Adam Strangis Starting Rotation 7.19
Monday greets us with 11 games on the MLB slate and it’s not one that holds many attractive cheaper options. I apologize for no article yesterday but we are ready to rock tonight! The higher-end and midrange look pretty fascinating and my early lean is to stick in that midrange. Let’s talk about who’s slated to pitch in the Starting Rotation 7.19 and see if we can’t find another day of pitchers that lay the foundation for green screens!
Starting Rotation 7.19 – Main Targets
Yu Darvish
Darvish is sort of a mystery bag tonight. He’s coming off the IL, but I don’t think we’ll see a restricted pitch count. I’m not a big fan of seeing his spin rate down in the past four starts, but he has a ceiling game in that mix against the Dodgers with 11 strikeouts. He now gets an Atlanta offense that is without Ronald Acuna and Darvish has a 29.8% K rate on the year. I’m willing to not sweat the last start with the injury presenting after the fact.
What strikes me as odd with Darvish is the cutter is the one pitch he does use a lot at 39.6% but it’s easily the worst pitch results-wise. It’s yielding a .278 average and a .404 wOBA. That pitch and the four-seam have given up 10 of 12 home runs and every other pitch is under a .210 wOBA allowed. These two pitches making up over 57% of his repertoire present some issues and explains some uneven results. Atlanta does rate well against those pitches which does nag at me a bit. Still, the price is exceptionally low for a pitcher still generating a 12.8% swinging-strike rate. Both sides of the plate are under a .270 wOBA and righties whiff 32.4% of the time with a 3.44 xFIP.
Kevin Gausman
If you just took the matchup out of the equation, Gausman would likely be the best pitcher on the slate. Only Jacob deGrom has a lower ERA and Gausman has a 2.57 FIP to go with a 6.9% walk rate and a 30.5% K rate. Most see the Dodgers matchup and (smartly, in almost all cases) bailout and run the other way. I’m not saying I’ll be right but I’m actually excited for the opportunity tonight. Gausman started against these Dodgers three turns ago and scored a measly 7.9 DK points. It was a very poor start BUT I think it may not have been as bad as it looked.
Doing a deep dive inside that game, the xFIP was 8.37 and the FIP was 7.77. That doesn’t sound like anything to help my case but he threw 90 pitches, 41 for balls. That’s the highest amount he’s thrown in any start this year and his first strike rate was 54.2%, the third-worst of the year. The swinging-strike rate was only 7.8%, the worst of the season and it appears he just wasn’t throwing enough quality pitches in this start. He didn’t get hit hard with a 28.6% rate and just a .154 BABIP.
Only one hitter connected with a barrel and the five walks were the worst of the year. I get it, the Dodgers are second in walk rate at 11% but this is a super outlier with the rest of the season for Gausman. With LA coming out of Coors into Dodger Stadium, Gausman is SUPER interesting in GPP tonight. His splitter should be able to really do some heavy lifting against the Dodgers tonight after three games in Denver. The field likely stays away with the salary and game logs, which opens the door for him to be very low-rostered. Both sides of the plate are being held under a .250 wOBA. I’ll be fascinated to see his projected ownership.
Trevor Rogers
Typically, I would preach some caution here as the Nationals can be very tough on lefties and I stress this is still NOT an easy spot, but three of their top 10 hitters in wOBA against lefties are currently out. Washington is also seventh against the fastball, which is the money pitch for Rogers. He’s up to about 58% of the time with it and it’s the 11th rated fastball on FanGraphs with 77 strikeouts, a .291 wOBA, and a 29.1% whiff rate. That’ll play for sure and the splits favor Rogers as well. He’s handled righties so far with a .257 wOBA, 3.45 xFIP, and a 29.6% K rate.
Other than a bump in the road against Atlanta, Rogers has been very consistent, an attribute that always helps in DFS. His 14.9% swinging-strike rate would be a career high and I don’t dislike him, I just do prefer Darvish. If he’s coming in at a fraction of the Darvish ownership, let’s talk. My main fears are Juan Soto and Trea Turner, both of whom rank inside the top 20 against the fastball this season.
Shohei Ohtani
My early guess would expect Ohtani to be among the three chalkiest pitchers, potentially with Darvish. The 3.49 ERA is more or less in line with a 3.66 xFIP and the 30.7% K rate is always going to be appealing. Oakland is 12th in walk rate at 9.2% and that can come into play because one of (if not THE) biggest weakness in Ohtani’s game on the mound is handing out walks. His 12.4% walk rate would lead the league if he qualified and that metric is equal to each side of the plate. The K rate takes a dip against lefties at 25.9% but righties are flirting with 37% and Ohtani should face five or more tonight. The A’s are only 19th in K rate at a 23.3% rate but Ohtani’s splitter is so nasty. It has a .118 wOBA, 53.3% whiff rate, and seven hits out of 198 total pitches. We know that Ohtani is always a little riskier than he might appear (see the Yankees start) but the ceiling is high for the salary.
Starting Rotation 7.19 Honorable Mention
Luis Garcia – I wonder if he becomes popular but the splits could bite him. Cleveland is slated to have 4-5 lefties in the lineup and Garcia has had some issues against that side of the plate. They’ve gotten him for a .336 wOBA, 4.00 xFIP, and a 24.5% K rate. Cleveland is sitting at a 23.4% K rate as a team and Garcia’s four-seam continues to hold him back. He’s using it almost 48% of the time and it has an 18.5% whiff rate along with a .369 wOBA. His other four pitches all sit over 36% in whiff rate (with three over 44%) and the change is the “worst” at a .289 wOBA. Cleveland is just 20th against the fastball, so I’m curious to see the lineup before making the final call.
Kyle Gibson – $9,000 just always feels expensive and we have Darvish, Rogers, and Ohtani all in that same price range. His K rate is vastly inferior to the other three at 21.7% and the Detroit offense isn’t the same style of punching bag they were for the first six weeks of the season. If I have exposure to those other three and Gibson outscores them all, I tip my hat and move on.
Ryan Yarbrough – I was very close to putting him on the main target list, but the K rate of 19.7% held me off. The Orioles only whiff at a 22.9% rate against lefties which is 11th but they are not good by any other metric. They are no higher than 24th in average, OBP, slugging, OPS, ISO, wOBA, and wRC+. The price is just a touch too high for my liking since we have a condensed player pool right in the same tier. You’d have to hope for 6-7 strong innings to pay this off if his K rate stayed stagnant.
Starting Rotation 7.19 Primary Stack
I’ll let Brian have his fun with Lester Day but since I write first, I’m talking about Tampa Bay. You can usually bank on teams facing the Orioles to be an interesting stack and Tampa is no different. Here’s the thing that really pushes them over the top for me – it doesn’t appear the Baltimore starter can take advantage of the gaudy K rate the Rays have this season.
Spenser Watkins draws another start and he has a 14.6% K rate with a swinging-strike rate under 9%. His ERA through 10.1 IP is 1.74 but the FIP and xFIP are over 5.00. Tampa is 12th in OPS, seventh in ISO, 11th in wOBA, and sixth in wRC+ this season against righties. The Baltimore bullpen is 14th in K rate so the matchup doesn’t get a whole lot worse for Tampa if they knock out Watkins early.
Watkins is throwing his four-seam at least 47% to each side and it has a .429 wOBA, .250 ISO, and a terrifying 72.7% hard contact rate. The ground ball rate is only 27%. The Rays destroy fastballs and Austin Meadows is egregiously priced at $4,600. That’s just silly DK is just giving us Meadows at that salary and he’s the best FanGraphs fastball hitter on the Rays. Randy Arozarena, Brandon Lowe, Mike Zunino, and Kevin Kiermaier are all over a .220 ISO against that pitch and I will be making every effort to have Rays everywhere tonight.
Starting Rotation 7.19 Secondary Stacks
- Marlins against Jon Lester
- Astros against J.C. Mejia
- Cubs against Jake Woodford
- Mets against Vladimir Guiterrez
- Reds against Jerad Eickhoff
Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 7.19 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!
