Justin Verlander, Detroit Tigers SP
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 Monday, August 6th.
5 Good Nights
- Justin Verlander: 8.0 IP, 8 H, 0 ER, 14 K’s, W
- Jered Weaver: 9.0 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 9 K’s, W
- Justin Morneau: 3-5, 3 R, 2 HR, 4 RBI
- Mike Trout: 2-3, RBI, 3 steals
- Jon Jay: 4-4, R, 2 RBI
Honorable Mention: Marwin Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Joe Mauer, Adrian Gonzalez, Ryan Doumit, Martin Maldonado, Nick Markakis, Ben Revere, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jason Vargas, Chris Sale, Ben Sheets, Chris Tillman, Aaron Cook, Erik Bedard, Chris Capuano, Yovani Gallardo, Scott Diamond, Wade Miley, Travis Wood, Jake Westbrook, Eric Stults, Edwin Jackson
5 Bad Nights
- Ivan Nova: 5.1 IP, 11 H, 7 ER, 5 K’s
- Zach McAllister: 1.2 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 3 K’s
- Vance Worley: 3.2 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 3 BB, 2 K’s
- Brandon Phillips: 0-5
- Curtis Granderson: 0-5, R
Dishonorable Mention: Daniel Descalso, J.D. Martinez, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Francisco Rodriguez, Matt Cain, Bronson Arroyo, Josh Tomlin, Yu Darvish
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.
- Evan Longoria has been activated from the disabled list and will start for the Rays tonight.
- Ian Desmond (oblique) took part in “baseball activities” yesterday, but still remains weeks away from returning.
- Alex Rodriguez‘s hand is reportedly healing properly and the Yankees’ third baseman is on-target for a mid-September return to the team.
- Matt Garza was placed on the DL with an elbow injury an is out indefinitely. With the Cubs where they are in the standings, I’d be surprised to see Garza pitch again this season.
- Pablo Sandoval (hamstring) is about a week away from returning, according to Giants manager Bruce Bochy.
- Brandon McCarthy (shoulder) will throw one more bullpen session before being activated from the DL.
- 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: Trout went 2-3 with one RBI and three steals yesterday. (.348, 86 Runs, 19 HR, 59 RBI, 36 steals on the season).
Bryce Harper: Harper went 0-4 with one run yesterday. (.257, 58 R, 10 HR, 30 RBI, 13 steals on the season).
Anthony Rizzo: Rizzo went 0-4 yesterday. (.301, 16 R, 9 HR, 23 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
C.J. Wilson at Oakland A’s
Cole Hamels vs. Atlanta Braves
Jake Peavy vs. Kansas City Royals
3 Down
Jon Lester vs. Texas Rangers
Ryan Dempster at Boston Red Sox
Phil Hughes at Detroit Tigers
Throwing Darts
Ross Detwiler at Houston Astros
Jonathon Niese vs. Miami Marlins
Mike Minor at Philadelphia Phillies
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.
Swings
- Billy Butler is 9-for-22 (.409) with three home runs in his career against today’s starter, Jake Peavy.
- Miguel Cabrera is 7-for-17 (.412) with three home runs in his career against today’s starter, Phil Hughes.
- Mike Napoli is 6-for-10 (.600) with two home runs in his career against today’s starter, Jon Lester.
- Carlos Beltran is 9-for-41 (.220) in his career against today’s starter, Barry Zito.
- Dan Uggla is 8-for-55 (.145) in his career against today’s starter, Cole Hamels.
- Derek Jeter is hitless in his career (12 at-bats) against today’s starter, Rick Porcello.
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
- Chuck Anderson takes a look at today’s pitching matchups in the latest edition of Pitch or Ditch.
- Chuck Anderson also examines this week’s Added and Dropped list and gives some extra insight into the Royal’s closer situation.
- Dan Stack’s looking ahead to help you identify the Players to Watch for this week.
- Matthew Dewoskin revisits hitter’s BABIP in this week’s Leaders and Laggards.
- We’re almost a week past the trade deadline, so this is a great time for Chuck Anderson to take a look at how the fallout of the moves have impacted some of our favorite fantasy baseball stars.
- Lenny Melnick is already thinking about next year (and a whole lot more fantasy baseball news) on the latest edition of his award-winning podcast.
- 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 pre-season rankings, including Quarterback, Running Back, Wide Receiver, Tight End, and Strength of Schedule.
- 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!
- Paul’s Personal Projections are out! Get started here with his Quarterback, Running Back, Wide Receiver, and Tight End 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.
Latest posts by Nick Raducanu (Posts)
- Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes 6/10 - Jun 10, 2013
- Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes 6/7 - Jun 7, 2013
- Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes 6/6 - Jun 6, 2013
With games starting soon, don't forget to check out today's Daily Notes at @FP911 before you set your lineups! http://t.co/XaXJwcHQ
2012 Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes 8/7: Each and every day, I’ll be combing over box scores and scouring local be… http://t.co/Zn09ENLJ
RT @FantasyTrade411: Today's Daily Notes are up at @FP911 with some special Evan Longoria news in http://t.co/2jhc3ZTs
Today's Daily Notes are up at @FP911 with some special Evan Longoria news (in case you've been hiding under a rock): http://t.co/XaXJwcHQ
Today's Daily Notes are up at @FP911 with some special Evan Longoria news in (case you've been hiding under a rock): http://t.co/XaXJwcHQ