Adam Strangis Starting Rotation 6.23
There’s a six-game slate in the afternoon and a seven-game slate tonight in the majors! It doesn’t exactly feature the pitching we had last night, that doesn’t mean we don’t have some choices. By “some” I don’t exactly mean a whole lot and I would suspect that the popularity is concentrated in a few spots in Starting Rotation 6.23, so let’s get into it!
Starting Rotation 6.23 – Early Slate Targets
Kevin Gausman – The righty from the Giants is 15th in K rate and top-five in both swinging-strike rate and CSW. He’s been lights out and has both sides of the plate under a .220 wOBA so he deserves to be the highest-priced player on the early slate. The Angels are about 15th in K rate to righties and sit 23rd against the splitter. That pitch has 70 strikeouts on the season with a 49.1% whiff rate and just a .147 wOBA. Unsurprisingly, it’s the highest-rated splitter on the FanGraphs page at 14.2. The next closest is Yusei Kikuchi at 4.1.
Brandon Woodruff – We can always easily ignore a poor start in Coors Field and Woodruff still has a 2.80 xFIP to go with his 1.94 ERA. Both sides of the plate are under a .220 wOBA but against lefties is where Woodruff is at his best with a 33.3% K rate and a .078 WHIP. The double ace approach is going to make plenty of sense because, with the metrics at hand, these two pitchers are a notch above any other options.
Shohei Ohtani – This is a dangerous spot for Ohtani based on the splits since he’s worse to lefties with a .308 wOBA. The same thing could be said for his last two starts as Arizona and Detroit have plenty of lefties and Ohtani came through those two with 13 strikeouts, three walks, and three earned runs. San Francisco has strikeout upside with a K rate around 26% but they also rank top-five in all of our offensive categories to righty pitching. I’m more of the train of thought to pay up for pitching ahead of Ohtani today.
German Marquez – Just looking through the last 10 starts from Marquez, he has seven with 18 DK or more. The there three have been straight awful but two have come against the Giants offense, a tough matchup for anyone. Now he gets to go from Coors into Seattle and draws a Mariners lineup that has the third-highest K rate to righty pitching in the league at 26.2%. Seattle does have a 39.9% fly-ball rate but Marquez counters that with a 23.2% ground ball rate. At a guess, I would say the field goes Marquez/Woodruff as the chalk pairing today.
Starting Rotation 6.23 – Honorable Mention Early Slate
Caleb Smith – Coming off a big start against the Dodgers (kudos to Brian for that call), he draws a much friendlier matchup against the Brew Crew. Milwaukee only whiffs 21.2% against lefty pitching so that’s not ideal but Smith also has a 20 DK point start against them just a couple of turns ago. Smith counters with a 26.8% K rate and I’m very curious to see what the field does with him.
Starting Rotation Special
He’s better to the right side of the plate with a 25% K rate, 3.86 xFIP, and a .260 wOBA. That’s going to be highly useful against the opposing lineup considering they are very righty-heavy and they are 10th in K rate over 25%. The mystery pitcher doesn’t have an overwhelming pitch but his cutter and curve make up about 40% of his pitches and they sit between 25-30% for the whiff rate. His ground ball rate is just under 52% and the HR/9 is only 0.88.
His name is Eric Fedde.
Starting Rotation 6.23 – Stacking Options Early Slate
- Nationals against Vince Velazquez
- Tigers against John Gant
- Rockies against Justus Sheffield
Starting Rotation 6.23 – Main Slate Targets
Robbie Ray
We were lukewarm on Ray in his last start and the fade paid off as Ray only went 4.1 innings and struck out five. I’m going right back to him tonight against the Marlins in Miami and Ray destroyed them the last time he saw them. He went six strong innings and struck out nine hitters while giving up just one earned run. Miami is also one of the home parks that I tend to look at home/road splits and the Marlins offense has been the worst in baseball in that split. I grant you they have the second-least plate appearances against lefties at home this year but rank 30th in slugging, OPS, ISO, wOBA, and wRC+ on the season. They also lead baseball in ground ball rate and that’s sure to help Ray’s 43.2% rate on the year.
Ray continues to sport a 31.5% K rate on the season with just a 6.5% walk rate and that is one of the best accomplishments of his season. Even on a steady diet of fastballs, he still has generated a 16.1% swinging-strike rate which should help negate the 22% K rate for the Marlins. The .326 wOBA to righties is not ideal but it’s carried by the 2.09 HR/9. That metric doesn’t scare me as much in Miami against this offense so Ray checks in as an excellent option for tonight.
James Kaprielian
Kaprielian is a bit of a conundrum. At age-27, I didn’t think he’d be anything special in the majors and have not really gotten a good read on him yet. He continues to churn out fantasy-worthy starts and has a 2.84 ERA, a 26.8% K rate, and a 30% CSW with a 10.9% swinging-strike rate. His secondary offerings have been excellent with none of them having a wOBA above .204 and the slider especially is nasty with a 40.7% whiff rate and only two hits in 20 BBE. Texas is a top-five team in K rate to righty pitching and Kaprielian is still fairly affordable.
Now, having said all of that, there also continues to be some red flags here. For one, the splits could haunt Kaprielian here as he’s gotten smacked by lefty hitters with a .373 wOBA, 6.18 xFIP, 1.73 WHIP, and 18.3% K rate. That is a major issue with four lefties lurking in the Texas lineup. His xFIP overall is still closer to 5.00 and the fly-ball rate is very high at an even 50%. There is some talent here and I’ll be interested to see what the popularity looks like. If he’s high, we can pull the calculated fade but if not, it could be worth some risk with the K upside.
Jose Urquidy
Urquidy isn’t a player that I’m typically running to play but the Orioles offense against righty pitching has been dreadful. They sport a K rate over 25% and that should draw more strikeouts from Urquidy and his 22% K rate this year. There is generally a lot of average metrics like the 4.22 xFIP and the 32.1% ground ball rate, but the 25.5% hard-hit rate does soothe some fears with the fly balls. It is weird to see Urquidy have a low K rate because the swinging-strike rate is respectable at 11.6% and the O-contact rate and Contact rate are both down from last year. That means he’s generating more swinging strikes with hitters making less contact, but the desired result hasn’t been there quite yet.
The salary is quite attainable on DK and by his splits, Baltimore could present a challenge. They should have six righties and that side has been tougher on Urquidy this season. The wOBA is .322 with a 4.68 xFIP, so you’re left to decide on which you believe in more – his splits or the Orioles offense being poor. I’ll take my shot with a pitcher against the 27th offense OPS and wRC+, 30th in OBP, and 28th in wOBA.
Starting Rotation 6.23 Honorable Mention Main Slate
Trevor Bauer – I’m betting that everyone plays Bauer much as we saw with Gerrit Cole last night. We also saw that Cole was iffy once again and while Bauer was excellent last time out, I’m not convinced I want to pay for him with other options available. We can bet Bauer is going to be checked multiple times considering a player like Max Scherzer was last night. This is a huge rivalry game and the Padres will not be above some gamesmanship in this one. Maybe it bites me but I’m willing to take the chance on the fade. It’s not the best pitching slate so I expect plenty of chalk with Bauer tonight. The xFIP to lefties is 4.42 so you can take some shots with Padres bats as well.
Starting Rotation 6.23 Stacking Options
- A’s against Mike Foltynewicz
- Astros against Thomas Eshelman
- Braves against Thomas Szapucki
- Royals against Michael King
Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 6.23 and make sure you follow me on Twitter at @bucn4life! Be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD ACCOUNT account here at Win Daily Sports. Gain access to our Projection Models and jump into our Discord where we will have our experts talking plays across every sport and slate!
