This was a busy week for pitching news, both for starting pitchers and the Closer Merry-Go-Round. So, instead of writing my usual intro, I‘ll give us all a break and just talk pitching news for a minute before we get to my Week 11 spot start picks. I’ll cover the closers here too so there will not be a Closer Carousel section at the end this week.

Some teams cut bait and DFA’ed players that we had already jetted from our own teams. The most notable SP given his walking papers was the mercurial, but predictable Matt Latos, SP CHW who dazzled us in his first several starts only to implode in, well, all the rest of them. I’m sure we’ll see him again soon enough as he is only 28, healthy, has a heartbeat, and can throw a baseball, sometimes. If you think “mercurial & predictable” is an oxymoron, look at Latos record. He’s 6-2, and among the AL leaders in wins, but has a 4.65/1.46 line going and if you add his walks and home runs together it totals 2 more than his strikeouts. Another surprise but overdue change was Phil Hughes, SP MIN being removed from the rotation in MIN. He was moved to the bullpen, then made a spot start or two and then returned to the pen again. This did nothing for his fantasy value, but it was moot, as Hughes sustained a compaction fracture on his femur after a drive off the bat of J.T. Realmuto, C, MIA hit him on the mound. I think he was just not used to being in the game after the 4th or 5th and was not ready to catch or block a screaming liner to the box. Sorry, just trying to be funny there, but he is out of our miseries now..

Some teams will get some help soon. Matt Cain, SP, SF is about to go on a rehab stint and should be back in SF in a week or so. Hopefully he didn’t lose the MoJo he found in his last few starts. Tim Lincecum, SP LAA (23% owned) is set to join the Angels rotation June 18th in Oakland. Matt Garza, SP, MIL is set to re-join the Brewers rotation soon as well. Once a respected name in MLB Baseball, Garza is kind of a forgotten man now. I’ll be watching Lincecum and Garza before investing anything. I already have Cain stashed in a few leagues.Other pitchers re-joining rotations this week are Chris Young, KC, Yovanni Gallardo, BAL, Anthony Desclafini, CIN, & Erik Johnson, SD. Any of them could be useful in favorable match ups once the rust is gone.

The Closer front has been excruciatingly dry of news this season. I really think it is the Calm Before the Storm as we have not yet had a major closer go down with an injury or Rodney-esque implosion, unless you count Houston Street’s annual DL stint, which is now thankfully over after Joe Smith went on the DL and Fernando Salas blew up a few times. Of course last night Street blew an 8 inning shutout for Matt Shoemaker so I’m sure the chatter will start again. I’m so used to the heartburn causing closer group changing roles that I prepared heavily for it this off-season. I was really high on Hunter Strickland, RP, SF, & Drew Storen, RP, TOR but both have disappointed. Storen has been hit around pretty hard while Roberto Osuna, RP, TOR pitched like Craig Kimbrel at the beginning of the season and Storen could not hold onto the set-up role let alone take the closer role. Hunter Strickland has pitched well enough but is not racking up the counting stats (H, K, IRS**) like he did in 2015, and Santiago Casilla, RP, SF showed no signs of losing the closer role. My opinion: Both will still be relevant at some point in 2016.

Same with Will Smith, RP, MIL & Will Harris, RP HOU. I hope you picked them up last week because I doubt they are still on your wire or able to be had on the cheap in FAAB. Smith is off the DL and looks good enough that he is already back in a set-up role. He is likely a Jeremy Jeffress, RP, MIL hiccup away from reclaiming the role he was penciled in for before he got hurt. Interestingly another name from this Spring Training that looked like he was going to make a name for himself in MIL is Corey Knebel, RP, MIL and he is back from the DL adding a bit more spice to the soup. Will Harris, RP, HOU is one of the latest names to surface in the Houston Astros OTC, Open Tryouts for Closers, as neither Luke Gregerson nor Ken Giles have been able to sew it up yet. However, another name is in the discussion, mentioned by the Stros as a possible closer candidate, and also one I mentioned last week. He is the hardest thrower of the bunch, and that is Michael Feliz, RP, HOU, a 22-year-old with 42 K’s in 29 IP. The only member of that pen not named a potential closer is Tony Sipp, RP, HOU. It will come.

Kevin Jepsen, RP, MIN was finally replaced and it was Brandon Kintzler, RP, MIN that was named his replacement. This is what I said about Kintzler last week right here: Own him, he is the CLEW* in MIN. Did you? The Mariners brought up top prospect Edwin Diaz, P, SEA and are placing him in the bullpen to get his MLB feet wet. Diaz was mainly a SP in the minors sporting a very high (12.0 K/9 in AA ball) He is hard to pick up not knowing what the plans are for his role, but has the skills to be a top of the rotation SP.

And in shocking news, Hunter Pence & Mark Teixiera are on the DL. Who’d have thought that was possible? Pence should be out eight weeks and Tex could miss anywhere from two weeks to infinity and beyond.

Trivia Question: What AL pitcher has more career strikeouts against DET than any other team (no not CC Sabathia)? Answer below.

Is it already next week? Let’s go:

SPOT STARTS –

Danny Duffy, SP, KC (56% owned) Vs. DET, THU: I hope you guys picked Duffy up last week, like I did in as many leagues as possible. This 27 year old pitched two very good games this past week, first at home vs BAL on Monday going 6.1 IP, 2H, 2R, 0BB, & 9K’s though he gave up 2 solo HR and took a tough luck loss. On Saturday he was asked to move up a day from Sunday and pitch on short notice, but still on four days rest @ CHW. He went 6 IP with 3H, 0R, 2BB, & 10K’s. For those keeping score at home, he went 12.1 innings in the two starts, giving up 5H, 2R, 2 BB, 2 HR, and 19 K’s. On the season he has a K/BB of 49/7. Against the Tigers, Duffy has a 3.09 ERA in 11 career starts and 55 strikeouts, the most he has against any MLB team. In his favor as well is that the Tigers are hitting 30 points lower on the road than at home and 20 points lower vs lefties than righties. I’m not dropping him yet. Zack Davies, SP, MIL (45% owned.) @ LAD, FRI: He’s got a game first today (Sunday @ Home vs the Mets) and unless something goes terribly wrong in that start, I’m rolling him out Friday in LA, where the Dodgers are hitting.217, vs .244 on the road. The Dodgers are in the bottom half of the NL in runs scored and 2nd to last in BA at .231. They are also hitting .235 vs righties this year. Davies has been on a roll for a few weeks right now. Some may scream luck but his Babip is a healthy .275 with a batting average against of only .250. Many of his peripherals are well ahead of the mean MLB averages, such as walk rate, line drive rate, well hit rate, & GB/FB rate. He is giving up above average HR/9 (8 HR in 10 starts)and his K rate is about average at near 7.0. In a nutshell he has to keep the ball on the ground and continue giving up very few walks. This is another pitcher I’m not dropping while he is rolling like this, albeit for the not so dominant K-Rate. Derrek Holland, SP, TX (56% owned) @ OAK, WED: Prior two a 5 run clunker in Seattle Friday Night, Holland had rattled off 4 quality starts in a row including those same Mariners at home, four days earlier, giving up only 2 runs in 7.2 IP. In that four game stretch he did not give up more than two runs, nor walk more than two batters in any of them. Like everyone else, I’d written him off the past two years while he battled injuries, but this is the first time I trust him again. He was never an ace, but was a mainstay in the Rangers rotation from 2011 through 2013 winning nearly 40 games in three years with an ERA near 4.00 and a pretty good 8.0 to 2.7 K/BB. The Mariners may have gotten too good a look seeing him twice in five days, but the last time he faced Oakland was a month ago, also in Oakland, and it was the first of those four consecutive QS. The offensively challenged A’s are batting .240 at home and .247 vs lefties in 2016, while Holland’s batting average against is 31 points lower away than it is at home in Texas in 2016. The one knock on Holland this season is that he is giving up homers at a rate of 1.3 per 9 IP. But the A’s are near the bottom of the AL in HR with 62, and only 27 of them have been hit at home. Want some more? Holland has a 3.24 lifetime ERA vs Oakland in 14 starts, with a 2.95 ERA in 10 of those starts in Oakland. The last few pitchers I featured with pictures of their significant other went on to pitch their best games of the season after my article (Locke, Duffy, etc, it’s true) I’m trying to bring Holland some luck here so maybe he’ll stop picking his nose.Fiancee Lauren must want to do a “Got Milk” commercial. CC Sabathia, NYY (59.9% owned) @ MIN, THU: I’m glad that 40% of you don’t believe yet, so i can still find him in some leagues. I spoke a lot about CC last week here, so I won’t prattle on, but last week I said CC is the most famous pitcher with a 2.85 ERA and 1.20 WHIP that no one knows about, and that he had a 20-13 record vs the Tigers in his career. Well now that ERA is 2.28 after he blanked the Tigers and before that the Orioles for a total of 12 scoreless innings over those two starts, and now his Tigers record is 21-13. Still don’t believe? In his last 6 starts, CC has given up 3 runs total, with 4 of those starts scoreless over 28 innings. He’s still only given up 2 HR on the season, but did walk 6 in the O’s game before getting that back down to 2 vs the Tigers. Now he gets the lowly Minnesota offense, dead last in the AL in runs scored, in their home park where they are hitting .238 vs lefties. Roll with the big guy, I am. **Two Starts**Chase Anderson, SP, MIL(29% owned) @ SF, MON & @LAD, SAT: I wrote about and used Anderson in the early weeks of 2016 till he hit a rough patch. Instead of it being a big regression, he battled through it, and I’ve been using him again (last 3 starts), prompting me to put him in this week’s recommended spots for a 2 start week on the road in SF & LAD. Anderson has improved tremendously in three areas which are responsible for his recent success. Earlier in the season, Anderson was walking 4 batters a game and losing 2 gopher balls a game, causing him to have pitch counts of 100 before getting out of the fifth. In the last 6 games combined he’s given up 5 HR and 4 walks. In his last three games he gave up two runs with one homer and no walks, winning two of them and putting up pitch counts from 76 to 94 in an average of 6 innings a game. He gets the Giants in SF on Monday where the Giants are hitting .217 vs .244 on the road. They are hitting .250 vs both left and righthanders but have hit about half their HR at home (19 vs 34). The Dodgers are in the bottom half of the NL in runs scored and 2nd to last in BA at.231. They are also hitting .235 vs righties this year. I grabbed him in a couple leagues last week and am keeping him for the two start week. Junior Guerra, MIL (51.0% owned) – @ SF, WEDS: This is another train that seems like it is going to keep on moving in the right direction. Like his team mate Anderson above he is making incremental improvements in his game every tome he goes out. He’s down to a season low 3.31 ERA after 8 starts, 5 of the last 6 being quality starts. One thing that has regressed over the last couple of starts is his K rate. It was about 6 per game, even hitting 11 once but only 5 total in the last two starts. Hopefully that turns back around. See the Chase Anderson analysis above for a rundown on why Junior is a good spot start in SF. Dan Straily, SP, CIN (51% owned) @ ATL, THU: Last week I said he is safe to deploy again at home vs the A’s on Friday, and he did not disappoint, snagging a W with 7IP, 5H, 1ER, 3BB, 5k’s & no HR. He should have an even easier time in Atlanta in Thursday where the Braves have the worst offense in all of Triple A, I mean the NL. Straily has his ERA sitting at a pretty nice 3.15 & 1.13 WHIP, both career bests by far in his age 27 season. The 4.32 FIP and .232 Babip are concerning, as is the amount of walks he gives up, but he should have no problem snagging a QS and some K’s vs the hapless Braves offense. NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART: Bartolo Colon, SP, NYM (60% owned) Vs PIT, THU: People often cry about how hard it is to chase wins as a stat. Look no further than Bartolo Colon as that is all he does. He is 5-2 on the season and was 3-2 in May, but has won 47 games over the last three seasons. His 3.08 ERA and 1.21 WHIP are his best ratios since, well, 2013 when he won 18 games for Oakland. He pitches to contact and has lost a lot of his velocity over the years, so how does he win? He has not had a walks per nine of more than 2.0 in the past six years and with a lifetime 1.1 HR per nine (.9 this season) does not give up the long ball either. Teams have to earn their runs against him, and he has learned how to prevent that. One might think his .304 Babip & 3.62 FIP screams for regression but that has been his Babip for 8 years now, and his FIP for 6 years. Bartolo gets the Pirates at home on Thursday, the day with the slimmest pickings for spot starters, and it should be a favorable match up. The Pirates hit 26 points lower on the road than at home, and Bartolo has a 3.52 ERA at Citi Field lifetime, and a 2.73 ERA there in 2016. Against the Bucs he is even better, going 4-2 with a 1.88 ERA in his last eight starts against them. He is still available in 40% of leagues. He even added a new wrinkle to his game, as now he hits HR too. Joulys Chacin, SP, LAA (26% owned) Vs MIN, TUE: If you need a spot start in a deep league and Chacin is out there, he should not have a lot of trouble with the strike out prone Twins who have the 3rd most K’s in the AL and are dead last in runs scored.

Do NOT START!

Jeff Locke, PIT (32% owned) @ NYM, WED: I was happy with myself after recommending Locke before he pitched his shutout two weeks ago, and now equally happy with myself that I had him in my Do Not Start section last week. He went ahead and gave up 11 runs on 11 hits and 3 walks in Colorado Thursday in 4 1/3 IP. Ok, so it is easy to suggest not starting someone in Colorado, but coming off a shutout he became one of the most added SP in ESPN and Fantrax, leading right to the Colorado start.This week I’m adding him again as he takes on the NY Mets on Wednesday in the Big City. I’m not sure where his confidence will be after the 11 run blowout, but it won’t be on my roster.

Chris Rusin, SP, COL (10% owned) Vs NYY, TUE: Rusin is having his best season, posting career best K/9, BB/9, HR/9, ERA etc. The Yankees are not exactly a juggernaut right now, so I see Rusin being picked up in leagues ahead of this coming week. We’re still talking Denver here and the Yanks, for all their age and injury issues are still a HR first team. In two starts at home since he joined the 2016 rotation he has given up 10 runs compared to 12 runs in his 6 road starts. The one thing in his favor is that he has only given up 2 HR in 2016, mainly due to an obcene 1.37 GB/FB rate. That is likely unsustainable for a couple of reasons. That is 37 points higher than his lifetime GB/FB and his .3 HR/9 is an entire HR per 9 lower than last season. Consider too that he pitched only 2 of his 8 starts in Colorado so far. This is s perfect storm for blowing up your ERA.

Closer Merry-Go-Round:

The intro thoroughly covered this topic (above) so no need to repeat it here.

*”CLEW” = Closer En Waiting

** IRS + H = Inherited Runners stranded plus Holds

See you next week. Thanks for reading.

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