Fantasy MLB Spot Starting: 06.17.11

Welcome back to Spot Starting.  We enter Inter League play this weekend so teams aren’t as familiar with the pitchers they face which is usually advantage to the pitcher.

Happy Father’s Day to all the fellow Dads out there.  It is my wish for you that you get to read your Sunday box scores in peace if just for one day.

For games on Saturday June 18th these selected pitchers might be had in your league (less than 50% owned in Yahoo! or ESPN) with percent owned Yahoo/ESPN, (team), and opponent:

Brian Matusz  47% /  51% (BAL) @ WAS

Edinson Volquez 41% / 38% (CIN) vs. TOR

Scott Baker 40% / 27% (MIN) vs. SD

Tim Stauffer 39% / 13% (SD) @ MIN

Matt Harrison 32% / 14% (TEX) @ ATL

Randy Wolf 27% / 28% (MIL) @ BOS

Carlos Carrasco 11% / 6% (CLE) vs. PIT

Paul Maholm 8% / 5% (PIT) @ CLE

05.22.11 Box Score Breakdown: Fantasy MLB News and Notes

Interleague play always bring interesting games. Like the Mets being up 3-1 and ready to take the series from the Yanks and then giving up an 8-run inning to lose the game (and series).

Ugh…onto it…

4th and Home Player of the Day: James Shields – SHO, 3 H, 13:1…Big Game James continues to dominate. This start was just nasty!

The Bats:
Asdrubal Cabrera – 5/5, 2 R, 2 HR, 5 RBI…Wow. He now has 9 HR on the season (most in his career) and is looking to break all of his past single-season records. Yeah, I told you he was juicing.

Michael Brantley – 3/4, 3 R, 2 RBI, SB…Guy continues to produce, mostly since we talked about him on the Show of course.

Joey Votto – 2/4, 2 R, HR, 2 RBI…Votto’s been absent for a bit from this piece, so it’s good to see him back. Batting .335 with 6 HR and 28 RBI.

Jay Bruce – 2/4, R, HR, RBI…If Jose Bautista did not exist, we’d be talking about Bruce. He has been ON FIRE. He’s now up to .271 with 11 HR and 27 RBI.

Alex Rodriguez – 4/5, R, RBI…Got the average back up to .284!

Curtis Granderson – 1/4, R, HR, RBI…Number 16. Unreal.

05.19.11 Box Score Breakdown: Fantasy MLB News and Notes

Madison Bumgarner JUST missed a SHO. He’d be on your team if you read my “September Star Series…

Onto it…

4th and Home Player of the Day: Jason Giambi– 3/5, 3 R, 3 HR, 7 RBI…So he juiced before the game I assume?

The Bats:
Jay Bruce – 3/4, 2 R, 2 HR, 2 RBI…Bruce is starting to heat up as he’s now batting .333 for the past week.

Justin Morneau – 3/5, 2 R, HR, 2 RBI…Morneau with a nice night to help his disappointing season.

Trevor Plouffe – 1/5, R, HR, 3 RBI…Ok, ok. It’s about time I talk about the Rook. Through nine games he’s batting .286 with 2 HR and 8 RBI.

Howie Kendrick – 3/4, R, HR, RBI…Been quiet lately, but now hitting .322 with 7 HR and 18 RBI.

Allen Craig – 3/4, 2 R, HR, RBI…Holliday-esque in his start!

2011 MLB Spring Training Review: Week of March 27th

SPRING TRAINING QUICK HITS

Nyjer Morgan was traded to the Brewers. How do you get cut by the Nationals? That is pretty bad. In Milwaukee, Nyjer will be bottling beer with Laverne and Shirley and hope to share playing time with Carlos Gomez, to form the *biting palm* Lenny and Squiggy Duo Part Deux. Avoid.

Here’s what else happened this week…

2011 MLB Spring Training Review: Week of March 20th

 

This week in spring training the news was as follows, beginning with last Sunday and running through Saturday the 26^th:

 

2011 MLB Spring Training Review: Week of March 13th

SPRING TRAINING QUICK HITS

Well, you’d think by this point we’d have word on whether or not Neftali Feliz would be closing or starting. Honestly, do the Rangers know fantasy drafts are beginning to kick off? My gut still tells me he’ll be closing, but the last time I listened to my gut I had another beer and the next morning wasn’t pretty…

2011 MLB Spring Training Review: Week of March 6th

Spring Training Quick Hits

An MRI has revealed Mariners catcher Miguel Olivo has suffered a strained adductor muscle and the team has no timetable for his return. The fact that I’m reporting this shows how weak this position truly is…….

2011 MLB Spring Training Review: Week of February 27th

SPRING TRAINING QUICK HITS

There is still talk of Francisco Liriano being dealt to the Yankees within the next two weeks. Still not sure how this makes sense for Minnesota, but they’re not exactly doing anything to dispel the reports…Fausto Carmona has rightfully been named the Indians’ 2011 Opening Day starter, this after winning 13 games last year with a 3.77 ERA…Destined for the bullpen, Aroldis Chapman continues to electrify starting off the spring with 4K in 2 IP. And he’s also walked three…Just when it appeared time to worry about Domonic Brown‘s spring struggles, we now get to worry an additional 4-6 weeks as he fractured his hamate bone. Remember Ryan Zimmerman fractured the same one and it sapped his power for some time. Ben Francisco now has a great opportunity to do something with this opportunity…

Hot Stove Baseball: Spring Training Edition

Spring is here, kind of, as we had the start of baseball this weekend. All of us fantasy baseball fanatics have been waiting for this day since the end of last season and it’s been a long winter of withdrawal.

Without further ado, let’s get to the highlights from the games and the week of training:

Game Highlights

Friday

• Giants 7, Diamondbacks 6 . Lincecum started and pitched 1 2/3 giving up 3 runs and 5 hits. Not a stellar start for the ace, but about typical for him in spring training. Joe Saunders started for Arizona and took the loss but had a nice 1-2-3 first inning. Aaron Rowand started in center with Andres Torres at DH, they are the 2 candidates for the CF job at the moment.