Good morning folks! After you stayed up all last night to set your fantasy football lineups, make sure to get in on some baseball action today! As always, below I’ve included a discussion on the pitching options, the best teams to stack from as well as an individual set of player rankings.

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Forecast

There are some hit and miss rain chances tomorrow in a few spots, and perhaps most notably in Pittsburgh. As always be sure to check around Twitter and other outlets to make sure these games will be fine to play closer to first pitch.

Pitching Perspective

As a heads up, because of the clear focus towards football today, the analysis will be in an abbreviated form, but won’t lack any of the material normally provided. 

Four different pitchers stick out as lock down options today for those of you who will be able to pry your mind away from football. Francisco Liriano, Max Scherzer, Chris Sale and Zack Grienke all take the mound today, looking to shut down their opponents.

Liriano will be pitching at home against a fairly week Milwaukee Brewers lineup that will be taking a decent sized negative park shift. The Brewers are better suited to face left-handed pitching, but that doesn’t scare me away from taking Liriano, who has a high strikeout upside as a decent sized favorite in this game. Franky is the cheapest of the four options I mentioned, and the Brewers only have an implied run total of 3 runs as of writing this, meaning that Vegas is on his side as well. He’s the most volatile of this group, but fits in perfectly in terms of upside.

I don’t think I really have to say much about any of the other pitchers to defend their usage. All three have been phenomenal this season and favorable matchups today. The thing that is hardest to work around with these arms is the salary that is attached to them. All three have salaries upwards of $11,000 making it extremely difficult to fit in one and nearly possible to fit in two. Of the three, Grienke has the least appealing matchup against a Diamondbacks team on the road in Chase Field, but I’d consider him a solid tournament option.

Scherzer and Sale have the strikeout stuff to mitigate any potential damage in earned runs and have two of the highest ceiling/floor combinations in all of baseball. If you’re paying up for either, you won’t be dissatisfied.

In order to go along with these high priced guys, you’ll have to find some salary relief, and you’ll be able to do so with Michael Wacha or Mike Leake. Wacha is the better pure stuff arm of these two, and while he might have better run prevention skills than Leake, the matchup and ballpark points towards using Leake. Leake will be pitching against the San Diego Padres hapless offense in his home ballpark in San Francisco. Believe it or not, this is still a negative park shift for Padres hitters, but man, it doesn’t get much worse than Petco. Leake isn’t going to wow you and strike out a lot of hitters (only around six per nine innings) but he’s got a bottom-barrel salary, and the matchup to go along with it.

Stack Options

1. The Cleveland Indians – Putting the Indians here is just a product of them facing old man Randy Wolf. I’m not sure how Wolf is still pitching, but he’s not been doing so well. He’s yielded 1.69 HR/9 so far this season, and hasn’t been good in any other category. The Tigers are essentially using him to eat up useless innings, and the Indians will make them really useless today. <—- That’s what I wrote in yesterday’s piece as this matchup was supposed to take place then. Nothing really changes for me here, as the Indians are still a great stacking opportunity against an old, old arm.
2. The New York Yankees – Let me make note, that this is a pure tournament stack. The Yankees are taking on knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, and facing the knuckleball can essentially lead to two outcomes. The Yanks will either destroy Dickey, or mutter around and not do “enough” to make them a worthwhile stack option. Their implied runs total is sitting around 4.5 runs right now, but they have a lot of power upside, even with the loss of Tex. Dickey has been pretty terrible this year, and he’s held true to his yearly HR/9, allowing just over one per nine innings.
3. Seattle Mariners – I felt I was bordering an extreme GPP trend, so I figured I’d continue. Yes, this is in part due to the Mariners elevated implied run total, but also due to the fact that they’re facing perhaps the worst pitcher in baseball, Kyle Kendrick. I’m not sure what I’d be doing if this game was taking place in Coors, and lucky for Kendrick it’s not, but take advantage of a 6.16 FIP and 2.06 HR/9.

Player Rankings

Catcher

1. Kyle Schwarber -$4,800 – Chicago Cubs
2. Brian McCann -$3,900 – New York Yankees
3. Yan Gomes -$3,300 – Cleveland Indians

First Basemen

1. Carlos Santana -$3,900 – Cleveland Indians
2. Jesus Montero -$2,000 – Seattle Mariners
3. Mike Napoli -$3,300 – Texas Rangers

Second Basemen

1. Jason Kipnis -$4,500 – Cleveland Indians
2. Robinson Cano -$3,600 – Seattle Mariners
3. Chris Coghlan -$3,300 – Chicago Cubs

Shortstop

1. Ketel Marte -$3,300 – Seattle Mariners
2. Carlos Correa -$4,400 – Houston Astros
3. Francisco Lindor -$4,400 – Cleveland Indians

Third Basemen

1. Kyle Seager -$4,100 – Seattle Mariners
2. Adrian Beltre -$3,700 – Texas Rangers
3. Chase Headley -$3,300 – New York Yankees

Outfield

1. Jacoby Ellsbury -$3,900 – New York Yankees
2. Brett Gardner -$4,200 – New York Yankees
3. Nelson Cruz -$5,200 – Seattle Mariners

Starting Pitchers

1. Max Scherzer -$11,500 – Washington Nationals
2. Chris Sale -$13,000 – Chicago White Sox
3. Zack Grienke -$11,800 – Los Angeles Dodgers
4. Francisco Liriano -$10,300 – Pittsburgh Pirates
5. Mike LEake -$6,400 – San Francisco Giants
6. Michael Wacha -$8,600 – St. Louis Cardinals