Check out today’s Hitter Value Chart for every eligible player!
We haven’t talked about Jonathan Lucroy ($4,000) much as of late, but maybe we should! After fighting injuries for the majority of the season, he appears to be healthy and locked in. Lucroy is hitting .417 in L14 and is a career .300 hitter. Lucroy will get LHP Jeff Locke today, who Lucroy has hit well (.333, 7/21) in his career.
One of the key pieces for the Dodgers has been Andre Ethier ($2,800). I suspect he is going to see more playing time now that Kike Hernandez hits the DL and Joc Pederson continues to struggle at the dish. Assuming he starts, Ethier is one of my favorite plays. He is batting .391 in the L14 and has really good numbers vs. Mike Leake in his career (see below). Don’t forget that this guy is a career .307 hitter vs. RHP. That’s 2800 ABs worth of goodness!
It will be really interesting to see if Jonny Gomes ($2,300) gets thrown right into the fire for the Royals against LHP Randy Wolf. Gomes is a nice piece to provide depth against LHP. He is so low priced that if he plays he might become a must play. Gomes has a long history with Wolf, including 10 hits in 20 ABs against the southpaw. This is a very fluid situation so check to see if Gomes gets the nod today.
The rejuvenation of Franklin Gutierrez ($3,900) continues! He is today’s BvP “winner” as he boasts a career .429 average off Scott Kazmir which includes 3 HRs (9-21). A career .290 hitter off LHP, who homered again last night, will get a nice boost from Minute Maid Park which surrenders 13% more HRs to RHB than the league average.