Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

These matchups and statistical data were pulled Saturday morning to help fantasy baseball owners plan their week. Please be aware the matchups are subject to change. The original post can be found be found at Through the Fence Baseball.

Top Starters

Additional Information: It looks as though Clay Buchholz is fully recovered from the irritated AC joint and neck stiffness, and he should be added to your starting lineup. Supposing Stephen Strasburg comes off the DL on Sunday (June 16), he is expected to start this week against the Rockies. With Troy Tulowitzki on the DL for four to six weeks, the Rockies lineup is going to be Carlos Gonzalez, two young, unproven prospects (Josh Rutledge and Nolan Arenado) and a lot of fringe average offensive players; the Rockies are now a great stream option when they are on the road.

Backend Starters

Additional Information: In his last nine starts, Rick Porcello has a 2.84 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, 25.6 percent strikeout rate and 4.6 percent walk rate. Porcello is a top 30-35 starting pitcher the rest of the year. Shockingly, Bartolo Colon is only owned in 80.6 percent of ESPN leagues. Colon doesn’t strike anyone out, but he’s the perfect companion pitcher for high strikeout, poor WHIP pitchers (I’m looking at you Ryan Dempster). After a brief rough patch in late April, Jose Fernandez has a 2.42 ERA, 1.08 WHIP and 27.4 percent walk rate. With Logan Morrison and Giancarlo Stanton back in the Marlins lineup, Fernandez may have an opportunity to pitch with a lead and earn more wins.

Spot Starters

Additional Information: Dan Straily has looked great in his last five starts, recording a 2.20 ERA and 0.77 WHIP. The biggest adjustment he’s made is he’s no longer trying to strike everyone out; he has a 16.3 percent strikeout rate in that time frame compared to 23.1 percent to begin the year. Instead, he’s following Colon’s lead and throwing a lot of strikes, nearly 70 percent of them. Tyler Chatwood, only owned in 9 percent of ESPN leagues, is a must stream in all formats. The Nationals have the third lowest OPS in the league (ahead of the Mets and Marlins). Corey Kluber is only owned in 2 percent of ESPN leagues despite striking out 24.5 percent of batters and only walking 5 percent of batters. If he’s available, go get him.

Proceed With Caution

Additional Information: The big name on this list is Zack Wheeler. The Braves strikeout the most of any team in the majors, so I couldn’t think of a better opportunity to showcase his plus stuff. In his last four starts, Ubaldo Jimenez has a 2.35 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, 20.6 percent strikeout rate and 12.4 percent walk rate. Those numbers are not overly impressive but, he achieved those numbers @Texas, @Detroit, @Cincinnati and Tampa Bay. With two great matchups against the Royals and the Twins, Jimenez is worth the roll of the dice if you’re looking for a strikeout infusion for your team. However, Doug Thorburn recently wrote his posture is still very bad and is causing him to lose his release point. Hector Santiago has pitched great, but he’s facing the Royals who have the 10th highest OPS against lefties. Jordan Lyles has pitched very well in his last six starts, but he’s not as good as the 1.67 ERA and 1.09 WHIP would indicate. In those six starts he’s faced the Mariners, Rockies, Pirates, Angels and the Royals twice; not exactly the best offenses in the majors. Lyles doesn’t have overly impressive stuff, but has plus (on the scouting scale) command of the fastball (sits at 89-92 mph) and command of his other three pitches (change-up, slider and curveball). A profile like his is not a profile of a pitcher you want on your fantasy team because he doesn’t miss enough bats, and his performance from start to start are more difficult to predict.

Avoid

Additional Information: You may have noticed Matt Moore is not in my top 101. In his last nine starts he has a 6.38 ERA, 1.80 WHIP, 12 percent walk rate and only a 14.7 percent strikeout rate. Those peripherals look like they belong to a fifth starter, not the best prospect in 2012 according to Baseball Prospectus. What’s most bothersome about Moore’s performance has been the decrease in his fastball velocity (two mph) compared to last year. I’m not starting him until he puts together a string of good starts.

I’ve seen every start of only one pitcher this year and he’s not on the A’s. His name is Jeremy Hellickson. After I was finishing up my work day twitter blew up. So needless to say I had sticker shock when I saw eight earned runs and ten hits in 5.2 innings. In the preseason I loved Hellickson. I targeted him in every draft and “over drafted” him to ensure he was on my team because I thought he would stabilize my team’s ERA and WHIP. After watching yesterday’s start I’m recommending he dropped in all formats. For the first five innings he pitched like vintage Hellickson; trowing the fastball on both sides of the plate; the changeup looked crisp, inducing a lot of swings and misses. Then the sixth inning happened. All of a sudden he lost command of all of his pitches and became extremely hittable. He did suffer 1-2 instances of bad luck, but this was my last straw with him. He was pitching at home, a great pitcher’s ballpark, against one of the worst offenses in the league and he still got lit up.

After a shaky first three batters Jarrod Parker only allowed five base runners the rest of the game (in eight innings). Despite the really good box score his command of the strike zone was loose as it would come and go inning to inning. However, when he was commanding the changeup, especially to lefties, hitters were taking bad swings against it, which means the pitch is really good. Over his last eight starts he has a 2.85 ERA with a 0.99 WHIP so he’s bound to regress because he’s not that good, but if you own him, keep him. You could sell high if you can get a top 25 pitcher for him, but I don’t think you’ll be able to get that on the trade market.

If you haven’t heard by nowTroy Tulowitzki is out 4-6 weeks with a broken rib. I own him in two NFBC Leagues, one of which I’m in first place, and I’m scrambling to find a replacement. Josh Rutledge is expected to be called up to replace him and I’m probably going to use 70-80 percent of my remaining FAAB budget (about $550) to acquire him. Poor defense aside, he’s a top 10 middle infield option because he provides home runs and stolen bases and plays in Coors. Before he was sent down he a top five second baseman on ESPNs player rater. If you can’t get Rutledge you’re going to have to stream middle infield options until he comes back. Jeff Keppinger, in the last three weeks, is hitting3.313. Mike Aviles is another great option as long as Asdubal Cabrera is on the DL. If you’re looking for speed, Jasyon Nix quietly has eight steals this past month.

Since George Brett became the Royals hitting coach on May 30, Eric Hosmer has a slash line of .309/.356/.418. It’s easy to say it’s either a coincidence or a small sample size, but his swings have been a lot better at the plate and he’s driving the ball up the middle and to right field. Check out his hit chart below. He’s still hitting too many ground balls, but I finally have optimism.

Due to work requirements I was only able to catch the end of the Mariners-Astros and A’s-Yankee games, but I did not notice a couple of trends.

First, Tom Wilhelmsen blew his third save in the past two weeks. If you’re a Wilhelmsen owner it’s time to go grab Carter Capps. Wilhelmsen probably has a long leash and will get the next save chance, but since May 29 he has a 14.85 ERA and 2.70 WHIP (6.2 innings). If you have the roster spot, go get Capps.

Grant Balfour, again, came close to blowing another save. Prior to last night he’s almost blown four saves because he allowed fly balls to the warning track or a ball that went over the fence that the outfielder caught. Pitch location has been a big issue for Balfour this year; his walk rate is one percentage point larger and hitters are hitting .202 against him (compared to .160 last year). Balfour has fairly long leash and should remain the closer for awhile because he hasn’t blown a save in 30-31 chances, but he hasn’t looked nearly as good as the box score indicates. I still believe Sean Doolittle is the best reliever the A’s have and should be the next pitcher inline if something were to happen to Balfour. On a side note, f course after I tout Doolittle as one of the five best relievers in the game he allows ten earned runs in eight innings and pretty much making me look foolish.