If you play in a head to head league, your playoffs may begin this week or next. It’s important in these types of leagues to recognize not only your weaknesses but your opponents as well. If you’re playing next week, you need to look at the upcoming schedule for your players. Do you have offensive players that only have five games scheduled? Do you have few to no starting pitchers that have two starts? Does your opponent have many more starts than you do? Planning ahead can be the difference between winning your playoff matchup and losing. You don’t need as much depth during the playoffs as you do during the regular season. Play to win this week, worry about next week, next week. Good luck.
Riser
Gavin Lux, Los Angeles Dodgers: Lux is the next superstar for the Dodgers. He is naturally a shortstop but will play second base for the Dodgers in September. Now, the Dodgers have stated that he will be platooned at 2B and will only play versus right-handed starters. This is not optimal, but not the worst-case scenario either as Lux will still get most of the playing time and if that injury to Joc Pederson (chest) were to keep him out of the lineup for a significant amount of time, all the better for Lux and his playing time.
Andrew Heaney, Los Angeles Angels: Heaney had a bit of a hiccup Sunday when he allowed four runs in five innings to the Red Sox, but before that, he was pitching lights out. Heaney had not allowed more than three earned runs in a start since June 30 and had even struck out 24 batters in back to back starts versus the Rangers. Is Heaney a must add? No, but if you’re looking for someone to make a spot start, you could do much worse.
Adam Civale, Cleveland Indians: We will discuss more about Carrasco below, but Civale is one of the reasons that he won’t be coming back as a starter. Civale has made seven starts this season and hasn’t allowed more than two earned runs in any of them. Civale is a must-add now. The only downside is that in those seven starts he has only struck out 34 batters (less than five per outing) and is averaging just a tad under six innings pitched per start. Still, we’re going to take that every day of the week.
Brett Anderson, Oakland Athletics: Remember when Anderson was going to be the next big thing as far as starting pitchers go in MLB? Yeah, me either, but he has resurrected his career with Oakland. It does seem like Oakland is good at bringing SPs back from the dead. Anderson barely reaches 91 MPH with his fastball, but he has become a pitcher, not a thrower, and Oakland is one of the best pitcher’s parks in the majors if not the best.
Michael Pineda, Minnesota Twins: Much has been said and written about the Twins and their SP or lack of it. Pineda however really hasn’t been the problem. Since May, Pineda has only given up more than three earned runs in a game twice. This is where you make statistics say whatever you want. Do we care about those April numbers? No, Pineda was likely still working off the rust. When looking at statistics you should really only be focusing on the past few weeks to a month as anything beyond that is history and not likely to factor into a player’s future production.
Fallers
Mike Moustakas, Milwaukee Brewers: Moustakas put up a big donut for those who started him in fantasy leagues last week. There are very few things in fantasy more frustrating than starting a player in a weekly lineup league than having that player get hurt early in the week and eating it. In the case of Moustakas, salt was poured on the wound when he came back, played Monday, but had to be removed in the ninth inning because of more pain in that left wrist and isn’t in the starting lineup Tuesday.
Luke Voit, New York Yankees: Voit really hasn’t been the same player since first suffering an oblique/chest/side injury when the Yankees were in London. He probably came back to quickly and re-injured himself. Now, he’s back again, but Mike Ford has earned at least a split of playing time at 1B and with the return of Edwin Encarnacion from the IL on Tuesday, there won’t be any DH at-bats for Voit to take there either.
Carlos Carrasco, Cleveland Indians: As mentioned above, there is a good news-bad news scenario with Carrasco. The good news is that he has returned from his battle with leukemia and is ready to pitch for Cleveland. The bad news is that it will be out of the bullpen and not as the team’s closer. Unless the Indians have a change of heart, this all but kills his fantasy value for the remainder of this season.
Kyle Tucker, Houston Astros: Tucker has been called up by Houston but hasn’t been guaranteed any playing time. Apparently, Houston is doing this just to get their top offensive prospect used to the idea of playing in the big leagues. That doesn’t mean he isn’t worth a claim, just that you may have to be patient. The best chance for Tucker to play every day or more often than not is for him to get off to a hot start and for Josh Reddick to slump, then a change could be made, but that is likely asking for an awful lot.
Byron Buxton, Minnesota Twins: Buxton has been recalled from the IL, but apparently is still unable to swing a bat. What that means is that he will be a late-inning defensive replacement or a pinch-runner. This means his fantasy value is next to nil. What a shame for a player who looked to be finally having his breakout season at one point this year.
