DFS DIAMONDS

*The following list of players are guys that Ray recommends as daily plays. He will try to avoid the obvious, so you will rarely see the best of the best listed.

CATCHER: Miguel Montero faces Mike Leake having hit .296/.394/.912 against righties this season. Sounds good to me.

FIRST BASE: Justin Bour has two hits in eight at-bats against Tanner Roark. He’s hitting .300 with a .889 OPS this season and for his career the number is .831 against righties.

SECOND BASE: Joe Panik has a hit in 3-straight games. He has a run scored in 3-straight games. Archie Bradley is making his first start of the season for the D’backs (more on that below). He’s hit .364 against the Diamondbacks over 25 games.

THIRD BASE: Martin Prado has a hit in 4-straight and hits in 9-of-10 games. He’s batting .342 on the year and has hit .313 against the Nationals in his career. He’s also 6-for-12 against Tanner Roark.

SHORTSTOP: Zack Cozart, can’t believe it, has six hits and eight RBIs over 13 plate appearances against Zack (1.615 OPS) when Jordan Lyles is on the hill. Cozart has 14 hits in 29 at-bats this season (.483 average).

OUTFIELD: Michael Conforto faces Jerad Eickhoff with five hits in 10 at-bats in the matchup (including a homer and a walk leading to a 1.583 OPS). Conforto has driven in three, produced five hits, three doubles, and four runs his last three games.

OUTFIELD: Scott Schebler faces Lyles at home. A lefty swingier, left handers have gone .412/.476/.476 on the young season against Lyles.

OUTFIELD: Dexter Fowler has struggled against Mike Leake going 3-for-14, but he he’s also hitting .367 with a 1.225 OPS against righties this season with two homers and eight RBI over 30 at-bats.

BETTS STRUGGLING

Mookie Betts had as good a season as anyone could have predicted last season falling two homers short of a .285-20-75-90-20 season. Spectacular. He’s started off the season slowly in 2016 however with a .240/.255/.400 slash line that stinks. I’m concerned that he’s walked one time in 11 games. Once. That means that the man who posted a 1.27 BB/K ratio as a minor leaguer has a mere 0.54 mark in the big leagues. He can still obviously have tons of success with a mark like that, but it is a concern when we’re talking batting average. Maybe. Keep an eye on it, but unless the walks start to pile up there will continue to be growing concern for his ability to keep his batting average pushing .300 since he’s been nowhere near as discerning in the bigs as he was in the minors. It’s not panic time of course. Still and uber-talent, but the lack of walks has to be somewhat of a concern… does it not?

ARCHIE BRADLEY CALLED UP

Archie Bradley has been called up and he will make a start Monday for the D’backs (he was recalled after Rubby de la Rosa was needed in relief during a 14 inning game Saturday necessitating the call up). As of this writing it’s unclear if Bradley will make more than one start. Shelby Miller cut his pitching hand and RDLR hasn’t exactly pitched well at all so Miller could hit the DL, he’s looked bad to this point while RDLR could be demoted from the rotation. Maybe. We shall have to wait and see but understand that Bradley isn’t someone to add with the expectation of falling into significant short-term success. Bradley’s skills are what we will talk about next.

Bradley, a first round selection in 2011 was, heading into the 2014 season, one of the handful of best pitching prospects in all of baseball (MLB.com, Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus all listed Bradley as a top-10 prospect in all of baseball). He struggled in 2014 in the minors and the majors, both with performance and health. The result being that he entered last season as a top-25 prospect, not top-10, according to all three sources. The 6’4” righty threw six scoreless innings to open the 2015 campaign, and then it was downhill from there. Archie was hit in the face by a Carlos Gonzalez line drive in his fourth start causing him to miss some time. He then developed shoulder tendinitis and the overall result was two starts and 29.1 innings in the minors and 35.2 innings in the pros. He had what we call a “lost season.”

Bradley still owns a live fastball that hits 95 mph with regularity, and the pitch can be hard to hit because he hides it well. He has a power curveball that projects as an outpitch, but the problem has been finding that third or fourth pitch (he’s working on a cutter though it’s far from a pitch he can count on at this point). Bradley sometimes struggles to repeat his release point and without that third pitch there are many that still think Bradley best profiles as a bullpen option versus a starter.

Don’t forget either that he’s far from posted enough innings on his arm to be someone who you can comfortably project big innings out of this season. Though he threw 152 innings in 2013 Bradley tossed just 83 in 2014 and then 64 innings last season. There’s simply not much mileage on this arm and that throws his 2016 outlook, at least in terms of innings, in doubt.

Bradley is an intriguing talent.

He may not be long for the starting rotation.

He might not be in the big leagues next week.

Be cautious.

KIKE MAGIC

Kike Hernandez, or Enrique Hernandez as some call him, has had a great start to the 2016 season highlighted by hitting two homers against Madison Bumgarner and Kike is batting .400 with a 1.138 OPS this season. It’s excited time. Come on, you know it’s not. Here’s what we know.

Hernandez has a .295/.345/.484 slash line for his career. Those are very solid numbers, ones that Mookie Betts wishes he could produce (Betts was at .291/.341/.479 last season). So what’s the concern?

Right handed pitching.

Kike has a massive .392/.452/.683 slash line versus lefties. He owns them and is an excellent DFS play because of it.

However, things aren’t so rosie against right-handed pitching. Over the course of 249 plate appearances Hernandez has a mere .245/.286/.382 line. That’s subpar in every way imaginable. He just doesn’t profile well against them.

As big a concern as the growing rift in his splits is the fact that the outfield could get crowded quickly. Remember that Andre Ethier and Carl Crawford are on the shelf. The same with Alex Guerrero and Scott Van Slyke (you can keep up with all the Dodgers news on their team page).  That’s a whole lot of men down that are allowing Hernandez the chance to play in the outfield. We’re also getting the Howie Kendrick in the outfield thing of late as well. The return of Kendrick, and the solid start to the season for Chase Utley, certainly isn’t going to open up much time at second for Hernandez, and with Corey Seager around he’s also not playing third base.

Hernandez is a super sub who rips up lefties. Nothing more, nothing less, especially when the club is at full health.