It’s Miggy’s world…we’re all just living in it
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 Sunday, May 19th.
5 Good Nights
- Miguel Cabrera: 4-4, 4 R, 3 HR, 5 RBI
- Everth Cabrera: 2-6, 2R, 2 RBI, 3 steals
- Will Venable: 2-5, R, HR, 2 RBI, 1 steal
- Justin Masterson: 7.0 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 11 Ks, W
- Ricky Nolasco: 8.0 IP, 5 H, ER, BB, 11 Ks, W
Honorable Mention: Adam Jones, David Murphy, Michael Brantley, Prince Fielder, Ryan Zimmerman, Dustin Pedroia, Erick Aybar, Yonder Alonso, Jason Vargas, Homer Bailey, Matt Moore, Lucas Harrell, Jeff Locke, Jonathan Pettibone, Juan Nicasio, John Lackey, Matt Magill
5 Bad Nights
- Dan Haren: 5.0 IP, 9 H, 7 ER, 2 BB, 5 Ks
- Doug Fister: 4.2 IP, 9 H, 5 ER, BB, 3 Ks
- Felix Hernandez: 5.0 IP, 8 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 8 Ks
- Victor Martinez: 0-5
- Mike Moustakas: 0-5
Dishonorable Mention: Kenley Jansen, Aroldis Chapman, Barry Zito, Derek Holland, Kyle Lohse, Jake Peavy, Dillon Gee
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.
- Ian Kinsler was placed on the 15-day DL with bruised ribs and Jurickson Profar was called up to take Kinsler’s place while he is out. It’s not clear if Profar will be sent back down to Triple-A once Kinsler is healthy, but it’s worth taking a flier on the Rangers’ top prospect just in case.
- Johnny Cueto (oblique) has been activated from the DL and will start against the Mets today.
- After Steve Cishek was unable to close the door on the Diamondbacks, Mike Dunn was summoned to record the one-out save for the Marlins. If Cishek continues to falter, Dunn, A.J. Ramos, and Ryan Webb may get a look at some save opportunities.
- With Grant Balfour having pitched the previous two days, Ryan Cook picked up a save for the A’s yesterday. Cook may get a few saves like this going forward, but there is no closer controversy here.
- Ryan Howard sat out yesterday’s game and will have a precautionary MRI done today to make sure there’s nothing major going on with his sore knee. Howard will rejoin the Phillies today, but it doesn’t look like he’s very likely to suit up tonight.
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
Clayton Kershaw at Milwaukee Brewers
Shelby Miller at San Diego Padres
Cole Hamels at Miami Marlins
3 Down
Bartolo Colon at Texas Rangers
Patrick Corbin at Colorado Rockies
Shaun Marcum vs. Cincinnati Reds
Throwing Darts
Julio Teheran vs. Minnesota Twins
Ryan Vogelsong vs. Washington Nationals
Josh Lindblom vs. Oakland A’s
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
- Travis Hafner is 15-for-33 (.455) with four home runs in his career against today’s starter, Freddy Garcia.
- Adrian Beltre is 19-for-60 (.317) with five home runs in his career against today’s starter, Bartolo Colon.
- Paul Konerko is 10-for-23 (.435) with three home runs in his career against today’s starter, Jon Lester.
- Brandon Phillips is hitless in 12 career at-bats against today’s starter, Shaun Marcum.
- Robinson Cano is 2-for-15 (.133) in his career against today’s starter, Freddy Garcia.
- Nelson Cruz is 1-for-12 (.083) in his career against today’s starter, Bartolo Colon.
