Draft Day Challenge, April 23

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.

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

One other source for those of you on Twitter: @MLBDailyLineups – lists all the lineups in one spot so you can make sure you don’t have someone in your lineup that is sitting on the bench that day.

CATCHERS
1. Salvador Perez
2. Russell Martin

Perez is hitting a poor .188 the past three weeks to drop his season long mark down to .258. He faces Max Scherzer, a tough matchup, though one that he has had ample success with as he’s gone deep twice and has five hits in seven at-bats.

Martin was awful at the start of the season and people were freaking out. He’s turned that all around of late. Martin is hitting .526 the past week with a couple of homers. Things tend to even out eventually.

FIRST BASE
1. Mark Trumbo
2. Adam LaRoche

Trumbo is hitting .350 with a homer the last week, and he’s been solid all year long with a .311 average. He’s also gone 4-for-10 against Alexi Ogando whom he faces on this day.

LaRoche is a slow starter, so maybe it’s tough to trust him, but he has had some success versus Adam Wainwright in his career (.280-1-9 in 25 at-bats).

SECOND BASE
1. Ian Kinsler
2. Jose Altuve

Kinsler is expensive, but he’s worth it given the success he has had against Jason Vargas (.343-1-3 with two steals over 35 at-bats).

Altuve is white hot right now with a .455 batting average over the past two weeks. Will he be able to keep that going against Hisashi Iwakuma who has a 1.69 ERA and 0.53 WHIP over four starts?

THIRD BASE
1. Mark Reynolds
2. Kyle Seager

Reynolds leads baseball with 10 RBIs against left-handed pitching and he faces Jose Quintana, a lefty, from the White Sox. Reynolds has gone deep three times against lefties though he has hit, a Reynolds-like, .231.

Seager is hitting .276 thanks to hits in 11-straight games. He’s also rapped out seven hits the past three games and has two homers and four RBIs in his past two contests.

SHORTSTOP
1.Yunel Escobar
2. Jean Segura

Escobar has seven hits in 16 at-bats (.438) against Phil Hughes, you know, the slacker from New York who has a 1.79 WHIP and 6.43 ERA through three outings. Escobar also hit his second homer of the year and had two RBIs Monday night.

Segura is 0-for-3 against Clayton Richard in his career but he also leads baseball on this young season with a .563 batting average in 16 at-bats against left-handed pitching.

OUTFIELD
1. Alex Gordon
2. Matt Joyce

The matchup for Gordon looks sloppy on paper as he faces Max Scherzer. Results though say that Gordon should have a lot of success as he’s hit .389 with a homer in 18 at-bats against the righty. Gordon also enters the game hitting. .342 in April.

Joyce has gone deep twice with five hits in 11 at-bats (.455) against Phil Hughes, you know, the slacker from New York who has a 1.79 WHIP and 6.43 ERA through three outings. Wait, have I already written that?

STARTING PITCHERS
1. Jose Quintana
2. Wade Davis
3. Patrick Corbin
4. Carlos Villanueva

Quintana has 14 strikeouts over 13.2 shutout innings in his last two starts. He’s facing an Indians club that has hit .094 with a .172 SLG against him over 64 at-bats. Ownage perhaps?

Davis hasn’t allowed an earned run over his last two starts and he has struck out 13 batters over those 23 innings. He faces a tough Tigers lineup but he’s rolling so far in the young season and he does have a 3.42 ERA and 0.99 WHIP in seven career outings against the Tigers.

Corbin has allowed a total of three runs in two outings on the road this season. He faces off against the Giants in San Francisco. In three starts this season the young lefty has allowed a total of three earned runs though his 1.86 K/BB ratio isn’t exactly fantastic though in 23 innings against the Giants that number is a remarkable 15.00 (15 Ks, 1 BB).

Villanueva has allowed three runs in three starts this season leading to a 1.29 ERA and 0.81 WHIP for the Cubs. He faces the Reds in Cincinnati, a club that he has performed passably against in his career (3.99 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, 40 Ks in 49.2 IP).

 

By Ray Flowers

Daily Joust – Wk 11: Did We Learn Anything?

On Monday each week I take a look at the fantasy baseball game breaking down players who have produced noteworthy performances of late – not just positive outings mind you, but I’ll also delve into some of the players that have been sucking wind of late.
To get your daily fantasy baseball fix make sure you head over to DailyJoust.com to set your salary cap club.

GAINERS OF THE WEEK

Jake Arrieta (+43, $212,000 in DailyJoust Salary)
Arrieta dominated the Pirates in his last outing (1 ER in 7 IP) reminding everyone just how good he can be. Of course, the previous start his evil twin came out as he allowed 11 hits and nine runs in just four innings against the Phillies. He pitches in the toughest division in baseball (AL East), and consistency has always eluded him, but this is a young fella that does own a big arm (8.33 K/9, 3.13 K/BB this season).

Craig Gentry (+14, $91K)
Josh Hamilton is dealing with a nasty flu bug, and Nelson Cruz is seemingly always hurt somewhere, so Gentry has been generating a lot of excitement offensively this season in limited playing time. Craig has hit an uber impressive .349 while stealing nine bags in just 109 at-bats, and he has been raking it the past two weeks hitting .484 over his last 31 at-bats. Leonys Martin was called up which could eat into the playing time of Gentry, but he still makes a fine AL-only target.

Mike Minor (+30, $238K)
He’s finally found his game. In his last two starts Minor has allowed a total of two runs to drop his ERA by nearly a run to 6.01. Still, he walked six batters in those two outings signaling that everything isn’t totally “fixed” with his game. His skills far outpace that ERA and his WHIP (1.42) so buying low here certainly makes sense as the Braves have decided to return Kris Medlen to the pen to allow Minor and Randall Delgado to continue to start.

Alexei Ramirez (+17, $77K)
You’re killing me smalls. After improving to .245 with 18 RBI in May, June has been more of the same blah for Alexei as he has hit .212 with a .462 OPS in 52 at-bats. The only thing keeping him in the lineup at this point is his history of success cause he certainly hasn’t merited full time at-bats given his sickly .527 OPS through 64 games.

Jonathan Sanchez ($37, $207K)
A 2-start pitcher this week (HOU, STL) the enigma that is Sanchez continues to vex. In his return from injury he held the Brewers to one run in five innings and walking two batters has to been as an improvement for a guy who has issued 24 free passes in 30.1 innings. He’s not to the point where you can trust him – obviously – but if he goes out and looks solid this week it would be a great time to pounce.

LOSERS OF THE WEEK

Jose Altuve (-11, $91K)
After hitting .283 in May he’s upped that mark back to .317 in June, which just so happens to match his year mark. His speed is allowing him to leg out a few more hits than I expected, but it’s a long season. Given that he’s no power hitter, and that he doesn’t really draw walks either, he’s going to have to keep that average up or he’ll also see his steal total fall do to a lack of times on base to attempt a theft (his OBP is just .359 despite that .317 batting average).

Jose Bautista (-16, $118K)
Flashing the power bat that has produced 40 homers, 100 RBI and 100 runs the past two years, Bautista is on pace to reach all of those marks yet again in 2012 (19 homers, 47 RBI, 42 runs scored in 66 games). However, like I’ve said about 97 times over the past two years, Bautista is NOT a .300 hitter, not even close. Batting .230 on the year, I’ll write it again – in a career that began in 2004 Jose Bautista has finished a season with a batting average over .265 one time – once. It’s an open question if he will make it two times this year.

J.A. Happ (-38, $155K)
Bombed in his last start (8 ER in 3.1 innings against Giants), Happ is sporting a 5.33 ERA and 1.60 WHIP. Consider me shocked (if you could see my face right now you’d understand that I’m not shocked in the least – the guy just isn’t that good a pitcher). NL-only leaguers have had the benefit of Happ’s 76 KS in 72.2 innings, but even in that setup you’re paying a high price for some punchouts (as you can tell over at Fleaflicker, most people are doing the right thing an avoiding Happ).

Derek Lowe (-16, $181K)
If you had said back in March that on June 19th Lowe would have seven victories an a 3.78 ERA I’d have said he would have exceeded all expectations. However, he’s seen his ERA go from 2.15 to that 3.78 mark in his last four outings, though that could hardly be a shock for a guy who has only two more Ks than walks (28 Ks, 26 BBs) in 78.2 innings. Lowe is a middling innings eater who should only be used in certain matchups — and that K-rate is vomit inducing at 3.20 per nine.

DAILY CONTEST

Today you can sign up for the King Arthur’s $50 Free Roll on DailyJoust. No entry free is required to get a chance to play the game and earn your free chance to take home part of the $50 prize pool. All games that start at 7:05 PM EDT or later are open to add players to your daily fantasy baseball squad. So get over to DailyJoust, put together your one day lineup, and get ready to win some free $.

 

By Ray Flowers

Mailbag: April 26, 2012

I’m Ray Flowers, co-host of The Drive on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio. Each week I’ll be here answering questions that have been sent to me at the BaseballGuys’ Twitter account.

I have Neil Walker at 2b & Jemile Weeks at MI. Omar Infante still available on the waiver-wire. Do I grab Omar over NW or JW?
– @DadofReilly

Walker is hitting only .224 with no homers and five RBI through 17 games, a dreadful start for a guy who came into the season with a fair amount of hype. To be fair we’re only talking about 58 at-bats, and Walker does have 12 hits in his last 10 games, but disappointing is certainly a word I would use to describe a guy coming off a 83 RBI, 76 run campaign who has started like this. Weeks has been just as bad hitting a mere .200 with a pathetic .253 OBP, but he does have two homers, three steals and nine runs scored, so he hasn’t been an unmitigated disaster (Week’s brother, Rickie, has been pretty unimpressive since the start of last season. For more see Fact of the Day, April 25thBaseballGuys.com). At the same time, I always felt that Jemile was getting too much love in fantasy circles heading into the 2012 season.

Infante continues to act like he thinks he is Robinson Cano. Through a mere 13 games Infante is hitting .313 with five home runs. Infante is a .275 career hitter, and he hit .305 in 2009 and .321 in 2010, so it’s possible he could bat .300 this season, though I still consider it unlikely. As for the power, there is no, none, nada, chance that the power display will continue. This is not a Jose Bautista breakout we are witnessing. Infante has one season, and he started playing in the majors in 2002, with more than nine homers (he hit 16 back in 2004). Per 162 games in his career, a career that has lasted long enough for him to accrue over 3,200 big league at-bats, Infante has averaged 10 homers. He’s already halfway to that average — in 13 games thanks to a four times increase in his HR/F rate (it’s currently at 20.8 percent versus a career mark of 5.2 percent).

Given how hot he has been, there are very few fantasy baseball leagues out there in which Infante should be on waivers considering he has been the third most productive second base eligible player per contest according to Fleaflicker. That said, he’s got no shot at ll of sustaining his unbelievable start. If you wanted to move on from either of your current players I would suggest dropping Walker because his skill set more closely matches that of Infante (Weeks has game changing speed). I’m not saying I’d rather have Infante for the course of the season over Walker, but there is no denying that right now Infante is the more appealing option.

Drop Bud Norris for Chad Billingsley or Chris Capuano? Or keep the faith?
– @edcolby

Norris is being bailed on by a lot of people who see a 5.84 ERA and a 1.50 WHIP. You should look beyond those numbers to see the following. (1) His 8.03 K/9 rate is impressive. (2) His 2.92 BB/9 mark is a batter below his career level. (3) His 0.97 GB/FB ratio is just off his career rate of 1.02. Still, his HR/FB ratio is way up leading to 1.82 homers per nine innings. That number will not continue (just look at his mark the past two seasons – 1.05 and 1.16). The truth of the matter is that Norris has pitched way better than his fantasy ratios would suggest.

Billingsley came out on fire, and it appears that he is well on his way to putting behind him that down 2011 campaign (11-11, 4.21 ERA, 1.45 WHIP, 152 Ks). The biggest key for Billingsley in the early going, the main reason he has a 3.04 ERA and 0.93 WHIP through four starts, is the fact that he just isn’t beating himself. A guy who walks about 3.9 batters per nine innings for his career, that mark currently sits at 1.90. Guys just don’t drop two batters off their BB/9 mark after being at another level for five years, but it’s still encouraging to see him throwing more strikes. At the same time, Billingsley’s current 7.23 K/9 mark would actually be a six year low, so maybe he’s changed his approach a wee bit. It’s also a pretty good bet that Chad won’t be able to keep batters to a .195 average (.249 for his career) once the innings start to pile up.

Capuano is slowly starting to get some love in the fantasy game. A huge injury risk since the virtually the day he was drafted, here are Capuano’s innings pitched totals the past five years: 150, zero, zero, 66 and 186. Yeah, he’s one risky cat to own. Capuano does have solid K potential (7.83 per nine this year, 8.13 last season), pitches in a solid pitchers park in Los Angeles (he also gets to make starts in pitcher havens such as San Diego and San Francisco), and he’s a cheap option that is likely still on many a waiver-wire even with his solid start (2-0, 3.52 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, 20 Ks in 23 IP).

I’m taking Billingsley knowing full well that he has no chance of keeping up his current pace. So why suggest adding the Dodgers’ righty then? Consistency (something Capuano certainly can’t offer). Billingsley takes the ball every five days and gives his team a chance to win more times than not. Norris has a “bigger” arm, but he’s also inconsistent and pitches for a team that might struggle to provide him with enough run support for him to reach double-digits in victories.

Should I drop Kelly Johnson to sign Jose Altuve?
– @theYankeeHajny

Johnson hit .222 last year and has started out this year with a .231 average through 17 games so I get the concern. At the same time, Johnson has hit 20 homers with 75 runs scored and 13 steals each of the past two years. Those aren’t fantastic numbers but they are still numbers that only one second sacker have reached each of the past two years. A guy like that, even with a potential batting average deficiency, shouldn’t be given up on lightly (it should be pointed out that Johnson does have a .259 career average and that he hit .284 as recently as 2010).

Altuve has been hot with the twig hitting .377 through 69 at-bats. However, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. First, Altuve isn’t going to hit the ball into the seats (three homers in 290 career at-bats), which also will likely lead to a poor RBI total for an every week starter in most mixed leagues. Second, though speedy, he’s only had one effort of 30 steals and he has 11 in 75 big league games. He could easily steal 20 bases this year, he already has four, but his not going to light up the steals category. Third, and I hate to break it to you all, but he’s not a great hitter. Having completely skipped Triple-A, Altuve has only 290 at-bats above Double-A, and that concerns me a bit given that he isn’t exactly the most patient hitter in the world, and that could drain his batting average a bit when he gets into a funk. It’s also a pretty fair guess that his current .431 BABIP will likely regress by a .100 or so points, and that will cause his batting average to dip accordingly.

Give me Johnson over the slap it and run Altuve, but make sure you have other hitters on your club who can cover the poor average you are likely to receive from Johnson.

I trade Adrian Gonzalez and Nelson Cruz for Albert Pujols and Hanley Ramirez. Do it?
– @bearnvegas

Everyone, let’s stop the panic with Pujols. Some facts. In every season of his career he’s finished the year hitting at least .299 with 34 homers, 99 RBI and 99 runs scored. Right now he’s hitting .222-0-4-6. Assuming he reaches his “worst” totals, numbers he has reached in each of the past 11 seasons, that means from this point forward that he is going to blast 34 homer with 94 RBI and 93 runs scored. And those numbers would merely equal his career worsts. As for the batting average, assuming 574 at-bats (his seasonal average the first nine years), Pujols would hit .311 the rest of the season. Despite the slow start, I think all of those targets are fair which leads me to the position that I would still prefer Pujols to AGone (.303-2-13-9).

Cruz can be a beast, but he’s always seemingly hurt (the last three seasons he has averaged just 120 games a season which dings his value substantially). He’s also hit under .265 in two of his last three seasons. There are also questions about just how much running he will be allowed to do given his continued issues with his wheels (he’s stolen 10 bases in his last 143 games after stealing 37 bases in 2009-10). Hanley is hitting just .238, and coming off shoulder surgery, but he qualifies at shortstop and second base, and that’s huge. He’s also gone deep four times while stealing four bases, a pace that would lead to a 35/35 season if he were to maintain it (obviously that’s doubtful).

Get Pujols and HanRam. AGone and Cruz should not be dealt to anyone lightly, but this is a pretty impressive return.

Ray Flowers can be heard daily on Sirius/XM Radio on The Fantasy Drive on Sirius 210 and XM 87 from 5-8 PM EDT, Monday through Friday.