Roto Roundup: Jacob deGrom, Pedro Alvarez, Miguel Sano and others

FanDuel: SB Nation One Day Fantasy Leagues

Many of you play in season-long leagues, while more and more of you are playing one day fantasy leagues. If you like the action of the one day leagues, make sure you join the FanDuel/SB Nation one day fantasy baseball leagues. All you need to do is click on the link below and join a league.

• Starts 1pm Sunday Sept 13
• First place wins $100,000
• $5 entry, top 46,000 teams win cash
• Salary cap format - pick who you want

FanDuel/SB Nation Fantasy Football League: Week 1

Fantasy Football Rankings and more

The 2015 fantasy football season is only a few weeks away and we will once again provide you with offseason position rankings, sleepers, draft strategies and much more. We hope our fantasy football writing team was able to help you win your leagues in 2014, and we will be back at it for the upcoming season as well.

With that said, here is a link to all of our early position rankings, sleepers, value picks, top rookies and more:

Fantasy Football 2015: Early position rankings, sleeper and busts for PPR Leagues

Roto Roundup

The Cardinals were dealt a blow to their lineup on Monday as outfielder Randal Grichuk was place on the disabled list with a low grade ligament injury in his right elbow. Cardinals GM John Mozeliak announced that Grichuk will miss 15-20 games. At this point, surgery is not an option, but it hasn't been ruled out. The injury to Grichuk is ill-timed as outfielder Matt Holliday is also on the DL with a quad injury and won't be back until mid-September at the earliest. The Cardinals will go with an outfield of Jason Heyward, Stephen Piscotty and Brandon Moss with Grichuk sidelined. The Cardinals called up outfielder Tommy Pham to replace Grichuk on the active roster.

The Cardinals received another scare when Jason Heyward left Monday's game with a hamstring injury. He may miss a few games, but the injury doesn't appear serious enough to land him on the disabled list.

Phillies third baseman Maikel Franco was placed on the disabled list on Tuesday with a small fracture in his wrist, suffered when he was hit by a pitch in Arizona last week. Prior to the injury, Franco was in the conversation for rookie of the year, in my opinion. He will finish his rookie season with a slash line of .277-.340-.490 with 13 home runs, 43 runs scored and 48 RBI in 326 plate appearances.

With Franco on the disabled list, the Phillies called up outfield prospect Aaron Altherr, who was hitting .294-.362-.495 with 8 home runs, 36 runs scored, 38 RBI and 8 stolen bases in 229 plate appearances in AAA this season. Altherr started the season in AA, and is hitting .293-.367-.487 with 14 home runs, 65 runs scored, 67 RBI and 16 stolen bases in 20 attempts across AA and AAA thus far. I have to think he sees plenty of playing time in Philadelphia, and is worth a pick up in NL only leagues. An owner paid $10 for him in the UBA NL only keeper league last night.

I seem to be writing about Mets ace Jacob deGrom after every one of his starts lately, but he just continues to dominate National League hitters. And apparently, he dominates American League hitters as well, as he limited the Orioles to just one run on 5 hits, a walk and 6 strikeouts in the Mets 5-1 win last night. The win moved his record to 12-6 with a 1.98 ERA, 0.89 WHIP and a 158-29 strikeout to walk rate in 154.1 innings. He has given up two runs or less in 10 of his last 11 starts, and in 19 of his 23 starts this season. He is a legitimate Cy Young award candidate.

The Pirates traded for first baseman/outfielder Michael Morse at the trade deadline, apparently a move to either replace struggling first baseman Pedro Alvarez, or light a fire under him. Well, the move lit a fire under Alvarez, as he has done nothing but hit since the trade. Last night, he went 2-4 with a run scored and 2 RBI. Prior to last night's game, he was hitting .357-.372-.690 with 4 home runs, 5 runs scored and 8 RBI, so he padded those August stats last night. On the season, he is now hitting .255-.316-.470 with 19 home runs, 47 runs scored and 61 RBI. He is no longer the annual 30 home run hitter, but is a solid power bat you can draft at the end of drafts in 2016, if you can withstand the low batting average. He is probably the better side of a platoon at first base or DH in the coming years.

Well, it could be another very interesting Winter Meetings this December as the Red Sox have hired former Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski to be their team President, and current GM Ben Cherington stepped down when offered the GM job under Dombrowski, which is very telling. From the looks of it, Dombrowski will be calling all the shots in Boston going forward, so Ben decided to get out while the getting was good, or maybe he felt that he would be fired. Who knows. Times will tell. One thing Dombrowski knows how to do is build a pitching staff, and the Red Sox are in dire need of starting pitching and a bullpen. But, that will more than likely come at the expense of their strong farm system.

That said, the Red Sox went out and won their last game under Ben, beating the Indians 9-1 behind the pitching of young pitching prospect Eduardo Rodriguez. ERod limited the Indians to one run on 6 hits, no walks and 5 strikeouts in the Red Sox 9-1 win. The win moved his record to 7-5 with a 4.48 ERA, 1.24 WHIP and a 68-27 strikeout to walk rate in 86.1 innings. Rodriguez has pitched well at times this season, but has also been prone to the disaster start. He has had starts of 8 runs in 5 innings, 7 runs in 1.2 innings and 6 runs in 3.2 innings, but that is common with plenty of young pitchers.

The Red Sox offense was led by seven hole hitter, first baseman Travis Shaw, who went 4-4 with 2 runs scored and is now hitting .371-.403-.645 with 5 home runs, 14 runs scored and 10 RBI in his 66 plate appearances since his call up. Shaw owns two four hit games and two three hit games already. I wouldn't count on this continuing, as he was hitting just .249-.318-.356 with 5 home runs and 30 RBI in 322 plate appearances in AAA this season.

Is it me or are we all going to have our pickings of third baseman in 2016 drafts? I have written here a few times about the depth of the position and we can add Twins third baseman Miguel Sano to the list. Last night, he went 1-4 with a home run and 2 RBI in the Twins loss to the Yankees. Sano has played only six games at third base this season, so he may only have eligibility as a DH, which he has appeared as a DH 32 times already. That will be bad news for fantasy owners, unless your league has less stringent position eligibility rules. On the season, Sano is hitting .291-.398-,567 with 9 home runs and 29 RBI in just 39 games. He is a legitimate 30 home run bat and should be drafted as such next season.

Fantasy Rundown

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