By Dan O’Shea
Interleague play can send the fantasy baseball manager mixed signals. Everyone talks about how the lack of play for designated hitters screws with their offensive game plan, but there are also a number of other performances during the interleague period that are kind of anomalies and can’t be trusted.
Will Johan Santana continue to get shelled the way he did in Yankee Stadium last weekend? Not likely. Will Pablo Sandoval keep pace with the .460 batting average, three home runs and six RBIs he generated against Oakland and the L.A. Angels in two recent games? Nope, though maybe he’s starting to reveal a bit more of the power than his owners expected. Mark DeRosa, of Cleveland, is an American League player who has been eating up National League pitching, but from a former Cub, that’s probably no surprise.
The novelty of interleague play has begun to wear off in recent years, and unless you have a lineup loaded with position-eligible players who actually more often serve as DHs, or a platooned NL player who could be assigned the DH role in AL. parks, you don’t really have to worry about making any big changes.
Some of the expert wire scuttlebutt this week has interleague play in mind:
* Fantasy Source has the skinny on some of those designated hitters and platoon players who are likely to lose at-bats as interleague series’ play out. Jim Thome, Jack Cust, Jason Kubel (or teammate Delmon Young) are likely to be a few of the AL players sitting in games at NL parks. Another notable DH, David Ortiz, has been terrible this year but is starting to improve, and maybe resting a game or two will help further.
* Closing Time catches us up on the Matt Wieters Watch, sort of. Actually, there isn’t much to say about Wieters, who is hitting in the .230s, but he may have helped starting pitcher Brad Bergesen to a string of solid performances that bring to mind Zach Duke – which this year is actually a comparison someone would want. Bergesen has won two games in a row, and has lasted at least seven innings in his last four outings. He was only 6 percent owned earlier this week, though in part because you can’t count on him for more than a couple strikeouts per game.
* 60 Feet, 6 Inches tries to rank the top starting pitchers in the majors, while noting the challenge of where to rank injured stars Jake Peavy, Brandon Webb, Edinson Volquez and Scott Kazmir, among others. It’s not a great surprise to see Tim Lincecum leading the list, though I’m surprised Justin Verlander isn’t ranked higher than seventh.
* Creative Sports highlights a couple of guys who never seem to get much respect in fantasy starting rotations: Tim Wakefield and Kevin Millwood. The stalwart knuckleballer Wakefield doesn’t collect many strikeouts, and his ERA tends to be high, but lo and behold, he has nine wins, making him second in the AL in that category. Millwood likewise has been known for an ugly ERA playing in a pinball machine down in Texas, but he has a much lower ERA this year at 2.72, and he eats innings, having pitched a couple of complete games this year. Both pitchers benefit from being on first-place teams with great offenses that can keep them in the win column even when they are off a bit.
–
Dan O’Shea’s Fantasy Fix appears in this space every Wednesday. He welcomes your comments. You can also read his about his split sports fan personality at SwingsBothWays, which isn’t about what it sounds like It’s about.
Posted on June 17, 2009