The Daily Grind: More Trades, Hendricks, Bettis

Agenda

1. One More Trade
2. Daily DFS
3. GB / FB Splits
4. Tomorrow’s Targets – Bettis, Martinez, Grichuk, Burns
5. Factor Grid

1. One More Trade

As I promised yesterday, we’ll discuss one more trade I made over the weekend. In March, one of my readers asked me to take over a league for a season while he prepared to get married. First prize is over $1,000, and he was putting up the money. Unfortunately, things have not gone according to plan. The league has a number of strange quirks.

It’s a weekly H2H league with five keepers. I didn’t know about the weekly component until after the draft (it was clear there was a weekly FAAB, but I thought I could manage day-to-day). It’s probably my least favorite fantasy experience. Imagine that coming from a guy who writes about making daily waiver moves!

The owners are a group of long standing friends. It’s an auction league, and my rivals are hyper-aggressive with their spending. That’s easier to countenance, but it set me back in the draft and the first couple weeks of FAAB.

Long story short, my team is struggling. A couple good weeks would put me back in action, but I’ve decided to shift my attention to keepers. Hopefully I can give my trusting reader a stronger base for next season. To that end, I traded pricey versions of Hanley Ramirez and Garrett Richards for $6 Michael Brantley, Matt Wieters, and Starlin Castro.

When making keeper trades, I try to give myself an opportunity to make a profit in the current season. Wieters is an upgrade over Miguel Montero. Given HanRam’s propensity to accrue injuries, Brantley could easily outperform him over the rest of the season. Of course, Brantley is also battling injury. Most fantasy analysts expected the deep plunge in power, but I still view Brantley as a 15 home run guy when healthy.

Over the rest of the season, I’ll be looking to upgrade $29 Jose Abreu and $26 Edwin Encarnacion. Time to get in touch with Giancarlo Stanton’s owner.

2. Daily DFS – Hamels, Latos, Hendricks

Yesterday’s Grind

Yesterday had no aces. Tonight has plenty. Cole Hamels is the cheapest of five studs, and he has a nice matchup against the Brewers. He’ll be handled carefully as the Phillies try to maximize his trade value.

None of the cheap pitchers stand out as an obvious play. Mat Latos has looked solid since returning from the disabled list, but he’s opposed by the Giants. I’m modestly interested in Kyle Hendricks against the Mets. Hendricks seems like the kind of pitcher who can flummox the Mets. The command and control specialist rarely posts big DFS nights. He needed a complete game shutout to reach 20 points on FanDuel.

Among the hitters, George Springer provides an interesting option. He’s facing fly ball lefty Danny Duffy. Springer has a 1.172 OPS against fly ball pitchers. He has an .850 OPS against southpaws. Don’t forget the Royals bullpen. Duffy may be an awesome matchup for Springer, but the two may only see each other for a couple plate appearances.

Stack Targets: Jon Niese, Colby Lewis, Eduardo Rodriguez, Phil Hughes, Duffy, Rubby de la Rosa, Ivan Nova, Andrew Heaney, Jorge de la Rosa, Ian Kennedy

3. GB / FB Splits

The following hitters are recommended based on the works of Shane Tourtellotte and Dan Fansworth. They show ground ball hitters perform better against fly ball pitchers and vice versa. Using three-year values for hitter OPS and pitcher GB%, here are today’s top recommendations. Use this link for Jeff’s full list.

The splits are back with 43 options. Per our standard arrangement, here are my favorites.

Adam Jones and Manny Machado vs Colby Lewis
George Springer, Hank Conger, and Evan Gattis vs Danny Duffy
David DeJesus and Asdrubal Cabrera vs Danny Salazar
Brayan Pena, Joey Votto, Jay Bruce vs Phil Hughes
Buster Posey and Justin Maxwell vs Dan Haren
Kyle Seager vs Ian Kennedy
Alejandro De Aza vs Marco Estrada
Mitch Moreland and Shin-Soo Choo vs Miguel Gonzalez

4. Tomorrow’s Targets – Bettis, Martinez, Grichuk, Burns 

Pitchers to Start: Most of tomorrow’s waiver wire pitchers exist in the space between stream starter and exploit. Chad Bettis has impressed me this season. Despite the effects of Coors Field, he has a 3.56 ERA with 7.44 K/9 and 2.75 BB/9. A 10.4 percent swinging strike rate reflects the effectiveness of his five pitch repertoire. Anyone who can command five average or better pitches has a good chance to provide fantasy value. Tomorrow’s game is not at Coors.

Also consider: Wei-Yin Chen, Vincent Velasquez

Pitchers to Exploit: Nick Martinez is finally regressing back to mediocrity. His walk rate has increased steadily in recent weeks, and he has two meltdown outings in his last five. Tomorrow’s game is at hitter friendly Camden Yards. The Orioles have a frustratingly inconsistent offense. Martinez could implode again or toss a complete game gem.

Also consider: Rick Porcello, Mark Buehrle, Kyle Lohse, Bartolo Colon

Hitters (power): Randal Grichuk will face lefty Jose Quintana. Grichuk has strikeout problems, but a high BABIP has saved his bacon. He’s actually hit much better against righties. It’s purely a quirk of ISO. He’s more likely to be a no-platoon guy than a reverse platoon hitter.

Also consider: Mike Napoli, Yonder Alonso, Seth Smith, Brad Miller, Logan Morrison, Cody Asche, Ryan Howard, John Mayberry, Chris Coghlan, Alex Guerrero, Scott Van Slyke

Hitters (speed): It appears Billy Burns is up to 64 percent owned. This may be the last time my go to speed guy appears in the column. It’s always sad to see one of my favorite stream guys become ineligible.

Also consider: Danny Espinosa, Jace Peterson, Angel Pagan, Will Venable

5. 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.

Six games might be affected by rain. The Padres game is at the least risk. Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, and Atlanta all have about a 50 percent chance of storms. Check reports closer to game time.

The Link.

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