Adam Strangis MLB DFS: Starting Rotation 4/9
It’s now officially the 2022 MLB season because Jose Berrios has once again stolen money from me after getting flat obliterated for a cool -10 DK points last night. Still, a lot of other things went right and we look to keep that momentum into another split slate. Both sites agree that we have a five-game early slate and a five-game main slate, so the focus is on those games and we’ll chat about the four-game afternoon slate in the Discord channel. Let’s get into who we like on each of these five-game slates and get into the green screens again in the MLB DFS: Starting Rotation 4/9!
Ace Tier (Early)
Note – Brandon Woodruff is broken down in yesterday’s article so we won’t re-hash him in this one. On the surface, he is one of the only Ace-level pitcher on the early slate although we have some intriguing options elsewhere.
Dylan Cease ($9,000 DK/$9,800 FD)
The results can be erratic overall for Cease but there is a lot to love with him as well. He was in the top 10 last year in swinging-strike rate, K rate, and fastball velocity along with a hard-hit rate of 21.9%. Detroit whiffed 11 times yesterday, continuing the trend from the past couple of seasons. His four-seam and slider were the main two pitches, utilized 78% of the time and they combined for 161 strikeouts of his 228 last season. Detroit whiffed the second-most last year and even with their improvements, Cease can strike out enough hitters to mitigate any damage he allows. The pitch date is skewed towards Cease as well since Detroit was 29th against the fastball and 28th against the slider last year so this is an offense that has improved, but not enough to avoid totally.
The other strong facet in the favor of Cease is he didn’t have any significant splits disadvantage, holding both sides of the plate under a .300 wOBA, under a 4.00 xFIP, and both sides whiffed at least 31.5% of the time. His WHIP is a little higher than you’d love at 1.25 but the average was 1.31 so it’s not poor by any means. Where Ceases is due some luck is the BABIP because last year it was .310 and that was almost 20 points over the average for a major league pitcher. There is some strong appeal to pairing Cease and Woodruff together on this slate, but they may not be a necessity with some of the other options.
Mid-Range
Drew Rasmussen ($7,000 DK)
I believe Rasmussen is far too expensive on FD to really consider but that’s not the case with DK. One of the reasons I liked the idea of pairing Cease and Woodruff is the pitching is somewhat of a midfield after that. However, there are a lot of reasons to be excited for Rasmussen today and I will be taking chances with him without a doubt. Last year, he started 10 games for Tampa and that seems to be when things really clicked for him. Across 154 batters faced, he gave up just a .209 wOBA, a 0.76 WHIP, and an 18.2% K rate. The strikeouts are the missing piece but his velocity is 97.1 MPH and he added a sweeping slider that the Rays are excited about. Not only did he add a slider, but he also has variations of it and that could be a real issue for Baltimore hitters today.
His fastball only allowed a .278 wOBA as it was last year and the swinging-strike rate with it was 12.7% and the CSW was 32.8%. If he can add a slider that he can tweak and it can be effective, there is a significant upside to his starts this season. Baltimore was also far worse against righties than lefties last year with a K rate of 24.9% and not ranking above 23rd in any of the major offensive categories. This salary does not match the upside for Rasmussen and he was slightly better against lefty hitters in 2021, something to keep in mind the Orioles set their lineup.
Honorable Mention – I think some of the field may look to Miles Mikolas, who is a pitcher that is a little tough to get a handle on because, in the past two years, he’s pitched just 44.2 innings in the majors. Last year in these innings, he was not spectacular with a 4.27 xFIP and the K rate was very low at 16.7%. Generally, this is not the type of pitcher we want to chase but the Pittsburgh Pirates lineup can cure a lot of issues for opposing pitchers. This is not going to be a good lineup and Mikolas varied his pitches last year, not throwing anything over 28% of the time. Now the quality of the lefties might be questionable but Mikolas has always been far worse to lefty hitters. The Pirates could throw out as many as six, so I may be more inclined to take shots with cheaper Buccos like Bryan Reynolds, Dan Vogelbach, and Yoshi Tsutsugo today.
Punt Range
Mitch Keller ($6,500 DK/$6,600 FD)
Yes, I am still talking about my Pirates and I’m not going to be able to do it often. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing safe about Keller today. He has a 6.02 ERA in the majors with a 4.71 xFIP, a K rate of just 22.1%, and a hard-hit rate over 41%. However, he completely rebuilt his mechanics this offseason and has picked up 4-5 MPH on his fastball. That’s a huge gain and would put him among the elite as far as starting pitching goes for velocity. He’s stuck out seven in 8.1 IP in the spring, another good sign for him and the control has overall looked better. In addition to throwing it just a bit too much, Keller only generated an 8.2 swinging-strike rate with the four-seam last year and it allowed a .383 wOBA. The slider was actually not terrible as far as getting a 16.6% swinging-strike rate and he had a 33/13 K/BB ratio with that pitch. If the fastball starts playing a lot better, that makes the slider better as a hand-in-hand combo. In his last start, he threw 75 pitches and touched 99 PMH on the gun while striking out five hitters. Lastly, the Cardinals were very mediocre last year against righties and sat as low as 25th in some of our offensive categories with a K rate over 22%. It’s hard to predict if the gains for Keller will mean anything against major league hitting but there is so much that is tangibly different, it’s worth finding out.
Ace Tier (Main)
Joe Musgrove ($9,400 DK/$10,000 FD)
Just based on name value, folks might expect to see Justin Verlander in this spot but remember that he’s coming off Tommy John surgery at 39 years old. He’s also talking openly that his timing isn’t right which is certainly not what you’re looking for. Instead, I’ll be turning to Musgrove against the Diamondbacks even though he was a pain to deal with last year. Gerrit Cole may have been the poster child of the sticky stuff rules for pitchers, but Big Joe shouldn’t have been much behind him. His second-half numbers were rough and included a .313 wOBA, a 24.9% K rate (down 5%), and a 1.24 WHIP with his 4.04 xFIP. The D-Backs have proven to be a very lowly offense so far to start the season (they have zero hits against the Padres starters so far) and Musgrove threw a variety of pitches last season. He didn’t throw anything more than his slider at 28% and that certainly was his best pitch with 92 strikeouts, 15 walks, a .226 wOBA, and a .159 average.
Arizona was in the top 10 against the slider but it’s not a pitch Musgrove uses to death and he’s so effective, that is not a concern in my eyes. The concerns for Musgrove are with another pitch, his cutter. He only threw it 20% of the time but it allowed a .372 wOBA and .308 average. The swinging-strike rate was only 9.4% with it and it was his second-most used pitch to lefties. It tracks then that Musgrove was worse to lefties with a .313 wOBA and 1.38 HR/9, but Arizona doesn’t have a lot of good left-handed hitters. They could throw out as many as six, so Musgrove is the ace of the slate but I’m not convinced we have to go this route.
Mid-Range
Chris Bassitt ($8,000 DK/$9,700 FD)
For the record, these sections will be longer when we get fuller slates and not this five-game nonsense, but we play the cards that are dealt to us right now. Bassitt is a new Met this season after spending last year in Oakland and he’s a solid pitcher, to be sure. He was a little lucky last year as the xFIP of 3.93 was a good bit higher than the 3.15 ERA he posted, but that’s still a good pitcher. The WHIP was excellent at 0.86 and the K rate was enough to get the job done (especially at $8,000) of 25%. On top of that, Bassitt kept both sides of the plate under a .285 wOBA and the WHIP to lefties was 0.97. Now, the small concern here is the xFIP was over 4.00 to lefties and the cutter looked to be the primary reason why. Just like Musgrove, he threw it a lot to lefties (the most of his repertoire) and it had the worst wOBA of anything at .367. It was easily the highest average as well at .310 and Juan Soto and Josh Bell were strong hitters against the pitch last year. The plus side for Bassitt is the Nationals have struck out 19 times in two games which is an awful lot. His barrel rate was just 6.5% and even with a 10.1% swinging-strike rate, the CSW was 28% and we could do worse for this price point.
Punt Play
Joan Adon ($4,000 DK/$7,600 FD)
If you watched or listen to the show with myself and Tony, thank you first and foremost. I confessed to not knowing who Adon was but promising a deeper dive and I’m now excited. This righty actually started a game last year (game 162, in fact) and whiffed nine Red Sox hitters through 5.1 IP and he features a mid-90s fastball with some wicked breaking stuff. He is minimum salary on the DK slate and we have a Coors Field game with the Dodgers who by the way, are incredibly cheap and they may be the worst pricing mistake yet this year. Yes, I’m including Opening Day Robbie Ray in that. Anyways, Adon isn’t on the top 100 prospect list so he may not have the name value but he’s eighth in the Nationals pool and he did emerge from that start with a 2.38 xFIP. The other very strong positive is he had a 57.1% ground ball rate last year through 105 IP in the minors, which he climbed quickly. The K rate has been over 37% from AA upward and even though his AAA and majors experience combine for 9.1 IP, he’s still the minimum salary. We don’t NEED a lot of fantasy points to make it worth it here. With how much variance we’ve seen with pitching so far, don’t be shocked if the field elects to pair Musgrove and Don and spend on whatever hitters they desire tonight.
Thank you for reading my MLB DFS Starting Rotation 4/9 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!
