Giancarlo Stanton, Miami Marlins 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 Wednesday, August 8th.
5 Good Nights
- Giancarlo Stanton: 4-5, 2 R, 2 HR, 4 RBI
- Kendrys Morales: 3-5, 2 R, 2 HR, 3 RBI
- Marco Scutaro: 3-6, R, HR, 7 RBI
- Clayton Richard: 9.0 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 5 K’s, W
- Jeremy Guthrie: 8.0 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 6 K’s, W
Honorable Mention: Shin-Soo Choo, Cody Ross, Adrian Gonzalez, Curtis Granderson, Matt Kemp, Michael Bourn, Josh Hamilton, Dan Uggla, Shane Victorino, Elvis Andrus, Ryan Howard, Matt Wieters, Neil Walker, Coco Crisp, Will Venable, Jason Kipnis, Jose Reyes, Carlos Gomez, Adam Jones, Gio Gonzalez, Ryan Vogelsong, Justin Masterson, Nate Eovaldi, Steve Johnson, Randy Wolf, Jose Quintana, Alex Cobb, Mat Latos, Jeff Samardzija
5 Bad Nights
- Anibal Sanchez: 3.0 IP, 7 H, 7 ER, 2 BB, 2 K’s
- Kevin Millwood: 4.0 IP, 8 H, 7 ER, BB, 3 K’s
- Josh Beckett: 5.0 IP, 8 H, 8 ER, 2 BB, 2 K’s
- Jacoby Ellsbury: 0-5
- Dustin Ackley: 0-5
Dishonorable Mention: Nick Green, David Ross, Chris Heisey, Frank Francisco, Roy Oswalt, Jonathon Broxton, David Roberston, Kyle Kendrick, Chris Young, Ian Kennedy, Dan Straily, Tim Hudson, Matt Harrison, Joe Kelly, Zack Greinke, Chad Billingsley, Jeff Francis
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.
- In a bit of a surprise move, Manny Machado was called-up by the Orioles yesterday. The 20-year-old shortstop is the Orioles best prospect and was hitting .266 with 10 home runs at Double-A Bowie. I’d imagine the Orioles didn’t call him up to warm their bench, so he should get regular playing time and is worth a look in deeper mixed leagues.
- Brett Lawrie was placed on the 15-day DL with a rib/oblique injury. There isn’t a timetable for his return, but his stint may be backdated to allow him to return August 19th.
- Jim Henderson picked up another save for the Brewers yesterday and will share closing duties with John Axford for the time being, according to manager Ron Roenicke.
- Brandon McCarthy (shoulder) has been cleared to return and will start against the White Sox tomorrow.
- Paul Konerko‘s concussion was labeled as “mild” and the White Sox’ training staff will evaluate him before Friday’s game. I wouldn’t be shocked if the White Sox played it safe and put him on the 7-day 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 1-4 yesterday. (.345, 87 Runs, 20 HR, 60 RBI, 36 steals on the season).
Bryce Harper: Harper went 0-3 with one run yesterday. (.251, 59 R, 10 HR, 30 RBI, 13 steals on the season).
Anthony Rizzo: Rizzo went 1-4 yesterday. (.291, 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
Adam Wainwright vs. San Francisco Giants
R.A. Dickey vs. Miami Marlins
Jordan Zimmerman at Houston Astros
3 Down
Doug Fister vs. New York Yankees
Ubaldo Jimenez vs. Boston Red Sox
Wandy Rodriguez vs. Arizona Diamondbacks
Throwing Darts
Wei-Yin Chen vs. Kansas City Royals
Felix Doubront at Cleveland Indians
Lucas Harrell vs. Washington Nationals
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
- Rafael Furcal is 5-for-12 (.417) with one home run in his career against today’s starter, Madison Bumgarner.
- Starlin Castro is 19-for-58 (.364) in his career against today’s starter, Mike Leake.
- Carlos Lee is 8-for-21 (.381) with one home run in his career against today’s starter, R.A. Dickey.
- Alfonso Soriano is 1-for-13 (.077) in his career against today’s starter, Mike Leake.
- Adrian Gonzalez is 5-for-27 (.185) in his career against today’s starter, Ubaldo Jimenez.
- David Wright is 7-for-32 (.219) in his career against today’s starter, Josh Johnson.
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
- Matthew Dewoskin takes a look at 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.
- Make sure you check out Patrick DiCaprio and the crew on last night’s episode of the Fantasy Baseball Roundtable Show.
- 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, 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.
Latest posts by Nick Raducanu (Posts)
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In case you missed it, Manny Machado got called-up yesterday. Find out more about him in today's Daily Notes at @FP911: http://t.co/9MbAQwNf
2012 Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes 8/9: Each and every day, I’ll be combing over box scores and scouring local be… http://t.co/PfmYdeBI
In case you missed it, Manny Machado got called-up yesterday. Find out more about him in today's Daily Notes at @FP911: http://t.co/9MbAQwNf