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: Yadier Molina is batting .462 against Jason Hammel (6-for-13). He’s hit .308 over 156 games against the Cubs. He’s hit .425 in seven home games this season. He’s also batting .435 over his last seven games.

FIRST BASE: Eric Hosmer has a hit in 8-straight games. He’s also scored four runs his last five games. He faces Shane Greene and for his career his line against righties is solid (.287/.347/.454).

SECOND BASE: Rougned Odor has hit 19 homers with 27 doubles and 13 triples in 582 at-bats against righties. Odor has gone 5-for-14 against Scott Feldman leading to a .357/.400/.643 slash line.

THIRD BASE: Brett Lawrie is batting .500 against Matt Shoemaker (6-for-12). He’s produced two hits in 2-of-3 games and four of seven.

SHORTSTOP: Andrelton Simmons has gone 5-for-9 against Mat Latos. He’s also working on a very quiet 11-game hitting streak with three runs scored in three games.

OUTFIELD: Melvin Upton is batting .333 against Francisco Liriano (24 at-bats). He’s a career .351 OBP guy against lefties and over his last 42 plate appearances he’s hitting .333 with a .406 wOBA.

OUTFIELD: Oswaldo Arcia has hit 31 homers with 83 RBI in 533 at-bats against righties leading to a .807 OPS. Arcia also has a .389/.421/.556 line at home and Wily Peralta has been abysmal this season with a 10.13 ERA, 2.10 WHIP and .385 BAA.

OUTFIELD: Kevin Pillar is batting .310 with a .774 OPS against righties this season. He’s also produced six hits in his last two games since being demoted to 8th in the order. He’s also batting .313 on the road this year and has a .908 OPS over 26 games against the Orioles. Mike Wright has a 6.16 ERA and 1.53 WHIP over the course of 49.2 big league innings.

WHAT TO DO WITH COREY KLUBER?

I will say… it’s been 19 innings. Why is this so hard for people to grasp? I really don’t get it.

Corey Kluber’s velocity is down 1.4 mph according to PITCHf/x. I could care less at this point. It’s not that big a deal folks.

Kluber has 19 strikeouts over 19 innings. Yes, still one per inning, a mere half batter below his career rate.

Kluber has five walks on the year leading to a 2.37 BB/9 rate. That would be a 4-year high. But look what happens if we remove ONE walk. We are then left with Kluber having walked four guys in 19 innings which would lead to a 1.89 BB/9 rate. His career mark is 2.02. See, nothing wrong.

Kluber has a 0.95 HR/9 mark. Last year the mark was 0.89 and his career rate is 0.81. Same as always.

Kluber has a 45.6 percent ground ball rate this season. His career mark is 45.2 percent

Kluber has a 1.30 GB/FB ratio. His career rate is 1.41.

Folks, all the main indicators are the SAME.

When his .357 BABIP recedes, and his 59.5 left on base percentage increases, things will be fine.

Don’t panic if you own Kluber.

If you don’t own him make a low ball offer since there are certainly people are there who are all out of sorts if they own Kluber.

WHAT TO DO WITH MATT HARVEY?

I will say… it’s been 17.1 innings. Why is this so hard for people to grasp? I really don’t get it.

Why someone was willing to spend a second or third round draft pick on Matt Harvey four weeks ago, and now they are in sheer panic mode after three starts I just don’t get. “I think right now, if we’ve ever seen Matt Harvey press, this might be the time,” said pitching coach Dan Warthen. I mean, he’s trying to force the issue right now.” Warthen thinks there is an issue with Harvey throwing out of the stretch, a mechanical thing, they are working on to fix. “We worked on it the last bullpen,” Warthen said. “Still, you get into a pressure situation, you do fall back into bad habits. This has been Matt’s biggest bugaboo since I’ve had him -- being able to stay up. He’s trying to be quick to home plate. We’re trying to give our catchers a chance [to throw out base stealers]. In doing so, he collapses the back side and ends up pushing a lot of baseballs, or spiking them. Basically, he’s trying to throw hard,” Warthen said.

Harvey has a 5.71 ERA, 1.56 WHIP and 4.67 K/9. He stinks right now. Agree completely with you on that line of thought. But it’s been three starts. Let’s talk the three starts.

Last season Chris Archer was pretty good, right? Archer had outings of nine runs in 3.2 innings, seven runs in 5.1 innings and nine runs in 6.0 innings. They weren’t three starts in a row, but still that’s horrible work. Add it up and Archer allowed 25 earned runs in 15 innings. That’s an ERA of 15.00. Archer still finished the year with a 3.23 ERA by the way. It’s not like a guy can’t have a couple of bad outings and still produce really good results over the course of an entire season. Back to Harvey…

His velocity is down a bit at 94.3 mph (PITCHf/x has his career mark at 95.2). The walks are up, the strikeouts are down. I get the concern. But what are you going to do, deal Harvey at 85 percent of cost? You could, but how could you possibly feel good about that?

Harvey says he’s physically fine.

The team says he’s fine physically.

Funks happen. As long as he’s healthy there is no reason to go into full on panic mode after just three starts.

WHAT TO DO WITH CARLOS GOMEZ?

Carlos Gomez is 30 years old. That’s not an age where we associate failure. Clearly saying a guy is “done” after 12 games would be stupid for a fella who has gone 20/30 twice don’t cha think? The real concern likely stems from the fact that an injured Gomez wasn’t very good last season with the Astros. Through 53 games with the Astros Gomez has hit .230 with a .271 OBP and .356 SLG. Those are simply pathetic numbers. I agree completely with ya there. He’s also hit only four homers while stealing 111 bases in that third of a season of games played. If that was all there was, those 53 games, I would be more concerned than I am right now. Remember, Gomez was all kinds of beat up last season when he joined the Astros, remember he failed a physical that would have sent him to the Mets, so it’s obvious there were serious issues with his health in 2015.

He’s supposed to be fine right now. We haven’t seen it, at all though, on the field. He’s yet to go deep and stolen just one base. He’s also walked just one time this season. His swing is messed up too as evidenced by his 59 percent groundball rate, well above his 42.4 percent ground ball rate for his career.

I’m going to lean on 10 years of big league work from a guy over 42 at-bats. Maybe I will be wrong here, but if Gomez truly is healthy it’s nonsensical to think that he won’t improve. Don’t forget that from 2012-14, pretty recently, Gomez averaged 22 homers and 37 steals a season. It’s not fair to expect him to reach either of those numbers in 2016, but he should still be a solid power-speed producer.

 

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).