In the first installment of the grading process, we’ll look at the gold stars, the players that exceeded expectations. As always, in the comments, feel free to beat your chest about who you were high on relative to the rest of fantasy baseball players!
Please, blog, may I have some more?fantasy baseball strategy
This is it, fellas and three girl readers. The last train is leaving the station. The giddy has just about got up and went. It’s your last chance and I’d throw every single pitcher, not just the ones I have listed here if it meant the difference in my league.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Cliff Pennington – Pennington was the 21st overall selection in the 2005 draft by the Oakland Athletics. He started in A ball that year and looked pretty good over 69 games: .276/.364/.359. While the power wasn’t really there, he was only 21 and did manage 15 doubles in 334 plate appearances.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Wouldn’t say this is crunch time as much as this is “Your nuts are in a cracker and the season’s closing in and squeezing tight so you better just throw any pitchers that are available because you need stats — stat!” time. The line for last week was 80 IP, 4.05 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 50 Ks and 3 wins. Not a great line, but if you throw out Lannan and Francis because you had better sense than me and didn’t start them. The line comes down to 3.42 ERA and 1.37 WHIP. To recap, these aren’t guys I’d drop anyone worthwhile to get, these starters are meant for streaming purposes and all of their ownership in ESPN is under 50%. These streamers are in no particular order. Also, in the final month of the season, managers juggle their lineups more, so there’s no guarantee all of these guys are listed on the right day. Anyway, here’s some borderline starters for this week in fantasy baseball:
Friday, September 16th
Philip Humber – It’s really slim pickins on Friday for under 50% owned starters. I’m not a huge fan of Humber but compared to some of the other schmohawks, well, here he is.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Angel Pagan – Twelve years ago, the New York Mets made Pagan, an 18-year-old, a fourth round draft pick – however it was not a smooth transition from draft to Shea for the young Puerto Rican.
Things started out well for Pagan.
Please, blog, may I have some more?This isn’t meant to replace Smokey’s two-start pitchers for fantasy that comes every weekend. This is meant to supplement that, like something A-Rod’s cousin would give you. This isn’t two start pitchers, this is barely owned guys that could give you one start.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Brett Cecil – Cecil grew up right where I live and pitched for my high school’s big rival: Dematha (a school that produced David Aldridge, Keith Bogans, Mike Brey, James Brown, Adrian Dantley, Joe Forte, Paul Rabil, Brian Westbrook and others).
Please, blog, may I have some more?Luke Hochevar – After high school, Hochevar was selected in the 39th round of the 2002 draft by the Los Angeles Dodgers. To hell with that, he said, I’m going to Tennessee to follow Arrested Development and Tee Martin.
It turned out to be a darn good choice for Hochevar.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Jesus Guzman – Over 11 years ago, in 2000, when Guzman was 16, he signed a minor league deal with the Seattle Mariners. The Venezuelan wouldn’t see real minor league action until 2004, when he debuted at A+ ball. He acquitted himself quite well, going .310/.393/.443.
Please, blog, may I have some more?The other day I went over picking up free agent hitters. So now I do onto pitchers as I did onto hitters. I opined that there were five things to look for with hitters, after looking up what opined meant. Most of the criteria had to do with the hitter and not so much who he was facing. It factored in, but didn’t dominate the decision. If you feel like pitchers are going in the opposite direction, your powers of perception are incredible. It is a true wonder how you’re divorced multiple times. Put yourself on the free agent market, you catch you! Pitchers are a lot harder to figure. The pitcher can really only do so much. I try to not even concern myself with wins. It’s a crapshoot. This is more for H2H than roto, but sometimes in roto you want a spot start too. I ain’t mad at cha! So here’s what I do concern myself with when picking up spot starters in fantasy baseball:
1.
Please, blog, may I have some more?

