The Daily Grind: 9-15-14 – Presented by FanDuel

Agenda

1. Take Off The Gloves
2. Daily DFS
3. Tuesday Picks
4. Table

1. Take Off The Gloves

You’re out of time. That is the news I bring today. So your Giancarlo Stanton got hit in the face but might return by the end of the season. If you aren’t in a keeper league, you can’t afford to play wait and see. It’s time to cut Stanton and hope someone like Juan Lagares can channel his inner Michael Brantley for a couple weeks. You need to make up five steals? Then say goodbye to your Kennys Vargas. Home runs and RBI the problem? Bring Vargas back in exchange for your Ben Revere. It’s time to seriously entertain cutting very useful players to scrape every last bit of value out of your roster.

You could inadvertently help a rival, but kicking off a roster free-for-all can sometimes coax other owners into helping you too.

2. Daily DFS

Yesterday’s Grind

All 12 games are late today.

Chris Capuano faces the Rays are Tropicana Field. The matchup isn’t terrible for the lefty, but he was atrocious in his last two outings, including a one out performance against these same Rays last week.

The Reds don’t have too many pieces to form a stack, but there right-handed power bats look juicy against Travis Wood. It would be even better if the game were in Cincinnati rather than Wrigley.

John Danks and the Occasional Meltdown would make for a fun story. Also a start against the Royals could yield one of those meltdowns. At least (from Danks perspective), the game is at Kauffman Stadium.

Do I think reliever Anthony Swarzak will survive the Detroit assault? No, I don’t.

Despite that I can find reasons to continue liking Zach McAllister, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include him here against the Astros offense. Also, where the hell is George Springer? I thought he just had a grade two quad strain, but this recovery time tells me the injury was probably even worse.

Roberto Hernandez and Christian Bergman should be sources of fun at Coors Field. Hernandez is the kind of pitcher who could lose command and control in the rarefied air.

Jerome Williams is always a target, but he is facing the Padres today. So I’m guessing you won’t be stacking against him.

3. Tuesday Picks

Pitchers to Start: With the Red Sox and Anthony Ranaudo on the other side of this matchup, I’m inclined to use Charlie Morton. The same old caveat applies – don’t expect many strikeouts. Do expect a win.

Bartolo Colon is a little like the Morton pick. He’ll face a Stanton-less Marlins offense at CitiField. The strikeouts are liable to be few and far between, but he could knock down the victory. Nate Eovaldi is a more difficult opponent than Ranaudo.

If Michael Pineda is still sitting around your league, he can offer good ratios with a start at Tropicana Field. His matchup with Jake Odorizzi doesn’t lend itself to an easy win.

Nicholas Tropeano is an intriguing option. I don’t necessarily like his matchup with the Indians, but I am thinking about keeping him in a few formats. I was fairly impressed with his debut. He’s opposed by Corey Kluber, which only reinforces the reasons to be wary.

Pitchers to Exploit: Drew Hutchison and Ubaldo Jimenez have the difficult job of pitching at Camden Yards against two of the top offenses in baseball. Yeah, and they’re playing each other too.

A 3.38 K/9, low whiff rate, AND a 4.05 BB/9 spell doom and gloom for Ranaudo. Fortunately, he’ll pitch in Pittsburgh, where the pitcher and large venue could/should help a bit. The Pirates offense is no slouch.

Dan Haren versus Tyler Matzek at Coors Field should be…interesting. In an offensey sort of way.

Roenis Elias is a fine major league pitcher, but he’s about to face an Angels offense that eats “fine” southpaws.

Nick Tepesch is the Ranger of Tomorrow.

Hitters (power): C.J. Cron’s usually a good idea against lefties.

Scott Van Slyke could start against the left-handed Matzek.

I thought Danny Duffy was hurt, but ESPN has him listed for tomorrow. Assuming he’s not full strength, a Dayan Viciedo spot start could work. As could Avisail Garcia.

Hitters (speed): Ender Inciarte has speed and nothing else.

Michael Bourn and Jose Ramirez aren’t exciting these days, but they do bat first and second ahead of Michael Brantley.

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.

Atlanta could see storms, and Chicago is expecting early rain that could last through the start of game time. It looks more like a candidate for a delayed start than a rain out.

The Link. We have few of the very top stadiums for offense, but there’s more than enough to work with tonight.

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