DFS PLAYBOOK PRO – An exciting offering from the Alarm is the DFS Playbook Pro. I will be doing a daily breakdown of the hitters – Hitting Coach – while Howard Bender looks into the Pitchers (Pitching Coach). You can find the link to the Hitting and Pitching articles under the DFS Playbook pro tab at the top right of the screen.
OTHER LINKS TO BOOKMARK
PITCHERS
Madison Bumgarner won’t pitch Sunday, the Giants will likely use Yusmeiro Petit, meaning the big lefties season is over. MadBum will end the year with 234 strikeouts over 218.1 innings, and he walked a total of 39 batters over 32 starts. Each of the last four seasons he’s thrown 200 innings with 190 strikeouts and at least 13 victories. He’s also posted an ERA in the 2.9’s the last two (the mark was 2.77 in 2013). He’s about as stable as any hurler in baseball. Build your staff around this man in 2016.
Jerad Eickhoff threw seven scoreless inning Thursday with 10 strikeouts against the Mets. The youngster has a 2.65 ERA and 1.04 WHIP over 51 innings since he was acquired in the Cole Hamels to Rangers deal. He allowed two runs over his final 21 innings in a strong push to the finish as he allowed no more than two earned runs in any of his last four starts.
Scott Kazmir has been really good. Too bad he’s stinking up the joint now. Last season he had a 5.42 ERA and 1.45 WHIP over his final 13 starts as he wore down. This season, over his last six outings, he has a 6.52 ERA and a 1.79 WHIP. The guy just cannot sustain a full season of success. Can’t. Should be obvious by now. The last two years are the first time, in a career that began more than a decade ago, that he has thrown 160-innings in back-to-back seasons. My advice if he ends up on your roster next season? Trade him at the All-Star break. Better yet, don’t draft him.
Mike Leake threw a complete game shutout against the Dodgers in his final start of the 2015 season. He ends the year at 11-10 with a 3.70 ERA and 1.16 WHIP. That’s three straight years with an ERA under 3.75 and a WHIP of 1.25 or better. He’s not great, never will be, and if you get 125 strikeouts you would be lucky (he’s only reached that level one time), but he’s a solid back of the rotation arm in mixed leagues.
David Price had his final start pushed back, but eventually the start was skipped altogether meaning Price’s 2015 regular season is over. Price ends yet another excellent season with 18 victories, five loses, a 2.45 ERA and 1.08 WHIP. That gives him 4-straight seasons with a WHIP of 1.10 or lower… in the American League. Damn impressive. For the fourth time in five years he crested 200 strikeouts as well. For the third straight season he kept his walk rate under two per nine (1.92 in 2015). There are only a handful of lefties in baseball that can claim to be on his level.
Michael Wacha has 17 wins a 3.38 ERA and 1.21 WHIP over 181.1 successful innings. Heck of a season for a guy coming back from a scary shoulder issue. It’s hardly surprising his performance has been on the wane as the innings have piled up, but boy does he stink right now. In five starts in September he had 19 strikeouts and 18 walks leading to a 7.88 ERA and 1.79 WHIP. Ugh.
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HITTERS
Jose Bautista is at 40 homers, the third time he’s reached that mark. Here are the other active players who have three 40-homer seasons: Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, 
Albert Pujols and Ryan Howard.
Chris Carter has four homers his last five games. He’s also hit six homers his last nine games. As a result he’s up to 24 homers while batting .196. Teammate Luis Valbuena is batting .219 with 24 homers. He has two homers his last five games but also only two homers his last 27 games. If Valbuena doesn’t push his average up the Astros will become the first team to have two players who hit 24 homers with a .220 batting average or lower.
Nick Castellanos had two hits Wednesday and he has a .259-15-72 line this season. That .307 OBP is poor, and it’s not like his .425 gets anyone excited, but he’s not that far from a .270-20-80 type of effort, and that would give him plenty of value next season.
Chris Davis tied an Orioles record with his seventh game this season with at least two homers. Lucas Duda has also pulled off the same feat for the Mets.
Matt Duffy wasn’t drafted in a single mixed league in baseball this season, I’m pretty confident about that. I don’t even know how many NL-only leagues that called out his name. Everyone will be calling it out next year. A hot week has brought his season average back up to .300, and he also has a .349 OBP. Moreover, he’s scored 77 runs, driven in 76 and gone 12/12. Hell of a season from any angle.
Maikel Franco is back in the fold after missing six weeks with a non-displaced fracture in his right wrist. It’s not clear how much he will play the final couple of days, starting or pinch hitting, but he returns to 13 homers, 48 RBIs and a .830 OPS over 77 games. Wildly successful has he been.
Evan Gattis is up to 11 triples and no steals. The last time a player matched that feat we have to go back to 1955 when the Pirates Dale Long pulled off the trick (he had 13 triples). The record belongs to Johnny Mize who had 16 triples and no steals in 1938.
Jason Heyward hit .217 with a .261 OBP and .349 SLG in April and folks panicked. Since then he’s been money batting .305 with a .375 OBP and .455 SLG. He’s changed his approach a bit. He swing at 47 percent of pitches on the inner half of the plate in 2013 but this season that number has dropped down to 32 percent. That’s a significant change.
Yasiel Puig ran at 100 percent on Thursday as he’s pushing to get back onto the field. Puig has been limited by a series of injuries this season, he’s appeared in only 77 games to this point, and he’s currently working his way through a hamstring issue. He’s extremely unlikely to play again in the regular season, but maybe he can help the Dodgers out in the playoffs.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Thursday at 8 PM EDT and Friday at 9 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 9 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).