PJ Walters SP (MIN) - For those of you who like to play stacked lineups (heavy on one team) in daily fantasy baseball salary cap formats such as Draftstreet, go with the Indians today. They face Walters (who I wrote negatively about after his last start) who is certainly due for some BABIP regression. Also, in daily leagues getting guys who hit homers are key and Walters has a career HR/FB% of 20%. Specifically you may want to target Kipnis, Choo, Brantley and Chisenhall as Walters has given up 10 HR and 26 runs to left handed hitters in 34.2 career innings against them.
Jason Kipnis 2B (TEX) - Kipnis belted a grand slam (9th homer) and stole his 12th base of the season last night. The sophomore has not disappointed this year as he is the highest rated roto 2B. Kipnis is staving off a sophomore slump by improving his plate discipline. Coming into the year Kipnis had some risk due to his 22.7 K% and .32 EYE. However, Kipnis has lowered both his chase rate and swinging strike rate, which has allowed him to lower his K% to 15.6% while maintaining his walk rate and posting a .51 EYE. Kipnis is on pace for a 20/20 season and given the plate discipline improvements I am confident he gets there and pushes hard for 25/25.
Curtis Granderson OF (NYY) - I wrote earlier in the season that Granderson owners might want to sell high due to his struggles against left handed pitching re-emerging. Oops. That was clearly the result of a small sample size and not a regression in Granderson's skills against lefties; he entered play yesterday with a .912 OPS against lefties, which is actually 6 points higher than his OPS against righties. Last night Granderson homered off of lefty Casey Crosby; it was Granderson's 17th homer overall and 6th against a lefty. Our preseason notes written by the master Anthony Perri stated that Granderson would regress a little but not as much as most p expected and currently that analysis is proving to be dead on.
Henderson Alvarez SP (TOR) - Dump Henderson Alvarez as starts like last night (4 ER in 6.1 IP) are going to be a likely occurrence. Alvarez was pretty lucky early on in the season (BABIP, strand rate are still quite favorable) but his FIP of 5.45 shows his true skills, not the ERA of 3.75. Alvarez has a laughable K/9 of 2.63. His control and GB% are great, but the positive of the good GB rate is somewhat negated by the fact that he has shown a propensity between this year and last year to have an abnormally high HR/FB%. I wouldn't trust him anywhere, let alone the AL East.
Felix Hernandez SP (SEA) - Hernandez gave up 4 ER in 5 IP last night including 3 homers; his ERA now sits at 3.42. Last year Felix saw his velocity drop by 1 mph off his career mark, and this season it has dropped another 2 mph. It's tough to say that there is something obviously wrong with Felix given that his peripherals were right in line with his career entering this game, but I have to think a 3mph gap between his current fastball velocity and his career mark is cause for a concern. I wouldn't necessarily sell Felix off at a discount, but if I could get equal value or close to it and rid myself of the risk that the elephant in the room (FB velocity) holds, I'd do it.
