Adam Strangis Starting Rotation 8.6
Almost every single team is in action tonight and we have 28 choices to pick from. We do get the luxury of having some bigger names on this slate but the quality of options drops off a cliff. That means we may need to find some value bats along the way in Starting Rotation 8.6 to set our foundation for green!
Starting Rotation 8.6 – Main Targets
Corbin Burnes
Burnes got rocked by Atlanta last time out and this particular spot is a mix of risk and reward. We saw yesterday a pitcher of the quality of Merrill Kelly tame the San Francisco bats and there’s a couple of factors at play there, in my mind. For one, the Giants simply carry a high strikeout rate against righty pitching at 25.8%. The other is a bit harder to quantify past the Giants have been playing a little over their heads. Looking at the lineup would not lead you to believe that their offense is a top-tier unit and we could see some second-half regression. Burnes is still rocking a K rate of 36% and his FIP/xFIP combo is a sterling 1.50/2.20.
A factor under the risk column is the Giants are second against the cutter this season. That has been the bread and butter pitch for Burnes with a .272 wOBA, 32.6% whiff rate, and 85 strikeouts. The K rate dipped for Burnes in July at 29.4% but his FIP/xFIP was still under 2.65 each. Both sides of the plate are under a .260 wOBA and they both whiff over 33% of the time. I can see him being a must-play in cash but I am undecided in GPP. On such a big slate, we could potentially spend down.
Chris Bassitt
Can I just put “Dylan Bundy just dominated this lineup, play Chris Bassitt” and move on? No? Alright, here we go. He shoved against the Angels lineup last time out for nearly 30 DK and since the start of July, Texas is 29th or 30th in OBP, slugging, OPS, wOBA, and wRC+. They do come up to 19th in ISO but that’s certainly not scary. The K rate is 23.5% for this lineup and Bassitt is using a sinker, four-seam, or cutter almost 75% of the time this year. Texas is 29th against the cutter and 25th against the fastball, another big plus for Bassitt. None of his fastball-style pitches has a whiff rate over 28.2% but he’s sort of like Lance Lynn – he just gets it done. His K rate is right about 25% and his hard-hit rate is under 28%. There is very little to pick at here and I honestly think I like Bassitt better than Burnes.
Alek Manoah
This will be a gutsy play as Manoah walks into a start against the Boston Red Sox, but that doesn’t mean he can’t succeed at all. His fastball/slider mix has been excellent so far, especially the slider. He doesn’t have near the innings to qualify but if he did, his fastball would be around 18th and the slider would be 13th across the entire league. The slider has a .210 wOBA and a 37.2% whiff rate across 227 pitches. Manoah should face five righties and that’s great news for the slider. That and the four-seam are his main two pitches against righties while lefties see the sinker the second-most. It doesn’t appear that the 13.2% swinging-strike rate is a mirage.
Boston has also jumped up in strikeouts a little bit since the start of July, over 23%. Manoah only threw 17.1 innings in July (Tampa twice and Kansas City once) but he might have figured some things out. The ERA was 1.02, the wOBA was .189, the K rate was 33.3%, and the FIP was 1.75. He didn’t give up a home run (and the xFIP was almost 4.00) but when a prospect of his pedigree puts that on the field, it’s hard to not at least consider him regardless of opponent.
John Means
I was sort of waiting on Means to show he was fully back from injury and that happened in the last start with 24.5 DK points. He induced a 24% whiff rate and 35% on his changeup alone, not to mention a 31% CSW. He also used the change as a primary pitch as opposed to the four-seam. Tampa is 14th against the changeup but Means is rated at 10.6, which would be the best in baseball. Means also features a K rate over 23% and the Rays have remained awful against lefties even since July. Sure, Nelson Curz will help but we’re talking bottom-five in wOBA, wRC+, OPS, slugging, and OBP with a 25.1% K rate. Means has held righties to a .262 wOBA, has a 25% K rate, and a 28% hard-hit rate. At under $9,000, he makes plenty of sense in my view tonight. The last time we attacked the Rays with a lefty, Yusei Kikuchi was around 3%. I’d love to get Means at that percentage tonight.
German Marquez
It may not ever be comfortable to use pitching in Coors Field but spots don’t get a whole lot better than this against the Marlins. They strike out 25% of the time on the season and are 26th in fly-ball rate against righty pitching. They are 28th in ISO, 24th in OPS, and no higher than 20th in wOBA or wRC+. Marquez has a K rate of 25% and a ground ball rate at 52.6%, which really fits against Miami. Marquez also has a lower HR/9 at home, a lower WHIP, and he’s better against righty hitters. They only have a .250 wOBA to go with a 30.4% K rate and a 3.06 xFIP and Miami is slated to throw out six righties plus the pitcher spot. The slider and curve both have a whiff rate over 42% on the year and they have combined for 109 of 124 strikeouts. I’m certainly interested in him tonight and provided he gets a righty-heavy lineup to face, the spot fits Marquez’s strengths perfectly.
Logan Webb
We talk all the time that a lot of times, home/road splits aren’t the most useful metric to talk about past extreme parks. To wit, Webb has pitched on the road against the Mariners, Phillies, Padres, Rockies, Reds, Dodgers, Cardinals, and Dodgers again. It’s really no wonder the road ERA is 4.62 and the home mark is 1.85. When we look at the xFIP, it’s 3.25 on the road and 3.04 at home and that makes far more sense. Webb sports a ground ball rate over 60% through 73 innings and the Brewers are 11th in that metric at 44.1%. On top of that, he has a K rate over 24% and Milwaukee is at nearly 25% as a team.
It might be the third pitch in usage, but the slider has been lethal for Webb. He’s used it more to righties and that isn’t totally ideal as five lefties will probably be in the Brewers lineup. However, he still uses it against lefties and it has a .180 wOBA, 45% whiff rate, and 33 strikeouts. His changeup is the primary pitch to lefties and that pitch has 24 strikeouts, so there is an upside at this salary. I’m not sure if I’ll dip any further down the ladder.
Starting Rotation 8.6 Honorable Mention
Adam Wainwright – It’s tough to argue that I’d play Waino ahead of Bassitt but the matchup is soft on paper. KC is in the NL park so they lose the DH (although that likely doesn’t matter with their lineup) and they rank 20th against the curveball. That’s the main pitch for Wainwright and it has 55 strikeouts. For what it’s worth, he has almost double the innings pitched at home than on the road and the ERA is two runs lower. The xFIP does tell a different story as it’s similar home or on the road, which is a small part of why I’d just play Bassitt.
Kyle Muller – His xFIP of 4.60 compared to the 2.43 ERA is a bit worrisome but Muller has flashed some upside through his 29.2 IP with a score of 31 DK. He’s also never crossed the 19 point barrier past that one start, so I do feel like he’s overpriced even with a 27% K rate and a 13.8% swinging-strike rate. The nationals also proved to be a pain again yesterday with five earned runs hung on Aaron Nola so I feel like there are other options we can look at.
Wade Miley – I wonder if folks might be a little skittish with Miley on this slate after Uber-chalk Sonny Gray burned the field last night. Pittsburgh is seventh in ground ball rate against lefties while Miley is at a 50.4% ground ball rate himself. Pittsburgh is only at a 20.6% K rate so the price is high-ish but they are also bottom 10 in all of our offensive categories. If Gray hadn’t had one poor inning, the Pirates did virtually nothing last night and the offense has been struggling.
Starting Rotation 8.6 Stacks
On a big slate, I want to generally stick with 3-4 man stacks and I want the Yankees, which we’ll get to in a minute. However, I’m inclined to lock in Bassitt as one pitcher and then sit in the Means/Marquez/Manoah range for my second option. That means we need some cheap options and we’re talking about the late-night hammer with ….the Arizona Diamondbacks. I know, exactly who you thought, right?
The D-Backs are facing lefty Ryan Weathers and he’s really dodging bullets against righty hitters. He’s given up a .338 wOBA, 5.21 xFIP, a 1.74 HR/9, and a whopping 43.5% hard-hit rate to that side of the plate. Ketel Marte, Nick Ahmed, and Asdrubal Cabrera are all over a .335 wOBA and the first two hitters I mentioned are over a .210 ISO. Marte especially has obliterated lefties in 41 PA at a .552 wOBA. Even if you choose not to stack Arizona, he’s a pretty nice one-off.
I think my favorite three-man stack on the slate might well be Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and Kyle Higashioka. Marco Gonzales takes the mound and he’s getting mashed by righty hitters with a .418 wOBA, 5.67 xFIP, and a 48.4% fly-ball rate. He features the sinker prominently at about 42%, which has an average distance of 308 feet. It’s 318 feet down the line in New York so do the math there. Additionally, Judge and Stanton have a wOBA over .500 against the sinker with ISO’s over .285. Higashioka sits at a .375 ISO against lefty sinkers and he and Judge are over a .400 wOBA against lefties in general. Even Stanton is over a .340 mark and they are a very affordable trio.
- Astros against Bailey Ober
- Cleveland against Matt Manning
- Braves against Erick Fedde
- Mariners against Deivi Garcia
- Orioles against Ryan Yarbrough
Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 8.6 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!
