The Daily Grind: 8-29-14 – Presented by FanDuel

Agenda

1. Rusney Castillo in ottoneu
2. Daily DFS
3. Saturday
4. Table

1. Rusney Castillo in ottoneu

My first love in fantasy baseball is strategy. Yesterday, Chad Young talked about Rusney Castillo auctions in ottoneu. The strategic implications outlined in the article are good food for thought. While the article is geared towards ottoneu owners, some of the ideas are fully transferable. There are some thought provoking comments too.

Operational Note: There will be no Grind tomorrow. I have to raid a storage facility six hours from my present home and my backups are on vacation.

2. Daily DFS

Yesterday’s Grind

Trevor May has done one of the follow in each big league start – a. walk a ton of guys or b. allow a ton of hits. He’ll pitch in the hitters haven commonly referred to as Camden Yards, so expect more of the same.

Inexperience and a total lack of strikeouts makes Anthony Ranaudo’s start against the Rays interesting. Unless he finds some strikeouts fast, he’s going to have trouble handling major league lineups.

When you combine a scuffling Justin Verlander, a lousy pitcher in Scott Carroll, and U.S. Cellular Field, you get a shake-n-bake recipe for runs. Carroll makes for the better target since the Tigers have the superior offense and Verlander’s peripherals suggest his ERA could be closer to 4.00.

A high fly ball rate, home runs, and plenty of balls in play leave Christian Bergman exposed to crooked innings. The soft-tossing righty must be happy to pitch at Chase Field, but his profile is still dangerous in the hitters park. The Diamondbacks lineup is crap, so maybe he won’t implode.

Rapid Fire: Despite that David Buchanan appears to be pitching at his peripherals, it’s not passing the smell test for me. Scott Baker, come on down. You’re the next contestant in the Texas Stacking Game.

3. Saturday Picks

The Tigers and White Sox have a double header in Chicago. And the Cubs and Cardinals have a doubleheader in St. Louis. Oh boy.

Pitchers to Start: Tsuyoshi Wada has the second game of the Cubs doubleheader. He’s shown himself to be a viable major league starter with good strikeout and walk numbers. The Orioles wish they had seen this years ago.

I’m slow to jump on the Mike Fiers bandwagon due to a high fly ball rate and concern that he may allow an above average HR/FB ratio. However, tomorrow’s game is at AT&T Park, so the risk of home runs is substantially reduced.

Pitchers to Exploit: Felix Doubront will make his Cubs debut tomorrow. I don’t know what to expect from the lefty. He was a solid waiver wire starter in 2012 and 2013, but he’s been mostly terrible this year. His velocity is down below 90 mph. On the other side of the matchup is Justin Masterson. He’s done nothing to settle in as a Cardinal.

Jerome Williams is up to three strong starts for the Phillies. Somebody is going to tag him for a bunch of runs. It could be the Mets.

Miles Mikolas is next in the Rangers rotation. I’m getting tired of writing about Rangers pitchers. They all have bad peripherals.

I’m not too sure Allen Webster is a starting pitcher – at least not a first division starter. That said, he has a healthy whiff rate above 10 percent that simply hasn’t translated to strikeouts. A breakout is somewhere in his future – he just has to put the pieces together.

Chris Bassit will make his major league debut against the Tigers. Tough break. I guess he’s been hurt this season since he’s only thrown 34 innings. In a very thorough piece, Nathaniel Stoltz has some video of Bassit throwing obscene two seamers. I mean obscene. Bassit could well be a fantasy asset soon, but Kyle Ryan – the Tigers choice for game two – looks like a swingman at best.

Tyler Matzek may have the skill set to be decent at Coors Field. He’s not there yet developmentally. At least he’ll pitch at Chase Field tomorrow.

Hitters (power): Cardinals generally aren’t available, but grab any Cubs you can. Arismendy Alcantara, Chris Coghlan, Luis Valbuena, and maybe even Jorge Soler could be options.

Dayan Viciedo and Alexei Ramirez are worth a look against southpaw Ryan. You’ll have to wait out a Max Scherzer start first.

Matt Joyce is still hitting third most times against righties.

If he’s still hanging on the wire, snatch Lucas Duda.

Jason Castro and Jon Singleton have the platoon advantage against Mikolas.

Hitters (speed): Dilson Herrera should be asked to fill Daniel Murphy’s shoes. Herrera’s had a solid season in the minors.

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.

Games in Kansas City, Chicago, and St. Louis all come with a storm threat between 40 and 60 percent.

The Link. A lot of red on the board, so it might be a good day for pitching.

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