Pedro Alvarez is poised for a BIG day against his historical punching bag, Jake Westbrook
Just like last year, I’ll be combing over box scores and scouring local beat writers’ reports each morning to help ensure you have all the information you need in order to make the right decisions for your fantasy baseball lineup. So 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!
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-committee for 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, April 15th.
5 Good Nights
- Joe Mauer: 4-5, 2 R, HR, 3 RBI
- Ryan Zimmerman: 2-5, 2 R, HR, 4 RBI
- Jed Lowrie: 2-4, R, 4 RBI
- Ryan Dempster: 7.0 IP, 2 H, ER, 2 BB, 10 Ks
- Bronson Arroyo: 8.0 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 3 K’s, W
Honorable Mention: Brandon Moss, Allen Craig, Tyler Moore, Nate Freiman, Jon Jay, Cliff Lee, Jordan Zimmerman, Kevin Correia, Jeremy Hellickson, Tommy Milone, Mark Buehrle, Paul Clemens
5 Bad Nights
- Erik Bedard: 0.1 IP, 2 H, 6 ER, 4 BB, K
- James McDonald: 1.2 IP, 8 H, 3 ER, 2 BB
- Gavin Floyd: 4.1 IP, 9 H, 4 ER, 3 BB, 6 Ks
- Josh Hamilton: 0-4, 2 Ks
- Jimmy Rollins: 0-4, K
Dishonorable Mention: Joe Blanton, John Maine, Lance Lynn
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.
- As the closer carousel continues to spin in St. Louis, Edward Mujica looks poised to get the next save opportunity and is definitely worth grabbing if you’re chasing saves.
- Chase Headley (thumb) has progressed well enough in his rehab to the point where he may be activated by the Padres as soon as today.
- Brett Lawrie (ribs) has been activated by the Blue Jays and will be in Toronto’s lineup when they take on the White Sox tonight.
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 are 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
Kris Medlen vs. Kansas City Royals
Doug Fister at Seattle Mariners
Derek Holland at Chicago Cubs
3 Down
Ubaldo Jimenez vs. Boston Red Sox
Brandon McCarthy at New York Yankees
Dillon Gee at Colorado Rockies
Throwing Darts
A.J. Griffin vs. Houston Astros
Jake Westbrook at Pittsburgh Pirates
Chris Capuano 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.
Swings
- Pedro Alvarez is 11-for-19 (.579) with two home runs and eight RBI in his career against today’s starter, Jake Westbrook.
- David Wright is 6-for-14 (.462) with three home runs in his career against today’s starter, Jeff Francis.
- Ryan Braun is 5-for-14 (.357) with three home runs and six RBI in his career against today’s starter, Barry Zito.
- Kevin Youkilis is 1-for-14 (.071) against today’s starter, Brandon McCarthy.
- Josh Willingham is 2-for-19 (.105) in his career against today’s starter, Jason Vargas.
- Adam Dunn is 4-for-24 (.167) in his career against today’s starter, Josh Johnson.
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