Posted by Rob McQuown on Monday, August 17, 2009 at 9:15 am

Starting Pitchers:

• Tommy Hanson is still available in 33% of leagues, and is a good play today.
• As an aside, Neftali Feliz is at least worth considering for a roster spot, as he qualifies as a SP in most formats and should post as many K’s in limited duty as most starters do.  Besides, he might usurp the closing role… anything is possible with this guy.
• Among the 50%+ group, it’s best to just pass today, unless you’re really up for some risk.  Livan Hernandez against SF?  Tommy Hunter against the M-M-Murderers’ Row of M-M-Minnesota?  Brian Bannister against the White Sox?  Kevin Hart against the worse-against-RHP Brewers?  We don’t much like any of them, but they sure beat Brett Tomko against the Yankees (yikes!)

Batters:

• No platoon matchup advantage, but we wanted to suggest Gordon Beckham one last time before he goes over 50% ownership, and he should be able to hit Bannister anyway.  I’m sure we’ll still mention him again, but congrats to people who’ve been able to acquire him in your leagues… he’s a special talent.
• of Andrew McCutchen
• c Yadier Molina (who knows how he’ll do against a knuckleballer Haeger?)
• c A.J. Pierzynski
• of Denard Span
• 1b Billy Butler – it’s nuts to not play this guy against LHP, even the best. He’s hitting .324/.405/.577 against them.
• ss Erick Aybar

Yesterday was a banner day for Roto Lunch predictions.  The vagaries of baseball insured that it wasn’t anything like perfect, but here’s the 1-day totals from dropping the names into the BP Team Tracker:

BATTERS (Change Display Statistics)
Name	PA	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG
Erick Aybar	7	2	0	3	2	.500
Gordon Beckham	4	0	0	0	0	.333
Chris Coghlan	10	2	1	3	0	.500
Michael Cuddyer	4	1	0	0	0	.333
Dexter Fowler	5	0	0	0	0	.200
Jeff Francoeur	4	1	0	0	0	.500
Kosuke Fukudome	0	0	0	0	0	.000
Carlos Gonzalez	9	2	2	3	0	.500
Cristian Guzman	5	0	0	0	0	.000
Yadier Molina	5	2	0	2	0	1.000
A.J. Pierzynski	4	0	0	0	0	.250
Cody Ross	10	1	0	2	0	.667
Ian Stewart	6	0	0	0	0	.167
Josh Willingham	4	2	1	3	0	.750
TOTAL	77	13	4	16	2	.435
PITCHERS (Change Display Statistics)
Name	IP	W	SV	SO	ERA	WHIP
J.A. Happ	7.7	1	0	3	1.17	1.170
Randy Wolf	7.7	1	0	10	3.52	.650
Jorge De La Rosa	5.7	1	0	9	0	1.760
TOTAL	21	3	0	22	1.71	1.140

As they say, “not typical results”.  But we’ve done well this season, considering the constraints of examining only 50%+ availables (with a handful of exceptions over the season).