DFS DIAMONDS

*The follow list of players are guys that Ray recommends as daily plays. He will try to avoid the obvious, so you will rarely see the Mike Trout’s and David Price’s of the world listed.

CATCHER: Russell Martin and his teammates destroyed lefties last season. Today they face Matt Moore. Martin has three hits in seven at-bats against Moore, that effort includes two homers, and he had a tremendous s .937 OPS against lefties last year (.278/.414/.522).    

FIRST BASE: Chris Carter doesn’t hit everyone, but he mashes sinker throwing Jeff Samardzija. It’s only 15 at-bats, but when Carter is batting .467 off anybody you take note. He’s also hit three homers with two doubles and seven runs batted in.

SECOND BASE: DJ LeMahieu has gone 8-for-22 against Patrick Corbin with a 1.045 OPS. In each game this season he’s produced two hits, a run and an RBI. Last season he hit .316 with a .390 OBP against lefties.

THIRD BASE: Martin Prado likes to see Anibal Sanchez on the hill. He’s gone 14-for-34 with a homer an seven runs scored on his way to a .412/.429/.529 slash line. Sanchez had a rough spring, and last year he was hit hard by right-handed batters (.291/.329/.495).

SHORTSTOP: Stephen Drew didn’t hit righties last year at all, but for his career he owns a solid .765 OPS. He’s also gone 9-for-25, good for a .360 average, against Bud Norris. He’s also walked six times in the matchup leading to a .484 OBP an eight runs over 31 plate appearances.

OUTFIELD: Steve Pearce has long hit lefties much better than righties (career vs. lefties: .262/.343/.480). J.A. Happ hasn’t been able to avoid that pitfall as Pearce has hit three homers, two doubles and driven in nine runners in 22 plate appearances against Happ. His slash line is a Ruthian .368/.409/.947.

OUTFIELD: Carl Crawford has gone 2-for-6 this year against righties. In his career he’s been an all-star against righties (.303/.341/.461). Check out his work against Andrew Cashner too (.346/.370/.538 in 27 plate appearances).

OUTFIELD: Ryan Braun has gone 10-for-20 against Jeff Samardzija. In 216 at-bats against the Giants he’s hit .296 with 13 homers and a .935 OPS. JS had a rough spring, he allowed a five year worst 1.22 homers per nine innings last season, and Braun has a hit in each game he’s played this season.

KYLE SCHWARBER – LINEUP WORRIES?

Kyle Schwarber is the taste of the fantasy universe. A player who qualifies at catcher with immense power, folks are expecting a huge season from the slugger. However, I expressed some concerns in his Player Profile, and that had to do with his work when at the dish. Another factor is to consider how much playing time he will get? We know that the Cubs have three backstops – Schwarber, Miguel Montero and David Ross. We also know that Ross is likely to be the personal catcher for Jon Lester while Schwarber might only work behind the dish with Jason Hammel. Don’t worry, folks said, Schwarber will play every day in the outfield when he isn’t catching, that’s the story some were pushing this offseason. Well… in the Cubs game against the Angels, in a game with the DH, Schwarber wasn’t in the starting lineup. Gulp. Doesn’t matter how good you are, you gotta get in that lineup. Early on managers try to get everyone involved – in this case Jorge Soler – and it’s just one game. However, keep an eye on it with Kyle, especially with lefties on the bump as he hit like an ass monkey against them last year. The hype train has always been out of control with Schwarber.

THE HOT ONE?

Scott Kazmir has really slowed in the second half of each of the last two seasons. He then went out this spring with diminished velocity and looked awful with a 5.51 ERA, 1.84 WHIP and batters hit .347 against him this spring. Of course, once games counted he… rolled over the competition. Tuesday night he pitched six scoreless innings without walking a batter. No one saw that coming. However, his success was against the Padres who have offered zero resistance to this point with their bats. I’m still very nervous with Kazmir. You should be too.

THE STRUGGLING ONE?

Mike Trout went 0-for-4 in game one. Mike Trout went 0-for-4 in game two. Through eight at-bats not only is he hitless but he also has three strikeouts. I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s worth repeating right here.Mike Trout has a .953 OPS for his career. That’s a Hall of Fame number. Trout has a .871 OPS in April in his career (79 games). That’s a borderline HOF number, but obviously it’s way off his career rate. In fact, his .871 April OPS is the worst mark of his career. For whatever reason Trout starts out slowly given his overall dominance. Here are those OPS marks month-by-month.

April: .871
May: .928
June: 1.044
July: 1.052
August: .885
September: .900
October: 1.215 (7 games)

Everything is just fine with Trout.

IT’S A LONG GAME, AND SEASON

Last night Justin Verlander had five innings of no-hit ball working against the Marlins working for him. True story. A guy on Twitter who is in love with Verlander and thinks I’m totally wrong with saying Justin’s been an average big league hurler the last three years (I’m not wrong, check out his Player Profile), started in on the ‘you’re wrong about Verlander, Ray’ stuff. Four minutes later, literally, Giancarlo Stanton blasted a homer and all of a sudden Verlander’s ERA for the game was 4.50 (three runs in six innings). He didn’t even get the win as Francisco Rodriguez had a total meltdown allowing three runs in the ninth inning. I know no one is listening but please, baseball is a 162 game season. That’s 600 plate appearances for a batter, 200 innings for a pitcher etc. Keep an eye on the sample size of performance before you think that you’ve discovered plutonium with a player.

DID YOU SEE THIS?

Noah Syndergaard shutdown the World Champion Royals Tuesday allowing just three hits and one walk over six shutout innings. He also struck out nine batters. Folks, he was throwing his slider 93 mph. You just can’t do that (the hardest slider in baseball last season was Jake Arrieta at 90.3 mph). Speaking of the slider, where did it come from? Last season he threw his slider 48 times in 24 starts, two a game on average. He threw the slider 16 times yesterday. If he adds that third pitch to his repertoire he could end up being the most valuable Mets hurler this season. Yep, more so than Jacob deGrom and Matt Harvey. Believe it.

DON’T GIVE UP ON

Two words… Johnny Cueto.

Folks seem to think that his late season struggles with the Royals portend doom for Cueto. They don’t. As I’ve written, and stated in a lot of places, Cueto had the best walk rate of his career last season, posted a 1.13 WHIP and threw more than 200-innings. Tuesday he allowed one ball over seven innings against the Brewers. Too many people slept on Cueto who has the making of an excellent SP2 – as long as his arm holds up, and I believe it should.

BATTING ORDER UPDATES

Jonathan Villar hit second on Opening Day against lefty Madison Bumgarner. In game two against righty Johnny Cueto he hit 8th with Scooter Gennett moving up to second in the order. In game three Wednesday, against righty Jeff Samardzija, it’s Gennett second and Villar 8th. Pretty obvious what the team plans to do with the two, depending on the arm used by the opposing hurler. This is obviously better news for Gennett who will get a chance to hit second in the order more often.

 

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).