Spot Starters for September 27th, 2012

Just how far can playing the matchups on free agency take you? Could a full season of waiver wire-caliber second basemen equal a year’s worth of Neil Walker? Those are the questions we seek to answer with another edition of our Spot Start Squad. Expanded Notes There are a lot of great matchups on a somewhat shortened Wednesday slate. Jonathan Lucroy and Norichika Aoki of the streaking Brewers face off against Mat Latos, who has been on a tear of his own. This is a case of hot batters going against a pitcher who has righted his ship after early season struggles, but I’ll go with the hotter bats here. Justin Smoak and Dustin Ackley go against the usually superior Dan Haren, but the 2012 version of Haren has lost a lot of zip on his fastball and appears to be in career decline. Smoak has been on a tear, batting .472 with four homers over the last two weeks. Ackley hasn’t been quite as hot, but he has good career numbers versus Haren. Chris Nelson is awesome. I went back and forth betw...