We have a Travis Snider sighting…
Welcome to our Fantasy Baseball Daily Notes! 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 Thursday, May 16th.
5 Good Nights
- Travis Snider: 3-5, 2 R, HR, 3 RBI, 1 steal
- Daniel Murphy: 4-4, 2 R, RBI
- Leonys Martin: 2-4, R, 2 steals
- Stephen Straburg: 8.0 IP, 3 H, ER, 3 BB, 4 Ks, W
- Mat Latos: 8.1 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, BB, 4 Ks
Honorable Mention: Brett Gardner, Jay Bruce, Geovany Soto, Mitch Moreland, Wilin Rosario, Will Middlebrooks, Brandon Crawford, Jose Fernandez, Jonathon Niese, Alex Cobb, Francisco Liriano
5 Bad Nights
- Fernando Rodney: 0.2 IP, H, 3 ER, 4 BB, 2 Ks
- Justin Verlander: 2.2 IP, 6 H, 8 ER, 2 BB, 3 Ks
- Steve Cishek: 1.2 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 2 BB
- Jacoby Ellsbury: 0-5
- Todd Frazier: 0-5
Dishonorable Mention: Jayson Nix, Michael Saunders, Ike Davis, Edinson Volquez, Jhoulys Chacin, Matt Cain
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.
- While an MRI showed no serious damage, David Price was placed on the 15-day DL with a left triceps injury.
- Alexi Ogando has been placed on the 15-day DL with biceps tendinitis.
- Andrew Bailey (bicep) is expected to return to the Red Sox and assume closing duties on Monday.
- Josh Beckett has been placed on the 15-day DL with a groin injury.
- Matt Garza (arm) has looked strong in his rehab outings and may join the Cubs as soon as next week.
3 Up, 3 Down, and Throwing Darts
Starting and sitting the right pitchers on a day-to-day basis is often the lynchpin 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
Matt Harvey at Chicago Cubs
Gio Gonzalez at San Diego Padres
Clay Buchholz at Minnesota Twins
3 Down
Tony Cingrani at Philadelphia Phillies
Rick Porcello at Texas Rangers
Mark Buehrle at New York Yankees
Throwing Darts
Jarrod Parker vs. Kansas City Royals
Jorge De La Rosa vs. San Francisco Giants
Jeanmar Gomez vs. Houston Astros
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
- Vernon Wells is 24-for-50 (.480) with three home runs in his career against today’s starter, Mark Buehrle.
- Robinson Cano is 8-for-20 (.400) with three home runs in his career against today’s starter, Mark Buehrle.
- Carlos Gonzalez is 9-for-25 (.360) with three home runs in his career against today’s starter, Madison Bumgarner.
- Joey Votto is 7-for-16 (.438) with one home run in his career against today’s starter, Cliff Lee.
- J.P. Arencibia is 7-for-15 (.467) with one home run in his career against today’s starter, Hiroki Kuroda.
- Adam Jones is 10-for-31 (.323) with three home runs in his career against today’s starter, Jeremy Hellickson.
- Chris Davis is 8-for-18 (.444) with one home run in his career against today’s starter, Jeremy Hellickson.
- Justin Morneau is 8-for-16 (.500) in his career against today’s starter, Clay Buchholz.
- Josh Hamilton is 1-for-8 in his career against today’s starter, Chris Sale.
- Daniel Murphy is 1-for-9 (.111) in his career against today’s starter, Edwin Jackson.
- Coco Crisp is 3-for-17 (.176) in his career against today’s starter, James Shields.
