Fantasy Baseball 2017: 3 Streaming options for Sept. 30

With days left to the season, fantasy owners are looking to improve their pitching stats. Here are three pitchers worth streaming on Sept. 30.

It’s been a fun 2017 baseball season. We saw two great hitters crush 50 home runs, pitchers throw no-hitters and unfortunately many injuries. All of this comes down to this weekend. If you are in the championship round, congratulations. If you need to make a big comeback in the pitching categories, here are three pitchers worth streaming on Sept. 30.

I picked three pitchers that are widely available. Unless some owner dropped all of their players because they moved on to football, you won’t find the likes of Max Scherzer or Corey Kluber on the waiver wire.

These pitchers have the ability to put up good numbers for a couple of starts in a row. Unfortunately, they don’t do it over the whole season or they would have been owned in more leagues. This is why streaming is a strategy.

You pick up a pitcher with a favorable matchup, hope to exploit it by starting that pitcher and then drop him the next day. There are ways to combat that strategy but it makes the final days less fun. Looking all of the transactions in your league’s activity down the stretch lets you know who is still paying attention and is still competing.

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So, for those of you still trying to win your championship, these are the three pitchers with good matchups on Saturday, Sept. 30.

Jhoulys Chacin

Jhoulys Chacin isn’t someone you’re usually happy about adding to your team. However, over his last few starts, he’s been a serviceable pitcher. While he has just two wins in his last eight starts, Chacin has a 3.43 ERA and 1.167 WHIP in that span.

He was able to silence the Colorado Rockies offense in his last start. Chacin pitched six shutout innings, allowing one hit and three walks with six strikeouts. He earned his 13th win of the season in that game.

Chacin will make his next and final start of the season on the road against the San Francisco Giants. As you may have read in my Gary Sanchez article, I am not a fan of the Giants offense. There isn’t anyone, including Buster Posey, that scares me in that lineup.

I think Chacin will be able to pitch six successful innings, earning a quality start in the process. Whether he gets the win or not is up to the San Diego Padres offense. He’s owned in just 25.8 percent of ESPN leagues.

Andrew Cashner

Andrew Cashner has had a good year with the Texas Rangers. He has a 3.42 ERA, 1.326 WHIP and 10-11 record. He wasn’t the biggest strikeout pitcher, just a 4.7 K/9 (he has a career 7.0 K/9) but for an undrafted pitcher, he’s more than held his own.

Cashner has struggled over the last month. Over his last five starts, he has a 4.00 ERA, 1.519 WHIP and 2-2 record. He has just 15 strikeouts and 13 walks in 27.0 innings. It doesn’t help that he faced the Seattle Mariners twice, New York Yankees and Houston Astros in that span.

He should be able to end the season on a high note in his next start. Cashner will start at home against the Oakland Athletics. With Khris Davis the only power threat in the lineup, Cashner can work around him and post a good start.

Cashner is owned in just 22.1 percent of leagues. As the theme will show, these pitchers weren’t good all season. But that’s in the past, you just need them to be good for one start and Cashner can do that in this game.

Henderson Alvarez

Henderson Alvarez is the least experienced pitcher on this list. He spent most of 2015, all of 2016 and most of 2017 in the minors. His first two starts this season have been complete opposites. In the first, he allowed four runs in five innings. In the second, he pitched five shutout innings.

The downside is that Alvarez allowed a lot of baserunners in those games, 14 in 10 innings. He also has just six strikeouts, so Alvarez is relying on his defense to get batters out. He has a 45.5 ground ball rate and 33.3 fly ball rate.

Alvarez makes his next start against the New York Mets. As I mentioned in my Nick Pivetta piece, the Mets are fifth in average this month but are in the middle in home runs, RBI and runs scored.

If you have a good lead in your ratios, I would take a chance on Alvarez. He can get you some extra innings pitched along with a win. Art only 2.5 percent owned, he is out there for the taking.

Next: Luiz Gohara: One last waiver add

There are 30 pitchers taking the mound on Saturday. Most are owned in over 50 percent of leagues. Others are out there but have bad matchups. These are the three that are available with matchups worth exploiting. Add one, two or three to take the lead in your pitching stats.

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