May 24, 2013

Fantasy Beat

Weekly #streameroftheday Update

by Bret Sayre

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For those of you unfamiliar with the #streameroftheday process, I recommend one starting pitcher per day who is owned in fewer than 10% of leagues (lower than your typical standards) and post it on Twitter at @dynastyguru. And this Friday post is where I stand in front of the firing squad, fully accountable for these recommendations. I ran a longer introduction in my first post of the season, explaining why my ownership limit is much lower than most others out there, but essentially it's to be helpful in deeper mixed leagues. If you want to read the whole thing, the link is here. With the pleasantries out of the way, let's jump into the action.

Here were the details for the last seven days:

So, let's jump right into Wednesday's pick: Rex Brothers. Yes, I'm fully aware that he's not a starter. No, I do not care--I make the rules here. And since Brothers was less than 10 percent owned and there was not a single eligible starting pitcher that day who had an ERA below 5.75 (seriously), I enacted martial law. Also, since there's no good way for me to count a save in my spreadsheet or in this format (without things getting weird), I'm going to just include it as a win going forward. So this is why in the table below it shows five wins for the week, and not four.

The individual performers who helped make this week a success were not unfamiliar names. This was the third time I used both Leake and Cashner this year, and they've combined for six earned runs allowed in those six starts. Sadly, Cashner appears to be graduating and Leake may not be very far behind him. But as players move on, others move in--and David Phelps and Julio Teheran were both very impressive in their SoTD debuts. I still stand by the decision to start Gausman on Thursday, as the next two best options were Rick Porcello and Joe Blanton, and those are rides that I've frankly have enough of for a lifetime. On the bright side, this could mean that I'll be able to use Gausman next time out--which I will certainly consider as he looked very impressive before he came a little unglued at the end.

And here are my overall numbers for both the week and the season:

This week was the best of the season so far for me, and it's tough to complain about much in the overall stat line. In the middle of the week, I had a stretch of four consecutive win/quality start combos--the first time that's happened this season. And I even followed it with a save! The win percentage took a big jump up this week and the ratios are starting to move closer to the respectable range. But it's going to take more than this to get there; it will take multiple weeks of this type of performance. And it will start by throwing David Phelps back out there in Tampa tonight.

See you again next week.

Bret Sayre is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @BretSayreBP
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