Odrisamer Despaigne (SP-SD) - Despaigne continued his good fortune Tuesday, allowing just a run on two hits over seven solid innings against the Diamondbacks. His 4:2 K:BB in 11.2 innings indicates a lack of dominance, but if you actually watch him pitch, you can see why he's so effective. Mixing a fastball and breaking stuff with pinpoint control on the outer half of this plate allows Despaigne to induce a lot of poorly hit balls. Despaigne is pretty much battling Brandon Morrow to remain in the rotation while Ian Kennedy rehabs a minor hamstring injury. Despaigne has some Draft Kings value, though his $6,500 price tag is a bit higher than I anticipated.
Michael Taylor (OF-WAS) - Despite his salary, I think Denard Span has a real chance at losing his starting job to Taylor while Span is sidelined. That says more about Taylor's talent, and on Tuesday, Taylor featured that talent, going 2-for-4 with a triple and three RBI to raise his slash to a more respectable .242/.286/.455. He also swiped his second base of the season and though he's had some trouble with the strikeouts, Taylor did hit 24 home runs while stealing 37 bases last year. Those are elite fantasy numbers, but Span is due back sometime in the next few days, so Taylor could conceivably return to Triple-A shortly. He's a solid value at his $3,300 Draft Kings price tag, but once Span returns, that's out the window.
Chris Coghlan (OF-CHC) - I was shocked perusing Tuesday's box scores to see that Coghlan went 0-for-4 but still is batting .300/.391/.750. In 20 at-bats, Coghlan has homered twice and doubled three times while posting a 3:3 K:BB and stealing a base. He certainly needed this to solidify semi-regular at-bats in LF, and this should all but ensure that Kris Bryant comes up as a third baseman as opposed to an outfielder. Coghlan has pretty much had a great rookie year and a solid 2014 that have sandwiched four terrible seasons. It looks like he's figured things out enough to at least have plenty of deeper league value.
Alex Guerrero (3B-LA) - With Juan Uribe missing the last two games with hamstring issues, Guerrero has received the starting nod at third base, and in both games he's come up big. Guerrero drove in a total of six runs, hit a home run, and hit a walk-off bases-loaded single in the tenth inning to beat the Mariners Monday. Don Mattingly however said that Uribe would be back in the lineup Tuesday, but for how long? Uribe has a .517 OPS in 14 PA's this year and he's looked slower in the field than he did last year. Guerrero's bat has never been in doubt, and he hit a healthy .329/.364/.613 last year in Triple-A. Perhaps Guerrero will see the occasional start in left field, but either way, his talent will win out and force Mattingly to write his name on the lineup card most every day. We just don't know when that will happen. Edit: Guerrero hit a pinch-hit two-run homer Tuesday. Free Alex! He's someone who should be used in all Draft Kings formats as long as it's confirmed of course that he's in the lineup that day.
Giancarlo Stanton (OF-MIA) - There were some questions surrounding standing after last year's Mike Fiers fastball to the face. Would he recover physically? Sure he would, but what about the mental side? After a slow start this year, the questions remained, but Stanton had a breakout game Tuesday against the Braves. He went 3-for-3 with a pair of walks, a double, two runs, and four RBI in a win over the Braves. Stanton leaves the game batting .231/.412/.308, so the lack of power is quite obvious in looking at the numbers. Stanton has a career .267 ISO, which is obviously off the charts, so we have to figure he'll get things going sooner rather than later.
Kris Bryant (3B-CHC) - The fact that Mike Olt has not started each of the last three games due to a wrist injury makes any claim that sending Bryant down was a "baseball decision". The Cubs are now left with Jonathan Herrera and the also-banged up Tommy La Stella at the hot corner. Bryant can join the Cubs as early as April 17 and still allow the team that extra year of control prior to his free agency, but I'm still not sure it's a given that he'll be up then. Bryant is playing third base for Triple-A Iowa after the team toyed with the idea of putting him in the outfield, so expect him to stay there for at least this year. Bryant in five games for Iowa is batting his usual .381/.375/.714 with a 25% K% after fanning in 28.6% of his PA's last year. The strikeouts may limit him to .280 in the big leagues initially, but that will come with 30 HR power and after swiping 15 bases last year, Bryant has two already this season. I expect him in the Cubs lineup on Friday, but that's still not confirmed.
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