Adam Strangis Starting Rotation 4.14
We’re back with a split slate on Wednesday with five and seven games in front of us. It shouldn’t come as a big surprise, but the pitching on today’s slate is….not great. The early slate especially looks a little rough but let’s talk about both in the Starting Rotation 4.14 and figure out who we need to target for the green screens!
Starting Rotation 4.14 – Early Slate
There’s not much of a discussion in my eyes about who’s the lock on the five-game slate and it’s Corbin Burnes. His cutter continues to do the heavy lifting with a 33.3% whiff rate even though Burnes is throwing it about half the time. It’s the highest-rated cutter in the league via FanGraphs rating and even though Chicago is 12th against the pitch, Burnes is just nasty. The Cubs are flirting with a 30% K rate as a team and Burnes is at a 48.8% K rate through 12.1 IP and a massive 37.6% CSW. This cutter is just silly good –
I only really “like” two other options. The first is Jake Arrieta and we all know that I don’t love playing him. In honesty, it’s kind of a scary spot for him. He’s got a bit of a weakness to the left side of the plate with a .329 wOBA and a .300 average. Now, he does strike them out at a 24.2% rate but Milwaukee should feature five lefties. There’s virtually no upside at the price either. The Brewers offense hasn’t done a lot and only has the 27th ranked wOBA to righty pitching. I’d like to see the ownership before deciding on Arrieta.
The other pitcher that might be worth playing is Nathan Eovaldi. Minnesota is a very tough spot as they sport a top 10 mark in OBP, slugging, OPS, ISO, wOBA, and wRC+. They also smash some fastballs at a top 10 rate and Eovaldi throws a four-seam, split-finger, and cutter almost 65% of the time. Eovaldi does have a 31.7% CSW and a 63.3% ground ball rate to go with a 16.7% hard-hit rate. At the price, we don’t need a ton and I’d rather go after the Twins offense than the Red Sox with Kenta Maeda (who is wildly cheap in his own right), though neither sounds that fun.
The Red Sox strike out at a much lower rate (22.7%), are number one in ISO, OPS, wOBA, wRC+, and average against righties. Yikes. As I said, neither matchup is a walk in the park and you’re hoping either pitcher didn’t get blown up. I’ll slightly lean Eovaldi and I honestly will likely avoid cash on this slate. There are enough games but the pitching is dreadful. I plan on playing lighter and likely just in GPP.
Starting Rotation 4.14 – Cash Picks
Dustin May ($9,400 DK/$9,000 FD)
It won’t come as a surprise but I’m back to attacking the Rockies outside of Coors Field. May was superlative in his first start and I do think he could be a little overpriced, but for this slate, he’s one of the safest candidates out there. May’s largest issue in the past has been not enough strikeouts as his career K rate is just 21.6% through 90.2 IP. That was different in his first start and his cutter was one of the main reasons. It whiffed five of the eight A’s that night and it was moving a lot more than last year. In 2020, it was at 23.8 inches of drop, and this year it was at 26 inches. He also added some drop onto the curveball and everything clicked for him. I mean, what are you supposed to do with this?
Do I fully trust him to do it again? Not exactly, but the spot is fantastic and May has always had some serious like on his pitches. Seeing the CSW jump from 26.3% to 32.9% and the swinging strike rate go from 8.4% to 17.6% is super exciting, even if it is just one start so far. This kid is still only 23 years old and his first 90 innings might just have been learning the ropes. May also generated a 61.5% ground ball rate in that first start so there’s a ton to be excited about here. On a slate where there’s not a ton of trust to go around, he checks in as my number one play.
Charlie Morton ($7,600 DK/$8,500 FD)
Alright, after Max Fried got wrecked last night let’s try this again. The crafty veteran Charlie Morton toes the rubber tonight and is in a little better spot simply because he throws the ball right-handed. Miami is striking out over 26% against righties and Morton has a 26.7% K rate through two starts. His four-seam/curve combo has done the job with a 41.7% whiff rate or higher so far to rack up 10 of his 12 strikeouts. The swinging strike rate is down a hair at 11.7% but the CSW is up 34.4% so Morton still looks quite dangerous. Morton’s velocity is up slightly too to 94 MPH on the four-seam, which is a great sign coming off only 33 IP last season.
For him to succeed, Morton needs to generate ground balls and he has at a 50% rate and he’s at his best when holding RHH to very little. So far, he’s held both sides of the plate to a wOBA of .270 or lower and the righties are at a 2.02 xFIP. Morton is also sporting an xFIP/FIP combo of 2.85 or lower so he’s been a little unlucky so far with a 3.27 ERA. Teams won’t continue to have a .345 BABIP against Morton and he’s too cheap for the spot against a lineup that should feature just two lefties.
Starting Rotation 4.14 – GPP Picks
Lance McCullers ($9,900 DK/$9,500 FD)
McCullers is a pitcher that could wind up chalky but I’m never going to feel great about it. I believe last game he was between 50-60% in cash settings and he didn’t clear 18 DK points. I like McCullers but I will always feel more comfortable with him in GPP. We do have to talk about him adding a slider this year, which has done very well for him.
McCullers has thrown it the most of any pitch and it has six of 13 strikeouts for him on the season. He’s thrown it 63 times and has yet to even allow a hit to go along with the 47.1% whiff rate on it. The ground ball rate of 66.7% is highly encouraging for McCullers as well, though Detroit is 24th in ground ball rate so far.
McCullers is also down in swinging-strike rate by just a bit but the CSW is up 2.2% so that’s a fine tradeoff. There are some fears here with the walk rate because not only does a 14.6% walk rate put folks on base, it runs up that pitch count in a hurry. The Tigers are only walking 8.1% on the year but McCullers has nights where he needs a GPS to find the strike zone. The other major fear is McCullers has started poorly against LHH. That’s not been an issue through the career, but through the first 14 hitters, he’s given up a .437 wOBA and a 6.45 FIP. Detroit has six lefties projected for the lineup so it has to be at least talked about. If he’s chalky, I’ll eat in in cash but this isn’t the absolute best spot for McCullers.
Zack Wheeler ($8,400 DK/$9,700 FD)
I already saw some noise on social media about the “Wheeler Revenge” game and my eyes about rolled out of my head. It’s not that big of a deal, Wheeler got $100 million. I think he’s alright guys. Anyways, he could wind up being chalky on DK because the price is more than reasonable and the Mets have been average. Perhaps the biggest issue for Wheeler is even if the Mets aren’t hitting a ton, they don’t strike out either. Only the Padres whiff less on the season and I’m not sure where the ceiling is for Wheeler. It doesn’t help figure out what version of Wheeler we’re getting when his K rate is easily a career-high at 31.1%. For his career, it sits at 22.6% so that’s a significant gap.
With that number in hand, it’s not shocking that the swinging strike rate is up 3% and the CSW is up about 7%. The fastball is excellent so far with half of the 14 strikeouts and that’s where things get interesting. It helps when you can blow hitters away with 100 MPH upstairs –
Brandon Nimmo leads the team at 3.1 in FanGraphs rating against the pitch and he’s 19th in baseball so far. After that, Jacob deGrom is fifth on the team against the fastball. You read that correctly. The Mets regular hitters are not doing much against that fastball right now so even with some flaws in the spot, Wheeler could get it done in a big way here.
Honorable Mention – I’ll at least throw in a mention of Zack Plesac but I’m going to have a hard time getting to him. We talked about this before but he’s looking a lot more like the 2019 version with an 18-20% K rate and that’s not enough to pay the top dollar for. The CSW is under 27% and I think he has the least attainable ceiling of the high-salary group. On the other side of the game, Carlos Rodon is somewhat interesting but the Indians are striking out at the second-lowest rate in baseball.
Gas Can of the Slate – I used the Braves stack last night and I’ll go right back to the well tonight. The Marlins bullpen pitched five innings last night and now they turn to Nick Neidert who was not good in the first start if we look at the metrics. He only gave up one earned run across 4.1 IP but the xFIP was 6.84 and he walked more hitters than he struck out. The swinging strike rate is only 8.2% and if you can’t miss Atlanta bats, you’re going to get worked over. I’m going to borrow some of what we talked about yesterday –
The first two have to be Ronald Acuna and Freddie Freeman. Acuna is making an early case for possibly the best player in baseball and has a .531 ISO and .571 wOBA while Freeman has a .360 ISO. Both players are under 18% for their K rate and both have serious upside against a pitcher who can’t strike folks out and throws a fastball 54% of the time. If Acuna walks, he’s got a great shot to swipe second immediately.
Atlanta has been below average to start but we’re talking around 30 plate appearances. They also woke up last night with eight runs. Also, dial it back to last year and Marcell Ozuna, Travis d’Arnaud, Dansby Swanson, and Ozzie Albies all had a wOBA over .360 and an ISO over .240. All six hitters occupied six of the top nine spots on the Braves against the fastball in 2020 as well.
Starting Rotation 4.14 Betting Section
Free Bet
Record – 9-8
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