’t have many more of these with a Joc Pederson promotion on the horizon. Seth Smith will see Roberto Hernandez on the other side of this one.

Find the same Royals as today – Billy Butler, Josh Willingham, Lorenzo Cain, and Omar Infante.

Trevor Plouffe gets hit platoon buff against T.J. House.

Speaking of platoon buffs, Dayan Viciedo – surprisingly still with the White Sox – will see Chen.

Kole Calhoun remains barely available on waiver wires.

Hitters (speed): Arismendy Alcantara and Chris Coghlan reappear for a matchup against Jake Peavy. Coghlan isn’t a base running threat.

Denard Span is slightly available for a game with Cahill.

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.

Chicago and St. Louis look like they might have scattered storms early, but they’re supposed to clear before long.

The Link. A lot of green, a lot of red, and plenty of 10’s. It should be a good night for baseball.

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