Perlick's Waiver Wire Spot Starters for 2009!

[perlick29]

Last year was one I'd like to forget as far as what happened during the summer months (Work Overload). Fortunately I got promoted so all the hard day-job work paid off. Welcome to the 2009 Fantasy Baseball Season! Time for the shpiel:

Basically I recommend daily spot starters in case you need extra innings, or you are churning to beat your competition, or you are looking for the latest hot pitcher. Last year guys like Scott Baker and Cliff Lee all helped us out and eventually graduated from the waiver wire. I'll make exact predictions as to their final lines for the day.

The criteria is simple - If they are available in a 12-14 team league and sometimes deeper, then I'll recommend them. I play in a big $$$ 14 team league myself so I'm always looking for the next good start for a day. Trust me, nothing will get under your leaguemates skin more than an owner who makes shrewd waiver wire pickups.

As I've said, no one was more disappointed by me not being around than me, so I'm going to be much more active this year. I'm even trying to set up a weekly podcast based on this topic since I think it would be cool to talk about. I'll leave you with one piece of advice that I've picked up over the years, (this being my 11th fantasy baseball season) that may seem like common sense but you may not even realize it. These leagues are won in September. If you're in the hunt when the month rolls around it is imperative that you have a distinct advantage over your competition. An active member is one who can leapfrog the competition. As the saying goes, "if you aint moving constantly forward then you're going backwards." Or maybe one of my favorite expressions applies, "if you look around the table and you can't spot the sucker within the 1st ten minutes, then the sucker is you." This year, we can make suckers out of the rest of our league.

As always, feel free to chime in with feedback, I'll be trying my best. I'll be updating the starters two days before they actually pitch to give you all time to pick them up or scratch them if they miss their turn.

So let's have fun with this again this year. I know I will.

[BitterDodgerFan]

wooooo hoooooo! welcome back, glad you're coming back. waiver wire spot starter thread is up there with the closer thread as one of the most valuable cafe threads.

ps. you're right about winning in september, at least in highly competitive leagues. my money leagues literally went down to the last ABs and starts on the final day in 08.

oh and can i say "STICKY"???????????

[OneLoveBoomer]

[tiggis]

Glad to see you back Perlick.
The value of this thread and the closer thread cannot be measured.

[Cyclone177]

Yo!

Missed this last year. Big time.

[DaShiz23]

Right on!

[Yanks_Baby]

Yo guys, I hear this Coleslaw Hamels guy or whatever his name is might be a good spot starter for tomorrow. Should look into that.

[mtxdevil]

One of the most valuable threads here.

[perlick29]

Well, here we go...

Opening Day, Monday, April 6th

1.John Lannan WAS - at FLA (Ricky Nolasco)

-Obviously opening day starters aren't going to give off great value, so we'll have to make due with what we've got. So, what have we got? John Lannan last year was in his first full season as a Nats starter and he actually performed pretty well. ERA under 4 a nice gb/fb ratio and a fairly unlucky Win/Loss ratio. As a 24 year old there's a moderate chance he gets better and if he can shave a BB/9 off his totals from last year he might just be of use in mixed leagues. The Marlins offense should be pretty decent so I think we very well could see a QS for Lannan. Stay tuned.
Prediction - L, 6IP, 7h, 3ER, 3BB, 3k

2.Kevin Millwood TEX - Home vs. CLE (Cliff Lee)

-Millwood seems to have gone the way of Andy Pettitte at this stage of his career. His control is good, but his stuff is plain which keeps his hit totals high. It means he'll probably never regain the level of success he had in his hey-day, so I'd recommend Lannan over him if you want a guy for the day. Squint and you sometimes see a guy we'll use a little bit more as the season wears on.
-Prediction- ND, 5IP, 8h, 3ER, 1BB, 3k

I'm going to write up Tuesday's picks shortly but I just want to clue you all in on something:

Every saturday during the season, I'd strongly advise all of you to read the article on the front page. GiantsFan14 will be writing a column that features starters that have two starts in the upcoming week. Very valuble. Plus you can get an in-depth look at my Sunday picks which would be the next day by reading the article, as I'll be contributing to that column every week.

Lots to look forward to... Good luck everyone!

[perlick29]

Tuesday April 7th

1.Randy Wolf LAD at SD (Chris Young)

-This looks like a much better day for spot starts. Yahoo has a nifty stat and it says Randy is owned in 22% of all leagues. That's a little high so if he's unavailable in your leagues I apologize. But he does make for a good start against what is predicted to be a lousy team. Wolf looked good in his last ST start so he's ready to go. It's highly unlikely that he'll make 30 starts this year, but there's a chance he could pitch well enough to win something like 13 games. That includes sustained good health of course.
-Prediction- W, 6.1IP, 6h, 2ER, 3BB, 5k, 0HR

2.Jeff Suppan MIL - at SF (Tim Lincecum)

-I love Jeff Suppan. There I said it. I feel better. Why you ask? Because in the history of waiver wire no man gets as much mention as Jeff Suppan. He just is never good enough to be on your roster for more than one favorable start, but that's all we need. Especially this year because he's lost his ability to miss bats or even keep the ball in the yard so it would take a start against someone like San Fran or San Diego on the road for me to advise using him. Hey, whaddya know? No shot for a W against Lincecum.
-Prediction- L, 6IP, 7h, 3ER, 2BB, 2k

3.Scott Olsen WAS - Road vs. FLA (Josh Johnson)

-Almost got my teams mixed up there for a second. Olsen is on Washington now and will be given every opportunity to succeed. Here's a reason Olsen might be more successful this season, and I'm going to get into it more in-depth in a future Saturday column or Podcast that I might do: He's pitching to save his career. Like Cliff Lee and Scott Baker he had a lot of promise but for whatever reasons it hadn't happened in a couple of seasons. He's still young enough to turn it around, but one more sub-average season and he might be done altogether. This is a make or break season for him. There are others like him, but I'll keep them hush-hush until it's time.
-Prediction- ND, 5.2IP, 6h, 2ER, 2BB, 4k

That's who I'm recommending, but depending on the size of your league you might also consider:

Joe Blanton
Trevor Cahill (Let me know if he's owned in your league so I know where we stand on him. Yahoo has it at 14%)
Kyle Lohse

In the meantime and in between time, I'm perlick29, bye now.