Fantasy Baseball: 5 Pitchers to Stream in Week 18
Dereck Rodriguez, San Francisco Giants
Start: July 31st at San Diego Padres
ESPN ownership: 41.9%
San Francisco Giants rookie Dereck Rodriguez may very well be Park Factor incarnate. The 27-year-old righty has managed an exemplary 2.75 ERA in his first 59 innings of work, despite some hair-raising peripherals that include 42.2% hard contact and 25.7% liners allowed.
But when you call AT&T Park home (and when you take your visiting turns in spacious venues like Oakland-Alameda Coliseum and Marlins Park), your mistakes don't often come back to bite you.
Rodriguez has another oversized sandbox to play in this week, namely the cavernous Petco Park. It also helps that Petco is home to one of MLB's softest offenses, with the Padres ranking worst in baseball in terms of team ISO against righties over the last month, and adding a 24.9% team strikeout rate to boot.
Rodriguez's climbing ownership is bound to leave a number of fantasy owners holding the bag in the long term, but in the short term, he looks like a respectable plug-and-play.
