September is the Streaming Pitchers Month
By Bill Pivetz
September is the worst month for fantasy baseball. Not only because it’s practically over, but because the real managers do not care about your fantasy team. With teams saving their players for the playoffs or because they have no chance at the postseason, you can never tell which pitchers are starting any given day. As a result, streaming pitchers may be your best bet.
While there are some teams (San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers among others) that will continue to use their top pitchers until the end of the regular season, the majority of teams are skipping or limiting starts. The biggest example is the New York Mets.
The Mets have kept a very close eye on Matt Harvey‘s arm throughout the season. With the NL East all but clinched, manager Terry Collins said that Harvey will not pitch more than three or four innings on Sunday. As a result, it is near impossible to put Harvey in your lineup. He can’t get the win or quality start with just four innings pitched. And if you are on a starts limit, he won’t pitch long enough to warrant a start.
The Chicago Cubs are another team that is frustrating fantasy owners. Looking at the Saturday matchup against the St. Louis Cardinals, they have not announced a starting pitcher according to MLB.com. The team plans to keep Jon Lester and Jason Hammel on normal rest, so expect a reliever to start in this game. The likely names are Travis Wood and Trevor Cahill.
Other teams eliminated from playoff contention like the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Angels haven’t announced starts for the Sunday games. While you aren’t likely to start any of their pitchers, it makes things a little more difficult when looking for streaming options.
To combat all of these question marks at the end of the season, you need to dig deeper when streaming pitchers. These options will pitch just the one game and them fade back into obscurity. For example, using whoever the starter is for the Cubs on Saturday against the Cardinals is a good option. The Cardinals are hitting .234/.321/.367 in the month of September.
In addition, Tyler Wilson on Friday, Ryan Weber on Saturday and Ariel Pena on Sunday are widely available in ESPN.com leagues and have favorable matchups to take advantage of.
If you followed my articles earlier this season, you can see I was all about the streaming strategy. Especially if you play in a Roto league, adding and dropping pitchers is a big way to win the pitching stats. As the season comes to a close, you need every inning, strikeout and quality start you can get in order to make the playoffs, so streaming is the way to go.
September is an exciting final month of the fantasy season, it is also a stressful one when looking at your starting pitchers.