Roto Riteup: July 3, 2012
Zach brought you the Roto Riteup over the weekend and I’m bringing you this Tuesday morning edition. We like to keep our readers on their toes.
• Chris Davis might be ready to go on one of his streaks. He has two homers in his past four games now, and has tallied six total hits in those games too. The last time he hit a home run was coming off of a four game, three homer streak. And before that it was a four home runs in eight games string. Going back to the very beginning of the season, Davis his four homers in another seven game span. If you need a power boost for the short term, I’d pick him up. Davis is available in over half of the Yahoo! leagues, despite being a fringe bat with 1B, 3B and OF eligibility. He won’t be your team’s savior, but for a one week flier, maybe he cranks out four homers for you. ESPN leagues are a similar story, where is owned in about half the leagues.
• Including last night, Wilin Rosario now has five homers in his last 10 games. We’ve been beating the Rosario drum for a couple of weeks now, but I guess no one is listening just yet. He is available in 75% of Yahoo! leagues and over 80% of ESPN formats. Serious question: do not very many of our readers play in in two catcher leagues? I prefer them, personally. Even if you play in single catcher leagues, I would still stream my catcher position. I wouldn’t waste a draft pick in a shallow league on a player who only plays five out of every seven games.
• Speaking of more rookie catchers, Yasmani Grandal blasted another home run last night. After he popped two long balls in his first ever MLB game, I assumed a lot of people would take notice. Clearly they have not. He is owned in less than 10% of Yahoo! leagues and his ownership rate in ESPN formats is a pitiful sub-5%. In two catcher leagues he is a must own, and if you have a crummy catcher in a single catcher league, I’d drop whomever you currently have and roll with Grandal.
• Last night Rickie Weeks got a hit and drew a pair of walks. It isn’t much, but he hasn’t reached base three times in a game since June 17. Weeks is clearly having the worst season of his still young career, and it is hard to pinpoint why. I don’t have enough words to fully dig into him right now, but one of the starkest contrasts that I see in Weeks’ numbers is his batted ball profile. For pulled ball for his career, Weeks hit .400. This year he is down at .213 on pulled balls. I do know that his RoS ZiPS is good for a .330 wOBA. For someone as talented as Weeks is, with the kind of history of production that he has, I can’t believe that he is owned in barely half of both ESPN and Yahoo! leagues. If a fed up owner dropped him, I’d snap him up in a hurry.
• Jeff Samardzija is still mowing down opposing batters. Last night he held the Braves to a single earned run on five base runners, while striking out 11 in the process. His ERA is still pretty high, even after this gem of a start, up at 4.77. Good thing since you’re here on Fan/RotoGraphs, you are too smart to look at ERA in such a small sample size. Samardzija’s FIP and xFIP are almost perfectly in line with each other, at 3.44 and 3.43 respectively. Given what we (think we) know about pitching, I’d absolutely target Samardzija in the second half of the year. Even without his curveball, he appears to be just fine. I dare say that he’s a top 25 pitcher in the NL now. Get his ownership rate above the measly 34% in Yahoo! and laughably low 24% of ESPN leagues.
For those of you who play daily fantasy games like FanGraphs: The Game, or just like to stream players, here are a couple matchups you may be able to exploit.
A Pitcher for Today: Andrew Cashner at ARI
Sure, pitching in Arizona isn’t the ideal ballpark, but I’m a believer in Cashner.
A Pitcher for Tomorrow: Jake Arrieta at SEA
Arrieta’s ERA is ugly at 5.81, but he’s actually pitched a lot better than that number suggests. His FIP and xFIP are just about at 4.00, and pitching in Safeco is a struggling starters dream come true.
A Hitter for Today: Anyone in the KC at TOR game.
No, really. Anyone. Vin Mazzaro brings his career 4.96 FIP into the Rogers Centre to square off against Brett Cecil and his 4.77 career FIP. Mazzaro’s HR/9 is 1.18, an awfully high number until you place it against Cecil’s 1.37 mark. Expect long flies and short pitching leashes.
As far at catchers go, I play in a 12 team mixed league with one catcher. Do a lot of people really play in two catchers leagues? I don’t know many people that do. If you’re in an AL or NL only league it’s probably really tough to do that since there are probably barely enough catchers to go around. Even in a 12 or 14 team mixed league pickings get pretty slim. I think a two catcher league is for the more hard core of fans that really want to have almost all major league starters rostered in their league.
I like the idea of streaming catchers, but at least in my case I’m in a league that limits you to four moves per week, so pretty much everyone uses them on steaming starters or picking up a position player they need. I never really draft catchers either except maybe in the last round. This year I started out with Ramon Hernandez and since he’s been hurt I’ve been using Ryan Doumit.
I’m not saying most leagues operate like this, but just giving one reader’s take on why Rosario’s ownership numbers might be lower… Plus people may be a bit concerned by his splits. His OPS against righties is only .757.
It all makes sense when these fringy 2-catcher league catchers aren’t owned in such a HUGE percentage of all leagues.
And wow, a league that limits moves on a weekly basis? Yikes. Do not want.
Rosario’s .757 OPS vs righties is better than Carlos Santana’s, JPA, and Wieters.
I am in H2H points league, getting extremely frustrated with Jesus Montero. Should I pick up Rosario or Grandal instead ROS? Unsure of what to do…
As much as it sucks saying this (because I am a huge believer in Montero), I’d take Grandal over him.
Jesus has 4 more ABs than any other C in MLB, but over 100 pts less than Molina & Ruiz in our league. Frustrating. Even in PETCO you’d take Grandal over Montero?
Yep.
Montero is hitting half of his games in Safeco. Six of one, half dozen of another.
What about Santana? I’m getting fed up with him
Depends how many decent options there are out there. I wouldn’t take someone like JPA over Santana.
More likely than not, I’d ride him out.
How about Brian McCann? Is going going to break out of his funk? I can’t really afford to roster two catchers right now, but I could add Grandal and trade McCann for whatever I can get. I’m guessing Grandal can outproduce the terrible McCann from the last few months, but is he going to match or outproduce him for the next three months?
Good questions, I’ll see if I can get someone to take a closer look at him.
For what it’s worth, Braves fans say McCann is really squinting at the plate. Not sure why he has vision issues every year, but there’s probably something uniquely wrong with his eyes if the medical staff can’t get this seemingly simple issue taken care of. Best case scenario, he hits .270 with 20HR power in the middle of the order. But as of now, we see the AVG won’t be there (the shift isn’t helping him) and he lost the middle of the order runs/RBI.
At this point, I’m willing to bench McCann’s upside in return for a more reliable .270 from Perez on KC. Then there is Rosario and Grandal. McCann’s AVG risk outweighs the reward at this point. Unless you’re in a 2 catcher league or a league deeper than 12 teams, McCann is benchable or droppable at this point. In my opinion….
Whoa. I haven’t heard that yet. To the google machine…when I’m finished working that is.
This is the exact situation I’m in with one of my teams.
You have yourself at least a 6 WAR name right there.
Re: A Pitcher for Tomorrow: Jake Arrieta at SEA
They’re calling up Chris Tillman to make tomorrow’s start in Safeco. Over his last 6 starts in AAA he has 43K:6BB and 2 HR in 36.2 IP. They’re holding back Arrieta for Thursday’s start @LAA which is quite unfortunate for those who spot started him in weekly leagues. Good luck with that.
Ahh, gotcha. I only saw that Tillman was scratched with the start, and was still with the Triple-A team. I knew the O’s had an opening Thursday and I think Friday, so I assumed that Tillman would slot in to one of those.
Would you drop Kelly Johnson for Rickie Weeks? I’m a big time Brewers fan w/ Weeks available on the waiver wire, but calling me a skeptic would be an understatement. That being said, Kelly Johnson hasn’t hit a homer since May 28th, and it’s not like his average has done anything to make up for it.
The upside of Weeks trumps the steady okay-not-great production of Johnson for me.
Picked up Avery on your recommendation and was enjoying the rewards until the Thome trade… are you as miffed as I am that Flaherty is out patrolling LF instead of Avery?
Ha! Just wait until my AL OF Tiered Rankings update comes out in a couple hours.
I’m in a 1 catcher league and have Weiters, who plays 6/7 days normally, so I’m not wasting a bench spot on another C unless Weiters is super-slumping (I had Ellis when that slump was happening).
Is it a public 5×5?
I’m seriously lost on whether or not to start Anibal @ MIL in a few hours. Too many heartbreaks with him lately.
I’d do it, I’m a big fan of Anibal.
2 catcher leagues are the only way to go. Although I never realized how much of an impact it would make havin 11 teams this year instead of 10. Talk about shallow
Ha, yep, I’m in a 12-team 29 man roster league. There are basically zero decent Catcher options on the ww.
Would you make a move for either of the above mentioned catchers now if you owned Carlos Santana and only have 4 moves left on the season? Because Carlos Santana is killing me, but I only have 4 moves left on the season (out of 30).
No, I like Santana to bounce back, I hope. I would seriously consider doing it if not for the limited number of roster moves though.
Thanks for the advice. Being in last place in BA (Gracias, Santana, A-Gone, Lowrie, Granderson, BJ Upton, Dee Gordon) can make a man think crazy thoughts.
30 moves, brutal. I’m already at 49 (no limit). Had to buy my way out of last early. Hard to give up on Santana when you don’t have free reign to try the guys riding a hot streak.
That too. I’ve had seasons and leagues where I’ve made almost 150 moves. A limit of 30 just seems against all reason.
Weeks or Uggla? I cannot drop Uggla, but…. Can either turn this funk around. I might just ride Neil Walker. Geez.