Jose Quintana
Quintana had his best start in a month and a half on Saturday, throwing seven shutout innings in which he gave up seven hits and had a 5:0 strikeout to walk ratio. Qunitana did his dominating against the Royals, one of the better offenses in baseball in 2015. Quintana has taken over the "right on the edge of streaming" title from Wandy Rodriguez, after whom Matthew Berry infamously named "The Wandy Line" because he was always right on the fence in terms of streaming Wandy or rostering him. Quintana had given up either two, three or four runs in each of his seven previous starts, which the most recent start (a truly bizarre 4.1 IP, 9 H, 4 R, 3 BB, 8 K line) being the worst of the bunch. Naturally, Quintana bounced back Saturday, tormenting owners who finally pulled the string and cut him after he got beat around by the Mariners of all teams last Sunday. Quintana is even interesting (and confusing) when looked at in a macro level. His first two seasons saw his FIP higher than his ERA by a decent margin each year (by 0.47 and 0.31 respectively) before that narrative has switched the last three years, as his ERA has been higher than his FIP (by 0.51, 0.48 and 0.39 respectively). However, all of that has somehow meant for a remarkably consistent ERA year-in and year-out. His season totals year-by-year starting in his rookie 2012 season: 3.76, 3.51, and 3.32, 3.75, and 3.60 - a range of 0.44 total! Maybe it's time to retire Quintana's title as The Most Interesting Pitcher in Baseball and instead look at him as a guy who is going to post an ERA in the mid 3.00's with a decent strikeout rate - exactly the type of guy to make "The Wandy Line" into "The Quintana Line."
Nate Eovaldi
Eovaldi suffered just his third loss of the season on Saturday, giving up three runs on five hits and four walks in 5.1 innings, while striking out seven. The outing was yet another in which Eovaldi's FIP (3.33) was lower than ERA (5.06), bringing his ERA-FIP on the season to 0.77, one of the top five rates in the league. Given that the Yankees are a top-10 defense, and the ERA-FIP leaderboard is filled mostly pitchers on teams with bad defense, Eovaldi would seem like one of the better bets to see his ERA drop in the season's final month. The other good news for Eovaldi is that he has seen a bump in his strikeout rate in recent weeks. Despite a strikeout per nine rate of just over seven this season as a whole (7.06 K/9 to be exact), Eovaldi has 29 strikeouts in his last four starts, good for a strikeout rate of 10.3 batters per nine. Given his fastball velocity that has always made him an interesting target and a solid Yankee team that has helped contribute to his 14-3 record on the season, Eovaldi should be owned not streamed at this point. Unfortunately next up for Eovaldi is a powerful Blue Jay team in Yankee Stadium, but Eovaldi gave up just one run over 6.1 innings in his lone start against the Blue Jays this year.
Ryan Goins
One of the hottest hitters in baseball over the past week, Goins kept it goins (couldn't help myself) with a 2-for-4 day with a run and an RBI. Goings batting average dropped all the way to .220 on August 16, but since then he has hit .400 and driven his average back up to .245 for the season with 16 hits in 40 at bats in that time. With that better run of play he is finding his way into the lineup more, and with the Blue Jays pumping out runs like they are, nearly any bat consistently getting at bats in that lineup is going to have some fantasy value. Goins has 11 runs and seven RBI in his past 11 starts, great value for a very lightly owned player. Goins hasn't shown much to suggest he has any long-term value, but for AL-only owners who are scouring the waiver wire during the playoffs, there are a lot worse options than Goins who is owned in just 3.8 percent of ESPN leagues.
Matt Moore
Moore continued his disappointing 2015 season on Saturday, not making it out of the fifth, finishing with four and two thirds innings pitched, three hits, two runs, two walks and three strikeouts. Moore hasn't thrown more than 5.0 innings in a single start this entire (injury-depleted) season, and his ERA is sitting at an ugly 8.04 at the moment. Moore's FIP (5.35) suggests a bit of bad luck in his seven starts this season, but that's still not even at a level that would suggest streaming Moore, and given the Rays' proclivity to remove their starters before they get a third time through the lineup, Moore has basically no value at this point. Moore's struggles are highlight by a heinous 20:15 strikeout to walk ratio in 31.1 innings, giving him the killer combo of an awfully low strikeout rate and embarrassingly high walk rate. Moore has a bit of name cachet from his excellent 2013 season, but simply hasn't been the same pitcher after his Tommy John surgery.
Daily Fantasy Leagues
Jed Lowrie
Lowrie might be heating up a bit again, hitting two home runs in his last five games, with nine hits in said five games. Lowrie had been ice cold before that, going through an ugly 0-for-26 slide that saw him out of the lineup a couple times to break out of it. In the last two series he has been hitting again, and the slide only helped his price to drop in daily leagues. Lowrie is one of the more solid shortstop plays when healthy, something that matters a lot less in daily leagues than standard year-long leagues. Lowrie faces the Twins' Tyler Duffey on Sunday, an up-and-down rookie who has had a couple nice starts, but a couple ugly ones to boot. Duffey has averaged only five innings a start as well, which means getting to the shaky Twins' bullpen sooner than later, which is only good news for Lowrie and the Astro hitters. Duffey only got three swinging strikes in his last outing, and Lowrie and the Astros shouldn't struggle putting the ball in play a bunch on Sunday.
DraftKings: $3,700
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