The Daily Grind: DFS, Streaming, and More for September 8

Agenda

1. The Kendrick-Hendricks Scale
2. The Daily Grind Invitational and Leaderboard
3. Daily DFS
4. SaberSim Observations
5. Tomorrow’s Targets
6. Factor Grid

1. The Kendrick-Hendricks Scale

Predicting which rookie pitchers will succeed and which will flop has become harder than ever. Mostly, they flop. With major league hitters slowly adjusting to the Noah Syndergaards of the world, prospects with more ordinary stuff (i.e. nearly all of them) have to learn contact management to succeed. And because the talent divide between Triple-A and the majors is so wide, it’s very hard to pick up the necessary skills outside of the big leagues.

To that end, I have created the subjective and very much not rigorous Kyle Kendrick to Kyle Hendricks scale. Kendrick, you may recall, is a would-be contact management pitcher who never developed a knack for it. He was consistently bad for a long time. Hendricks has made his adjustment rather quickly and now rates as perhaps the best pure contact management guy in the majors. (A caveat, guys like Clayton Kershaw obviously manage contact, but let’s agree that they transcend this archetype).

To give a few examples from this year, Dan Straily appears to have made real adjustments, putting him closer to the Hendricks end of the scale. Meanwhile, new blood Jake Thompson hasn’t figured out a damned thing about limiting quality of contact. He’s full on Kendrick.

2. The Daily Grind Invitational and Leaderboard

We had another contest fizzle out yesterday. Let’s try again. Same settings as always.

3. Daily DFS 

Yesterday’s Grind

Early: David Paulino and Trevor Bauer will partake in the Cheese Stands Along game of the day. So long as it stays dry, it should be an interesting game. But it’s no concern of ours.

Late: We have six games to use tonight. The ace of the slate is…oh gods. It’s probably Ivan Nova. The latest Ray Searage (would-be) success story has pitched well in five of six starts with the Pirates. He even has a complete game in his portfolio. I’m not yet ready to declare Nova to have gone full-Happ. He’s allowed approximately zero walks since joining Pittsburgh. And while he doesn’t walk many hitters, it IS going to happen at some point. The Pirates are hosting Straily and the Reds. Remember where Straily sits on the Kendrick-Hendricks scale. These are probably my two favorite pitchers in the slate.

Jaime Garcia can be quite the frustrating piece. He mixes gems with disasters and defies all human pattern identification. I’d like to say he’ll scrape together 10 strikeouts against the Brewers, but he’s equally capable of a 2.1 inning meltdown.

On a pure stuff level, Taijuan Walker is the best pitcher available. Unfortunately, the stuff plays down so often. He has a tough matchup opposite the Texas Rangers. Derek Holland has been sneaky solid in three starts since returning from the disabled list. He’s due for a shellacking. He tossed 108 pitches last start so there is a chance for a long outing.

Stack Targets: CC Sabathia, Junior Guerra, A.J. Cole, Alex Cobb, Jeff Hoffman, Clayton Richard, Alec Asher

4. SaberSim Observations

SaberSim also likes Garcia’s strikeout potential. He’s expected to record 5.9 punch outs – the most in the slate. Following Garcia on the SaberSim wish list are Cole, Sabathia, Walker, and Hoffman. In the cases of Cole and Hoffman, I think we’re getting overoptimistic projections from Steamer interacting with bad opposing lineups.

5. Tomorrow’s Targets 

Pitchers to Start: Fantasy owners are understandably wary of Michael Pineda’s 5.10 ERA. The 27-year-old righty is having a weird season. His 10.21 K/9 and 2.49 BB/9 are fantastic. Unfortunately, they’re coupled with a .343 BABIP and 16.2 percent HR/FB ratio. He’s not going to suddenly figure out how to stop throwing cookies tomorrow, but he does have a good matchup against the Rays.

Also consider: Blake Snell, Tyler Chatwood

Pitchers to Exploit: Many of you will be tempted to use Steven Brault and his 3.32 ERA. And in truth, he doesn’t project to be that much worse than Pineda. He may be better than Chatwood. However, the lefty has gotten away with shaky command through his first four major league starts. The Cardinals lineup is rather unforgiving.

Also consider: Jake Thompson, Tim Adleman, John Gant, Robert Gsellman, Tyler Duffey, Braden Shipley, Tyler Skaggs, Daniel Mengden, Luis Perdomo

Hitters (power): Speaking of the Cardinals lineup, you may still have a chance to pick up a seemingly fully restored Randal Grichuck. Corrinne Landrey recently posted some interesting analysis on Grichuk on the main site. In short, he’s scrapped plate discipline (again) in exchange for silly power. He’s batting .284/.300/.700 since his latest re-call.

Also consider: Alex Dickerson, Ryan Schimpf, Yangervis Solarte, Jon Jay, Gerardo Parra, Adam Lind, Seth Smith, Ryan Rua, Lonnie Chisenhall

Hitters (speed): Jace Peterson has attempted four steals in the last two weeks – 40 percent of his total attempts for the season. He was successful in three of them. To me, it looks like he’s trying to prove his future value before Ozhaino Albies takes his job. I expect more running, especially against the likes of Gsellman.

Also consider: Travis Jankowski, Raimel Tapia, Denard Span, Angel Pagan, Ender Inciarte

6. The Factor Grid

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.

Watch out for rainage.

The Link.

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