The Daily Grind: The AL Has The Best Rookies

Welcome back from a Grind-less weekend. Let’s get back to work, shall we?

UPDATE: The link for today’s Invitational is now correct.

AGENDA

1. AL Rookie Race
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. Fade Fade Fade
5. SaberSim Says…
6. TDG Invitational Returns!

1. AL Rookie Race

I picked Mitch Haniger for AL Rookie of the Year. So far, he’s off to an impressive start. Stolen home runs don’t show up on the stat sheet, but they do help a guy’s reputation as a defensive asset. I will note that Haniger takes a less than efficient route to this baseball.

By the way, that was the notably whifftastic Joey Gallo versus lefty specialist Mark Rzepczynski. A good sign for Gallo’s own RoY candidacy. Through the first two weeks, Trey Mancini, Aaron Judge, and Andrew Benintendi are the other main competitors. JaCoby Jones is the top also ran. On the topic of Jones, he’s the next Keon Broxton. Just remember that Broxton’s conversion from 26th man to fantasy hype machine was incredibly unlikely.

2. Weather Reports

Oakland has a chance of rain beginning right around game time. They’ll be keen to play since yesterday’s game was cancelled.

3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse

The Rays and Red Sox are playing a goofy 11:05am start. The other nine games are in the evening slate.

Main Slate: Danny Salazar is the most expensive pitcher available today. He’ll face the Twins. Salazar reminds me of Lance McCullers in the sense that both are incredibly talented, strike out everybody, and frequently fail to pitch beyond the fifth inning. Salazar isn’t a guy I like to use when he’s the consensus top pick.

John Lackey has pitched like a solid veteran. Fancy that. He’s hosting the Brewers. As we know, the Brewers make for a great GPP target. Their explosive, strikeout prone lineup will either fuel or ruin your night.

Robbie Ray has a trendy matchup against the Dodgers. I’m still dubious they’ll remain auto-exploits versus left-handed pitching. I’m also kind of worried about Ray. His fastball is down nearly three mph. He’s made up for the loss of velocity by buffing his slider and curve ball usage. They’re both good pitches, but his minus command has led to 5.84 BB/9. With the increase in breaking balls, that might be the new normal.

If you go digging for bargains, you’ll find two of my favorite pitchers for tonight. Jordan Montgomery is Rich Hill with a full repertoire. Ok, I’ll admit he has less command and experience too. Montgomery tossed only 4.2 innings in his 89 pitch debut. He also induced 15 whiffs. The White Sox are visiting the Yankees bandbox tonight.

Charlie Morton sighting! We’ll see how the LA Trout handle his barrage of sinkers and curve balls. I predict a big night for Mike Trout while the rest of the team blanks.

Stack Targets: Jered Weaver, Jesse Chavez, Kyle Gibson, Ariel Miranda, Derek Holland, Tom Koehler, Lance Lynn, A.J. Griffin, Steven Wright

4. Fade Fade Fade

Stars: Well, nobody is going to use Wright tonight. He’s the third most expensive pitcher, and I’m “projecting” him to post the worst results. This is based on the utter dogcrappiness of his knuckle ball through two starts. If the knuckler isn’t knuckling, then Wright is a BP pitcher. Of course, you may consider the heroic action of starting him since two bad starts doesn’t mean the knuckler is gone forever.

It’s another one of those days when Edwin Encarnacion and Carlos Santana both have a good matchup. I’m going to bet on Santana drawing more of the attention. People are obsessed with handedness platoons.

Few people will stack against Salazar – and for good reason. The contrarian stack should absolutely include Miguel Sano.

I predict Aledmys Diaz will be the forgotten shortstop today. Or maybe it’s Corey Seager versus a lefty. Or the hot handed Chris Owings? Game’s hard.

Bargains: Albert Pujols is only $2,900. Contrary to my prediction, Morton makes enough mistakes over the plate for a two home run game to be possible.

With all those Baby Bombers, Matt Holliday is rather forgettable. He’ll face Holland.

5. SaberSim Says…

Salazar, Ray, Lackey, Brandon McCarthy, and Jaime Garcia top the SaberSim charts tonight. I figured the risk exceeded the reward with regard to McCarthy and Garcia. The top hitters are Trout, Kris Bryant, Freddie Freeman, Giancarlo Stanton, and Anthony Rizzo. SaberSim is not a fan of Chase Anderson tonight.

6. The Daily Grind Invitational

Congrats to jfud81 for his first contest win of the season. Mr. Fud was one of the big players in last season’s TDGI. Chris Davis and Jonathan Villar provided the bulk points, but it was his sole ownership of Zack Cozart that made the difference. Another of the top names, hoehne2, has climbed atop the leaderboard without any first place finishes.

More FanDuel for the Invitational. We’ll also be doing at least two days of DraftKings this week.