Draft Day Challenge, April 16

Daily baseball is all the rage in the fantasy sports world, so I will be covering the game a couple of times a week here at BaseballGuys.com. To that end, I’ve partnered with DraftDay.com to give all my wonderful followers, that’s you, the chance to play the game on a daily basis. On Tuesday and Thursday’s here at the site, every week, I’ll be giving you some insight into the mind of The Oracle as I will give you some of my best plays for the day – even if I’m willing to admit that daily games are a bit of a crap shoot given the difficulty in predicting how a handful of at-bats will work out. With that, here are some of the better plays for Tuesday, April 11th.

To join a daily league remember to visit DraftDay.com by clicking on the link to their site.

CATCHERS
1. Mike Napoli
2. Welington Castillo

Napoli has started to hit, .263 the past week, and he’s actually up to 11 RBIs in 12 games. Not many have noticed that. He’s facing Ubaldo Jimenez whom he has two hits in three at-bats against in their brief interaction.

The Cubs’ backstop doesn’t have an at-bat against Derek Holland, but he has five hits in his last three games, nine hits in his last seven games, is batting .368 at home this season and .364 on the young season.

FIRST BASE
1. Lance Berkman
2. Chris Davis

Berkman has seven hits in 11 at-bats against Travis Wood. Two of those hits are home runs. Berkman has also started out all kinds of hot with a .389 batting average and 1.111 OPS.

Davis has slowed a bit the last week, he’s only hitting .294 with two homers in that time. Still, he’s got a strong matchup facing off against Roberto Hernandez of the Rays whom he has five hits (one homer) against in 13 at-bats (.385).

SECOND BASE
1. Ben Zobrist
2. Jamey Carroll

Why would I suggest you start a guy who has only two hits in 10 at-bats against a pitcher (Jake Arrieta)? Check out the walk column. Zobrist has eight in 18 plate appearances leading to a .556 OBP. The hits are coming.

Carroll is boring an only someone you want to use if you are looking for a cheap play to fill out your lineup. He’s only got eight at-bats on the year, but he has had a lot of success against Jason Vargas in his career with seven hits in 17 at-bats (.412).

THIRD BASE
1. Pedro Alvarez
2. David Wright

Alvarez is hitting .073 on the season. It’s even worse of late as he is 1-for-16 the past week. So start him against Jake Westbrook. Hey, history says it’s a good move as Pedro has hit .579 with two homers, eight RBIs an a 1.600 OPS over 19 at-bats in the matchup.

Wright has gone deep three times in 13 at-bats against Jeff Francis. He’s also gone 6-for-13 in the matchup with four walks leading to a .462/.611/1.154 slash line.

SHORTSTOP
1. Yunel Escobar
2. Jhonny Peralta

Escobar has been dreadful this season hitting .050 on the road (20 at-bats) and .098 overall. Crazy to play him I know, but he breaks out of his slump tonight against Jake Arrieta who he has seven hits, including a homer, in 16 at-bats (.438).

Peralta has seven hits in 23 at-bats, a .304 average, and he’s gone deep twice against Aaron Harang who is trying to impress his new employers in Seattle. Oh yeah, Peralta is also hitting .370 the past week.

OUTFIELD
1. Jonny Gomes
2. Andrew McCutchen

Gomes has five hits in 12 at-bats against Ubaldo Jimenez who isn’t exactly tearing it up this season. Two of those hits for Gomes were bombs, and he’s knocked in five runs too.

McC has nine hits in 22 at-bats with a big fly and four walks against Jake Westbrook. Andrew is hitting .409 with a cool .500 OBP. Nice.

STARTING PITCHERS
1. A.J. Griffin
2. Chris Capuano
3. Doug Fister
4. Dan Haren

Griffin faces the Astros. That’s always a good reason to start a guy. He also has been very good at home in his career with a 4-0 record, 3.19 ERA and 1.08 WHIP. The Astros have also been averaging 10.1 batters per nine innings this season.

Capuano has a 3.34 ERA, 1.27 WHIP and 7.3 K/9 mark in 70 innings against the Padres. The Padres are also hitting just .206 against lefties this season.

Fister has allowed a .212 average, .236 OBP and .346 SLG in 52 at-bats against the Mariners. He’s also allowed just one homer and walked one batter. Add in that he has a 2.77 ERA in two starts this season, and you’ve got yourself a solid starting option tonight.

Haren faces a Marlins team without Giancarlo Stanton. Haren has also struck out 10 batters, without issuing a single walks, in his nine innings this season.

By Ray Flowers

A Look Back at 2011 – Batting

Yesterday I tackled the 2011 performance of pitchers, an if you know me you know that I’m all about symmetry. Today, I’ll break down some of the numbers that stood out for me when I looked at the hitters for 2011. Special thanks to the 2012 Bill James Handbook where a fair amount of the information you are about to read about comes from (I would highly recommend the book for those of you looking for a nice reference tool).

For my review of some of the fascinating pitching numbers see A Look Back at 2011 – Pitching.

Asdrubal Cabrera hit .636 with 13 RBI last year in 11 at-bats with the bases loaded.

Miguel Cabrera led baseball with a 1.047 OPS against right handed pitching. That mark was .001 better than two other first basemen – Adrian Gonzalez and Prince Fielder.

If you were an NL pitcher in 2011 and you were looking to get strike one under your belt then you wanted to see Jamey Carroll come to the dish. Carroll swung at only 6.9 percent of first pitches. The only other NL batter in single digits was Martin Prado (9.8). As for those that did let her rip on the first pitch three names topped 40 percent: Yadier Molina (40.7), Aramis Ramirez (40.6) and Freddie Freeman (40.1).

If you were a curveball specialist you didn’t want to see the Diamondbacks on your schedule as Chris Young and Justin Upton were 1-2 in the NL in OPS against the curveball (1.149 and 1.148). If you relied on the slider, you certainly didn’t want to see the Reds or the Phillies in the other dugout as the Phillies had three guys in the top-5 in the NL in OPS (Shane Victorino 1.111, John Mayberry 1.060 and Jimmy Rollins 1.060) while the Reds had three in the top nine (Ryan Hanigan 1.036, Jay Bruce 1.036 and Chris Heisey 1.014).

Jacoby Ellsbury led the American League, and baseball, with 364 total bases. Teammate Adrian Gonzalez was second in the AL with 345 while Matt Kemp led the NL at 353.

Prince Fielder hit the longest home run in the NL at 486 feet. That’s hardly a surprise. However, the only other NL player with a homer over 480 feet was Juan Francisco of the Reds who hit on 482 feet on September 12th. No AL batter put one into the seats at a distance of at least 480 feet.

Derek Jeter failed to hit .300 as he finished at .297 for the Yankees. Blame his work against righties (.277) as he killed lefties to the tune of a .347 mark. For his career he’s hit .336 against lefties and .305 against the righties.

Matt Kemp loved seeing a lefty on the hill in 2011. His OPS of 1.142 was the best in the National League against southpaws. That mark was just behind the 1.156 OPS  of Jose Bautista against port siders, the AL leading total.

Victor Martinez led baseball with a .394 batting average with runners in scoring position. He also posted a .990 OPS in those 155 at-bats. He didn’t slump much either when the situation was a runner in scoring position with two outs. In that scenario he hit .375 with a .930 OPS (72 at-bats).

Dustin Pedroia saw 3,077 pitches, the most in baseball. Only one other batter was over 2,900 and that was Curtis Granderson at 3,069.

There was only one leadoff hitter in baseball, who had a minimum of 150 plate appearances in that spot, who posted an on base percentage of .400. It was Brandon Phillips of the Reds at .417. Surprisingly the AL leader wasn’t Jacoby Ellsbury who was second at .381. The fella in the Junior Circuit with the best mark was the Royals… Alex Gordon at .383.

There wasn’t a single batter in the NL who was under the age of 26 that posted an OPS of .900. The leader was Justin Upton at .898 followed closely by Mike Stanton (.893) and Carlos Gonzalez (.889).

By Ray Flowers

Around the Horn: August 11, 2011

(1) Alex Rodriguez to start minor league work Friday – return next week likely.

(2) Dee Gordon to DL – in comes Jamey Carrol.

(3) Rafael Furcal not exactly tearing it up.

(4) Waiver-wire adds, pitchers: R.A. Dickey, Mike Leake, John Lannan.

(5) Waiver-wire adds, hitters: Will Venable, Jose Constanza, Mike Carp, Juan Rivera, Rick Ankiel.

(6) Dan Uggla up to 31 games with hitting streak.

By Ray Flowers

Oddness Reigns

Yet another one of those days here on Wednesday with some oddities around the diamond. I’ll hit on a few things rather quickly before offering yet another diatribe about the stupidity that is being allowed to fester in the City of Brotherly Love.

Jamey Carroll had three hits on Wednesday, and for those of you haven’t bothered to look at his work this season you might be surprised to see that he is hitting .290 with 42 runs scored in just 224 ABs. AL-only leaguers who called his name out for two or three bucks on draft day have certainly gotten their money’s worth.

You don’t hear many people talking about Travis Hafner anymore, and with good reason. The once proud hitter who socked at least 24 home runs with 100 or more RBI in 4-straight seasons (2004-07) was atrocious last season in a year filled with injury (he hit .197 in 198 ABs). This year he has been much better hitting .278 with 13 homers and 38 RBI in 252 ABs, but it just looks like he will never be able to work his way back to the top of the mountain because of continued issues with his shoulder. “I don’t think he’s hurt, but there have been lasting affects from the surgery and the rehab,” manager Eric Wedge said. “I think he needs some down time to be 100 percent.”

Joe Crede remains out of the starting lineup with his back injury. I’m about as shocked to hear that Crede is sidelined by injury as I am that the Nationals have the worst record in baseball. In another shocking development, the Mets placed yet another player on the DL in hurler Oliver Perez. The mercurial lefty will have surgery to repair a patella tendon in his knee that has given him trouble all year, and as a result his season is over. There is not truth to the rumor that Mr. Met will end up on the DL with a strained oblique suffered while tossing peanuts to the fans.

Brad Lidge blew yet another game on Tuesday night, yet brain-dead manager Charlie Manuel says he is sticking with his beleaguered hurler. “He’s got to stay with it,” Manuel said. “He’s got to keep going. I mean, what the hell? That’s all we can do. … That’s where we’re at. That’s our closer. I’ve said that all along. That’s the guy we give the ball to in the ninth inning.” Look Mr. Manuel, you are turning into a laughing stock with your inability to make the move that should have been made months ago. In fact, way back on May 24th in A Change is Needed I suggested the obvious, turning to Ryan Madson, and I hit on that situation yet again about a week and a half ago in Philly Flop. Yet despite all of the data Manuel continues to run Lidge out there in the ninth inning, and it seems like he is pretty steadfast in his position despite an utter avalanche of information suggesting that this decision could preclude the team from once again reaching the World Series. If Tuesday night’s outing isn’t the straw that breaks the camels back – Lidge needed just seven pitches to allow three runs on his way to his sixth loss and ninth blown save – then there simply isn’t ever going to be a reason deemed worthy enough by Mr. Manuel to do the prudent thing and replace Lidge with Madson.

The Rockies continue to win, and they are just two games behind the Dodgers for the NL West lead heading into action on Wednesday night. No team in baseball history has ever come back from a 15.5 game deficit in season to capture a division title (the 1914 Braves came back from a 15 game deficit), but the Rockies could be the first. Since June 3rd, when they were a season worst 12 games under .500, the club has gone 52-22, good enough for a .703 winning percentage. Some truly amazingly things are happening on Colorado.

By Ray Flowers

Photo Credit: Mr. Met and the esteemed Ryan Houston.