Fantasy Baseball Stats: Daily All-Stars from August 14
Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports
Today’s fantasy baseball stats recap is sponsored by the letter “K”. Three pitchers made today’s list with two of them striking out 14 hitters. Even in today’s game when strikeouts aren’t as big of a problem for hitters, that’s very impressive.
Even the one hitter that made today’s list did so with unusual fantasy baseball stats, though not unusual for him. But we’ll get to him in a moment, we start with the dominant arms today.
Daily Fantasy Baseball Stats MVP
Max Scherzer — Detroit Tigers
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Things haven’t been going smoothly for the Tigers this month, but it’s very difficult to lose a game when your starter pitches like this. Scherzer was completely dominant against the Pittsburgh offense, significantly bettering a very good outing for his counterpart, Francisco Liriano.
After Thursday’s game, Scherzer’s numbers are not that far removed from his Cy Young pace of 2013. He’s red hot now, so don’t be surprised if he’s a Top-3 fantasy pitcher for the rest of the way
Daily Fantasy Baseball Stats Honorable Mentions
1. Mike Fiers — Milwaukee Brewers
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The spot pickup of the day — and maybe season — goes to anyone that picked up Fiers for his outing against the Cubs. He didn’t quite match Sherzer’s game, but was significantly tougher to hit, striking out the same number of hitters in two fewer innings.
Now, Fiers isn’t exactly a power pitcher, so you can’t expect 14 strikeouts every game, or anything close to it. But with the injury to Matt Garza, he’s had two very good starts and is still generally available. I wouldn’t waste much time adding him if you need some pitching help.
2. Dee Gordon — Los Angeles Dodgers
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It’s not often that a hitter makes the list without hitting a home run or even producing an RBI — two of the five standard offensive fantasy baseball stats. But Gordon was just too dominant everywhere else against the Braves to ignore. The best thing for his fantasy owners is that Gordon is very capable of having games like this every time he takes the field.
Gordon won’t hit you any homers and batting at the top of an NL lineup, won’t drive in a significant amount of runs. But if you need runs or steals, Gordon’s about as reliable as there is. I’d be looking to make a trade.
3. Stephen Strasburg — Washington Nationals
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This hasn’t been a great year for Strasburg, at least in terms of consistency. Still, he’s generated plenty of games like this and against opponents like the Mets, it’s not a surprise.
On a normal day, Strasburg would have ranked a lot higher, but Scherzer and Fiers stole the spotlight. Still, if the Nationals let him pitch, I wouldn’t bet against Strasburg being a Top-10 (or better) pitcher for the rest of 2014.