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Welcome to Streaming Wars, your one-stop shop for streaming the waiver wire. Use this column to improve upon your neediest categories.
Below are your pitcher and hitter streaming targets for Wednesday, May 31th.
Let's get to it.
Be sure to check all of our fantasy baseball waiver wire pickups and weekly lineup resources:- Nick Mariano's fantasy baseball waiver wire pickups (Premium)
- Start/Sit recommendations - All Pitcher Matchups for Week Ahead
- Fantasy baseball waiver wire rankings (top 80 players)
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- Hitter streamers - fantasy baseball waiver wire pickups
- Two-start pitcher streamers - fantasy baseball waiver wire pickups
- Cut List - Players To Consider Dropping for Week 5
Agenda
- You Threw at ME?
- Today's Weather and Updates
- Tomorrow's Picks
1. You Threw at ME?
"Did you just throw at me?" Bryce Harper asked of Hunter Strickland. "Well, how about I throw at you!"
Turns out it's hard to hit a moving target with a helmet. I assume Harper has a 10+ game suspension coming his way.
2. Today's Weather and Updates
Baltimore is a threat for storms. St. Louis, Kansas City, and Chicago are very small risks. As always monitor accordingly. Wednesday is looking nice and dry. Of course, I said that yesterday, and we still have four potential conflicts today.
3. Tomorrow's Picks - Wednesday, May 31st
Pitchers to Use
It's a good day for viable spot starters like Junior Guerra. He returned to action last week with a solid outing. The splitter specialist is still missing a couple tics on the radar gun. I wouldn't treat him as a full time rosteree, but his spot start against a mediocre Mets offense could work. Beware fatballs (not a typo) to Lucas Duda.
Zack Godley should be owned outright. He's still available in 61 percent of Yahoo leagues. The breakout righty is visiting Pittsburgh's spacious park for a day game. His velocity is up, he's using more breaking balls, everything is on the ground, and he's avoiding hard contact. It's a recipe for a sub-3.00 ERA. Assuming regression doesn't bite. Which it probably will. Bite.
Hyun-Jin Ryu shouldn't be under 10 percent owned. Granted, he shouldn't be 50 percent owned either. Somewhere between those two figures is the Goldilocks zone for Ryu. The southpaw has struggled with home runs, although it should be noted that his bad starts have come at Coors, at Wrigley, home versus the Rockies, and at Coors again. Avoid the Rockies, and you'll probably be fine. I'm not too concerned about the Cardinals.
Other Targets: Dan Straily, Matt Boyd, Ian Kennedy, Jesse Chavez, Jaime Garcia
Pitchers to Exploit
Mike Clevinger has a 2.82 ERA (3.56 FIP), 10.07 K/9, and 4.84 BB/9 in 22.1 innings. You might be wondering why I've listed him as an exploit. Note the walks. Clevinger's command is poor. His offspeed stuff is truly great, but there's always a risk he'll get locked into using fastballs. The Athletics have my favorite sneaky-good offense. Several big bats wait to punish a missed location.
For a moment there, Luis Perdomo popped up as a guy to try. A few bad starts later and everybody is off the bandwagon. Nothing has changed. It was always too soon to consider Perdomo the least bit reliable. He has the raw ingredients of success - strikeouts, low walks, and a high ground ball rate. The challenge is for him to figure out how to use his stuff in a way that doesn't allow a high BABIP or home run rate. A meeting with the Cubs is a good time to ignore Perdomo.
Other Targets: Chad Kuhl, Tim Adleman, Mike Bolsinger, Kevin Gausman, Mike Pelfrey, Antonio Senzatela, Matt Cain
Homers on the Wire
Yonder Alonso is 48 percent owned. Justin Smoak is 50 percent owned. Both homered yesterday. What more do they need to do in order for everybody to roster them. It's getting a bit crazy. Alonso is joined by should-be-rostered Jed Lowrie and should-be-streamed Matt Joyce. They face Clevinger. Smoak gets Adleman in what could be his last appearance in this column.
Although I'm keen to use Ryu, I should also mention a couple Cardinals worthy of a gander. Tommy Pham has taken over as the second hitter. He's slashing .333/.415/.609 with five home runs in 82 plate appearances (.383 BABIP). He's a hard contact, low angle guy. His contact has improved in this most recent attempt at the majors. Paul DeJong will probably start with a lefty on the bump. He hit 11 home runs in 182 Triple-A plate appearances. His plate discipline and contact rates are a concern.
Other Targets: Lucas Duda, Neil Walker, Asdrubal Cabrera, David Peralta, Tommy Joseph, Derek Dietrich, Ian Happ, Seth Smith, Mitch Moreland
Steals on the Wire
The splitter is a difficult pitch to catch and throw. If Jose Reyes reaches base, he should be keen to run. Mariners bats at Coors Field may run, including Jarrod Dyson, Ben Gamel, and Taylor Motter. Last is Michael Taylor. AT&T Park hurts his power potential while Buster Posey cuts into his running ability. At least the matchup versus Matt Cain is useful.
Other Targets: Go buy somebody good
Skill Positions
Cameron Rupp is a ground ball hitter which could serve him well against a fly ball pitcher like Straily. Most of the usual suspects have bad matchups.
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