Stream Of The Day 8/15/12

Welcome to the newest feature on the site, the Stream Of The Day! The concept is simple, the dog days of summer are dragging right along and some fantasy teams could use an extra punch to improve their playoff standing. Whether it be a roto league, where it makes all the sense in the world to add a pitcher and hope to grab wins and K's to add to your yearly total, or you're a Matchup guy like me and you're looking to get over the weekly hump. Every day we will add a pitcher available in the majority of fantasy baseball leagues.* Be it a strong matchup, a favorable venue or a unique scenario that I'll describe, you need to pick up the guy featured here and start him, pretty simple folks. At the closure of every article we will show the results weekly and yearly to show how we're helping both our roto and matchup readers.

Mike Leake

Ownership: 11%

Stats

Year: 131.2 IP, 4 W's, 91 K's, 4.51 ERA, 1.34 WHIP

Last 30: 27 IP, 1 W, 21 K's, 6.67 ERA, 1.59 WHIP

Last 14: 6 IP, 0 W, 6 K, 5.25 ERA, 1.25 WHIP

Yeah I get it those numbers are terrible. Look closer though, over the last month Leake is inching closer and closer to 1 K per inning pitched and hes currently in the top 80 in that category this year. A power pitcher who lets a lot of guys on base hes not by any means an every start starter. So why on August 15th is he a must start guy, simple, the Mets are in town. Last time he faced them 3 runs allowed, only 1 earned over 6 innings allowing 7 hits and 2 walks while striking out 5. Sure the WHIP there isn't great by any stretch, but if you're holding off on a stream start because of WHIP, turn in your Fantasy card right now because you don't deserve to make the playoffs. He simply over powered a weak lineup in a game I saw in person, as soon as trouble started brewing he found his strikeout pitch and set down a group of impatient hitters. Speaking of the Mets, in their last game against the Reds they got 10 count em 10 men on base, 8 into scoring position and couldn't scratch a single run across the plate. The Mets had chance after chance including runners on 2nd and 3rd in the top of the 9th before Ruben Tejada lined out to the speedy Drew Stubbs. What followed next was the inevitable, Manny Acosta, a man with a .305 BAA, let two runners on before the fat kid from The Big Green, aka. Josh Edgin let up a 3 run home run, on a 1-2 count no less to John Jay. In case you missed it, I just told you the Mets send Manny Acosta and Josh Edgin to face the Reds 3,4,5 hitters in a scoreless game, are we sure Terry Collins isn't tanking for draft picks?

The Resemblance is Uncanny

This is a team in free fall with an abysmal bullpen, that already underestimated Leake once this year in a heart breaking loss. I love Leake to capitalize on the blundering Metropolitans and fill the only stat line he left empty last time with a W tomorrow 

Streaming stats on the year: 0 IP,  0 W, 0 ERA, 0 WHIP

*Full disclosure I use Yahoo for all my FBB leagues so I'll be going off the availability on there.