Fantasy Baseball Daily Picks: May 1 – Wall Street Journal (blog)

• By
• Michael Salfino

The Methodology: As hard as it is to project a player’s performance in any given season, projecting his performance on any single day is even more difficult. Daily fantasy baseball is all about trying to maximize each day’s matchups using historic batter vs. pitcher performance, platoon advantages and the ballpark. Using prices at FanDuel, we’re making the lineup recommendations every Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday (when all teams are generally playing) based on a combination of key metrics. But always check your lineups and the current weather.

We grade pitchers in 23 statistics in eight broad categories: working ahead in count, command, finishing off hitters, off-speed effectiveness, overall effectiveness, dominance, efficiency and battle tendency (such as getting guys out when behind in the count). The stats are compiled by Major League Baseball analytics provider Inside-Edge. As the season progresses, last year’s stats matter less and less until they eventually disappear.

The hitting slate is generally determined by choosing the hitters who Inside-Edge grades as hitting the ball hard most frequently this year and who are also going against the pitchers who have the lowest composite grade that day. Platoon advantages (lefty vs. righty and vice versa) and ballpark factors are also considered.

NOTE: Everyone knows that guys like Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw are good plays, so we will only provide underpriced, value picks, which will free up more cap room for the high-priced options.

May 1: PITCHERS

Scott Kazmir, A’s (at Rangers, $9,200): He has our second-highest composite score in our 23-category pitching stats since 2014, with this year weighted less, of course. But for just 2015, Kazmir is the highest-graded hurler, with a 95 on a scale with 100 is perfect, according to Inside-Edge. The Rangers are near the bottom of the league in runs and slugging but have been tough to strike out, unfortunately for Kazmir buyers.

May 1: HITTERS

Evan Longoria, 3B, Rays (Orioles, $3,100): Technically a road game but it’s being played in Tampa. Longoria pounds his opposing starter tonight, Chris Tillman, like few have ever pounded any pitcher: 14-for-36 with six homers. He is obviously a must play tonight. He’s also the Rays hottest hitter of late, 1.023 OPS over his last week. Stanford says that we should play the hot hitters based on the hitter’s last 25 at bats.

Joc Pederson, OF, Dodgers (Diamondbacks, $3,600): He’s also on fire, lately (1.346 OPS the last week) and all year (a near perfect 99 hitting score for the year). Finally batting now at the top of the Dodgers’ lineup where he belongs, the powerful Pederson is unlikely to be stopped by Rubby De La Rosa.

Andre Ethier, OF, Dodgers (Diamondbacks, $2,700): Also hot of late going 6-17 with two homers the past week. He, too, has been raking all year, scoring a 97 on the Inside-Edge 100-point hitting scale. Ethier’s hard-hit rate is 21.7% (average is 15.4%) and it shows in his slugging average (.587).

Mark Trumbo, OF, Diamondbacks (at Dodgers, $3,600): He’s on fire the last week (1.255 OPS) and goes up against Carlos Frias, making only his third big-league start and who has been unimpressive in the minors (5.01 ERA in Albuquerque in 2014).

Caleb Joseph, C, Orioles (Rays, $2,700): Again this game is in Tampa Bay though the Orioles bat last. You have to pick on Alex Colome making his first 2015 start in a cheap way and Joseph has been a strong hitter (94 out of 100 on the Inside-Edge scale). Note whether A.J. Pierzynski ($2,900) is in the lineup because if you have a couple hundred extra bucks, he’s as hot a hitter as there is.

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