Posted by Rob McQuown on Sunday, April 5, 2009 at 3:39 pm

Many roto/fantasy leagues now allow daily moves. And, as those of us who’ve played both weekly and daily-move systems know all-too-well, what’s good for one isn’t always good for the other. I’ll chime in daily with moves for TODAY which can make a difference for you. Other Baseball Daily Digest experts will sometimes reply with their ideas, too, so you have some ready-made moves to help you TODAY.

One prime example of a difference between leagues is: if you’re able to bench an oft-injured player at gametime (let’s call him “Chipper”), all you need is a suitable backup to get a lot more out of that roster spot than Chipper’s season-ending totals would indicate from a normal roto valuation system. This means you constantly need to be checking the latest injury news on your players in a daily-move league. It also means that one of my old adages about roto that “playing time is king” now applies much less harshly.

For the most part, I’m just going to be sharing my thought processes as I make my daily moves. Sometimes these work out well, sometimes they don’t But over the long-haul, you’ll get a clear statistical edge if you follow the suggestions. I’ve had plenty of days where I’ve wondered why I bother (trying to get value out of Jeff Clement in certain matchups comes to mind), but you’ll be surprised at how fast the points add up if you play for every edge.

Tonight’s game is exciting because it’s a new season, but this isn’t exactly a matchup of two elite pitchers. Given that it’s in Philly, which – 2008 park factor aside – is still a good place to hit:

- Don’t rest any hitters you’d normally play.

- Lowe has been VERY rough on righties in his career, so if you have a borderline guy like Feliz on your team, take a zero instead. Get those Philly lefties active! (as if you needed any incentive)

- Neither battery (starting pitcher/catcher combo) prevents the running game well. Probably the only speed guy who might be impacted by this is Schafer, but he hasn’t shown enough to start except in deep NL leagues anyway, and 95% of the advice here will be for mixed leagues.

- Myers has actually had a strong reverse platoon split in his career, getting lefties out better. So, don’t be too excited about getting Garrett Anderson, Casey Kotchman, and Jordan Schafer off waivers. I was at first, before looking up Myers’ platoon splits. In that park, against a mediocre SP like Myers, GA and Kotchman still beat taking a zero if you have them.