B.J. Upton, Tampa Bay Rays OF
Each and every day, I’ll be combing over box scores and scouring local beat writers’ reports to make sure you have all the information you need in order to make the right decisions for your fantasy baseball lineup. Make sure you check back at this very spot for Hot/Cold Streaks, Injury News, Closer Updates, Daily Stats, and more so that you can stay one step ahead of the rest of your league.
As always, make sure you’re getting your daily fantasy baseball fix by playing the FP911Challenge.
5 Good Nights, 5 Bad Nights
It’s a fact of life that every baseball player goes through hot and cold streaks. It’s important not to let those streaks influence a player’s fantasy baseball value too much, but it is important to be aware of how a player is doing within a short period of time (a seven-day sorter is always a good tool to use). A player’s short-term numbers can be the difference between winning and losing in daily games, and it can also make a huge difference in year-long leagues. For instance, if you can keep finding the second basemen on hot streaks and dropping them for another streaking second basemen once they get cold, you can piece together a very useful middle infielder-by-committeefor your roto team. So before we get to today’s games, let’s take a spin through last night’s box scores to identify who had a good night and who had a bad night on Saturday, August 11th.
5 Good Nights
- B.J. Upton: 2-4, 2 R, 2 HR, 2 RBI
- Alex Gordon: 2-4, 2 R, 2 HR, 2 RBI
- Freddie Freeman: 2-4, R, HR, 5 RBI
- Jason Marquis: 9.0 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 4 K’s, W
- Ivan Nova: 7.1 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 10 K’s, W
Honorable Mention: Matt Kemp, Coco Crisp, Jose Altuve, Will Venable, Vernon Wells, Matt Holliday, Chase Headley, Steve Pearce, Casey McGehee, Tyler Flowers, Brent Lillibridge, Kevin Youkilis, Michael Bourn, Chris Carter, Zach McAllister, Bronson Arroyo, Jake Westbrook, Derek Holland, Matt Cain, Justin Verlander, Kris Medlen, David Price, Travis Wood, Dallas Keuchel, Ricky Nolasco
5 Bad Nights
- Johan Santana: 1.1 IP, 8 H, 8 ER, BB, 2 K’s
- Francisco Liriano: 3.1 IP, 7 H, 6 ER, 3 BB, 5 K’s
- Dan Haren: 3.1 IP, 5 H, 5 ER, 3 BB
- Brian McCann: 0-5
- Paul Goldschmidt: 0-5
Dishonorable Mention: Corey Hart, Michael Saunders, Chris Tillman, Travis Blackley, Marco Estrada, Drew Pomeranz, Wade Miley, Edwin Jackson, Aaron Laffey, Joe Blanton, Nick Blackburn
Daily Grab Bag
Check back here for daily updates on injuries, closer battles, player news, and anything else that might affect your fantasy baseball team.
- Joey Votto (knee) underwent a procedure on his knee to remove a piece of floating cartilage and the the Reds’ slugger has had his timetable pushed back by a week. It’s becoming a very real possibility that we won’t see Votto again until the calendar has turned to September.
- C.C. Sabathia was placed on the 15-day DL yesterday with elbow inflammation. The Yankees will likely play it safe with their ace as they gear up for the playoffs, but he should be back within the next two or three weeks.
- Mike Napoli was placed on the 15-day DL with a strained quad yesterday. It’s unclear how much time he’ll miss, but Geovany Soto will get a lot of playing time in his absence and might not be a horrible short-term add.
- Grant Balfour picked up the save for the A’s last night and it looks like he might be the guy to own in Oakland as the A’s go with the dreaded closer-by-committee.
- Jason Kipnis saw a doctor about his neck injury and will be out of the lineup again today. Depending on the report that comes back from the doctor, a stint on the DL might be in Kipnis’ future.
- Huston Street (calf) was placed on the 15-day DL yesterday, and while I’d prefer to stay away from this situation, I’m grabbing Luke Gregerson on my teams where I really need saves. Dale Thayer will likely pick up some saves while Street is out, but I’m going to pick up the guy with the better skills in Gregerson.
- Trout/Harper/Rizzo/Bauer Watch: With two of baseball’s best prospects being called-up earlier this season, I’m going to dedicate this space to keeping tabs on the youngsters. Here’s to hoping that you were able to grab some of them! (UPDATE: Anthony Rizzo is the latest uber prospects to get the call, so I’ve added them to the list, as well.)
Mike Trout: The Trout went 1-4 yesterday. (.344, 88 Runs, 21 HR, 65 RBI, 36 steals on the season).
Bryce Harper: Harper went 0-1 yesterday. (.249, 59 R, 10 HR, 32 RBI, 13 steals on the season).
Anthony Rizzo: Rizzo went 1-4 yesterday. (.298, 19 R, 9 HR, 24 RBI, 1 steal on the season).
3 Up, 3 Down, and Throwing Darts
Starting and sitting the right pitchers on a day-to-day basis is often the linchpin of winning any fantasy baseball league – roto, head-to-head, daily, and otherwise. In order to give you some help picking your pitchers for today, I’ve gone through all of the stats that I could (pitchers’ career numbers vs. certain hitters and lineups, home/road splits, lefty/righty splits, etc) and have made nine recommendations. I’m not going to proclaim that I’ll get these 100% correct all season, but anyone that does should be sitting on an island that they own in the Pacific – not writing fantasy baseball articles. The goal here is to play the odds the entire season and slowly build your “win” percentage closer to 100% than to 50%.
Here’s today’s recommendations with, 3 Up (three pitchers you shouldn’t think of sitting), 3 Down (three pitchers with some warning flags for today), and Throwing Darts (three pitchers that I’ll be taking a flier on):
3 Up
Johnny Cueto at Chicago Cubs
Jered Weaver vs. Seattle Mariners
Chris Sale vs. Oakland A’s
3 Down
Rick Porcello at Texas Rangers
Jon Lester at Cleveland Indians
Yu Darvish vs. Detroit Tigers
Throwing Darts
Jonathon Niese vs. Atlanta Braves
Jason Vargas at Los Angeles Angels
A.J. Burnett vs. San Diego Padres
Swings and Misses
A hitter’s career numbers against a pitcher don’t always tell the whole story, but it can be informative if used correctly. I’m of the opinion that some information is better than none, and while there are other pieces to the puzzle of setting your daily lineup (splits, weather, etc.), I think a hitter’s career numbers against a pitcher can be very indicative of future success or failure. Some guys just own certain pitchers, and vice versa. As such, I’ve gone through today’s matchups and picked the best (and worst) matchups I could find. Anything less than 10-12 career at-bats is a relatively small sample-size (so take those with a grain of salt), but sometimes that’s all that is available – like today.
Swings
- Jason Heyward is 5-for-11 (.455) with one home run in his career against today’s starter, Jonathon Niese.
- Joe Mauer is 10-for-25 (.400) with two home runs in his career against today’s starter, James Shields.
- Albert Pujols is 6-for-12 (.500) with one home run in his career against today’s starter, Jason Vargas.
- Giancarlo Stanton is 2-for-13 (.154) in his career against today’s starter, Chris Capuano.
- Shin-Soo Choo is 1-for-11 (.091) in his career against today’s starter, Jon Lester.
- Denard Span is 3-for-24 (.125) in his career against today’s starter, James Shields.
Don’t forget to check out the rest of the great content on FantasyPros911.com, starting with some of our most recent updates:
Fantasy Baseball
- Greg Marta previews today’s pitching matchups in the latest edition of Pitch or Ditch.
- Albert Lang’s back with his Hot N Cold Fantasy Baseball All-Stars to help you identify who’s hot and who’s not.
- There’s been an update to the Closer Identifier Algorithm Results…make sure you don’t miss Patrick DiCaprio’s latest!
- Matthew Dewoskin revisits hitter’s BABIP in this week’s Leaders and Laggards.
- The calendar has turned to August, which means it’s officially fantasy football season! Before you start drafting, make sure you check out Paul Greco’s UPDATED preseason rankings.
- WWPGD? (What Would Paul Greco Do?) You don’t have to wonder anymore, as Paul gives you his personal favorites (and least favorites) – starting with Gotta Have QBs and Dump On QBs.
- I hope you enjoyed Paul’s QB picks, because he just updated his personal Gotta Have RBs and his Dump on RBs!
- Paul’s Personal Projections are out! Get started here with his Quarterback, Running Back, Wide Receiver, and Tight End, Defense, and Kicker projections.
- Paul also broke out his calculator so he could give you a whole bunch of Stats You Need to Know.
- Collin Hager’s got an update to the ADP Report to help all of you early-drafters!
- Collin also took a look at some Impact Quarterbacks and identified three that can be frustrating to own.
- Dan Stack hands some more Blair Thomas Awards (for Running Back Busts). Guess who the lucky winners are…
- Dan also has an in-depth look at Impact Wide Receivers in the latest edition of that series.
- Steve DeAngelo identifies some impact running backs to keep an eye on in his latest post.
Latest posts by Nick Raducanu (Posts)
- Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes 5/22 - May 22, 2013
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Joey Votto had more surgery on his knee?! Find out what that means for your team in today's Daily Notes at @FP911: http://t.co/6iWvz6gG
Joey Votto had more surgery on his knee?! Find out what that means for your team in today's Daily Notes at @FP911: http://t.co/6iWvz6gG
2012 Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes 8/12: Each and every day, I’ll be combing over box scores and scouring local b… http://t.co/OAgX6SYi