The Daily Grind: Who Needs ‘Em

Good news! After a couple rest days, we’re back to our regularly scheduled content.

AGENDA

1. TDG Invitational
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. SaberSim Says…
5. Who Needs ‘Em

1.The Daily Grind Invitational

Johnsond76 found the right combination of big bats in a high scoring contest last night. Interestingly, many of the top players were unrostered. None of the top 16 performers were on more than 4 rosters. Congrats and Leaderboard.

It’s another monster contest tonight – this time with 12 games. As always, it’s a $2 no rake GPP on FantasyDraft.

If you have not signed up for FantasyDraft, please use this referral link for tracking purposes. If I understand properly, by using the referral, you will receive a 10 percent return on any rakes you pay.

2. Weather Reports

Quite a few venues are threatened in a vague, something-could-fall-from-the-sky kind of way. Washington D.C. (not part of the slate), Pittsburgh, New York, Detroit, Cleveland, and Texas. Of those, the Twins-Indians game is the most imperiled. Also check out the wind in Chicago. It’s 21 mph straight in from center field. Woosh.

3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse

James Paxton ($22,100) squats atop the price list. The Yankees are easing him back into action and I worry he may have a sub-100 pitch count. In that case, he’ll require a near-perfect outing to return value on this price. I’m not ruling him out, but there are quite a few better values for us to discuss.

Like Charlie Morton ($22,000) who features a similar set of expected results, a weaker opponent, and no leash. Despite being a better value than Paxton, I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s a top target for me.

Mike Minor is next up, but he’ll run you $21,500 for a start against the Orioles. While the Baltimore offense is one of the weakest in the league, they’ve done some damage against left-handed pitchers including the fifth highest homer total and a not-terrible 93 wRC+. Meanwhile, the Rangers are pretty rough against left-handed pitching (88 wRC+, 27.3 percent strikeout rate), making John Means ($11,400) a lovely bargain target.

Ok, we’re finally at Chris Sale ($20,800) who looks like a must-play at Kauffman Stadium. Maybe he’s not peak Sale anymore, but he’s close enough to easily be worth another $3,000 in this particular matchup.

German Marquez ($19,900) is visiting Yu Darvish ($13,700) in what should be a very popular pitching matchup due to the weather. Despite the implications made by these price tags, I’ll gladly take Darvish over Marquez even without considering price. Nor do I consider Marquez’s cost to be outlandish (it’s certainly a tad high for a Cubs matchup).

Color me unperturbed by Carlos Carrasco’s recent slump. He’s run into some trouble with his fastball which is exactly how all his slumps go. It’s his offspeed stuff that earns him money, and they all look fine to me. The more concerning bit is the shockingly hefty Twins offense. $17,800 may be a bit too much to pay. On the bright side, he should be scarcely owned. Martin Perez ($14,700) is a solid mid-tier play after flailing in his most recent appearance. That tends to scare away some prospective owners.

I’ll sometimes turn to Trent Thornton as a mid-tier guy who can record strikeouts. A $14,700 price tag is too high opposite the Yanquis. Thornton makes too many mistakes over the plate. Similarly, Spencer Turnbull ($16,900) is affordable but perhaps in too difficult a matchup (Rays) to bother rostering.

Joe Musgrove ($11,100) has had a rough go of it lately, but he’s not this bad. Even against the Braves. Kevin Gausman ($12,700) is also playable. After all, the game is at PNC Park.

Favorite Plays: Sale, Darvish, Means

Stack Targets: Jakob Junis, Mike Leake, Tyler Beede, Sandy Alcantara, Daniel Mengden, Jason Vargas, Felix Pena

4. SaberSim Says…

The Simulator loves Sale, Morton, Minor, Paxton, and Marquez. However, the best values are Darvish, Jimmy Nelson, Sale, Musgrove, and Carrasco. For once, the two lists aren’t heavily overlapping. Personally, I’m avoiding Nelson for now.

Austin Meadows, Christian Yelich, Mike Trout, Ronald Acuna, and Mookie Betts are the top projected bats. Kendrys Morales, Travis Shaw, Vladimir Guerrero, Robinson Cano, and Danny Jansen are the mayors of bargaintown. I feel like these lists are always the same…

5. Who Needs ‘Em

Jay the Bruce. aka recent Seattle discard.

Nobody rostered Pedro Severino yesterday.

What home runs?