Adam Strangis Starting Rotation 4.5
The Monday slate ahead of us seems a little weird. It’s always a fun time when we get Jacob deGrom on the mound because we can wax poetic on how awesome he is. The issue with tonight’s slate is the quality of pitchers goes downhill in a hurry. DK is going to be a challenge to find that SP2 but that’s what the Starting Rotation 4.5 is here to do so let’s dig in!
Starting Rotation 4.5 – The Lock
Jacob deGrom ($10,700 DK/$11,000 FD)
FB – 44.9% (7th) SL – 35.6% (10th) CH – 16.9% (4th) CB was under 3%
Listen, we have a running joke in the Discord that if you don’t play a player that the staff thinks is a lock, you get The Slap. That means we send a GIF of someone getting slapped in the face. deGrom is that player tonight. The quality of the starting options is not that great after deGrom. He is a stone lock in cash games and honestly, I’ll happily eat this chalk in GPP as well. On paper, no alternative should get all that close as far as potential for fantasy points.
Looking back at last season, deGrom had a K rate of 38.8% to go with a 2.38 ERA. That mark looks accurate with a 2.26 FIP and 2.46 xFIP with just a 0.93 HR/9. deGrom is also a pitcher that I don’t sweat the pitch data looking strong for the Phillies. The fastball/slider combo was valued at 11th each among starters last year via FanGraphs.com and he’s on the shortlist of the best pitcher in baseball. Even the splits favor deGrom as he held RHH to a .221 wOBA and whiffed them over 42% of the time. Philly is projected for five righties and the pitcher spot. Good luck with that.
Note – If you want to get really crazy in GPP, a hitter like Bryce Harper could be interesting. deGrom gave up a 1.05 HR/9 to lefties and with the insane amount of popularity deGrom will carry, nobody will pay for Harper.
The Best of The Rest
Dustin May ($8,800 DK)
FB – 56.9% (16th) CT – 24.6% (11th) CB – 13.4% (14th) CH was 5.1%
This is where it starts o get tricky. May checks in as likely the “safest” SP2 but I’m certainly not in love with him. His raw stuff is very good –
The issue for May is the stuff hasn’t exactly played as you would want in the majors. Over his 90.2 IP so far, the K rate is under 21%. He also started to get taken out of the yard with a bit more regularity, sporting a 1.45 HR/9 last season. I’m not super concerned with that as he’s never had a mark over 0.89 at any level in his career, but we have to at least note it. We do love to see a hard-hit rate under 29% ( I mean, you try to hit that two-seamer) and a fly ball rate at 26.1%. Oakland was a pretty average team in K rate last year at 23.7% but they’ve started out the year at almost 28% against righty pitching.
One metric that could help May is the A’s are projected to be slightly righty heavy with five in the lineup. May held the right side of the plate to a .226 wOBA, .198 average, and whiffed 21.8% of them. Oakland was (and should continue to be) one of the friendliest parks to pitchers as well. May might not have the normal upside we want at this price range, but I do feel like he’s the best option as far as safety goes. I would likely lean towards him as my cash game SP2.
Michael Wacha ($7,200 DK)
FB – 42.5% (9th) CT – 27.1% (22nd) CH – 29.2% (12th) CB was 1.1%
This might seem a little odd but I’m willing to test this Red Sox lineup while they’re down and out. They just got smoked over their three-game set against the Orioles and only scored five runs in the process. They tied for the second-worst OPS and the third-worst average through the three games. Now, it’s a three-game sample so let’s not get too nuts. At the same time, Boston’s lineup after J.D. Martinez, Xander Bogaerts, and Rafael Devers is questionable at best. Wacha hasn’t been super fantasy relevant for a little bit, but perhaps going to Tampa helps extract the best out of him.
Heading out of spring training, that theory looks like it could hold water. Through 15 innings, he gave up one run and whiffed 12 hitters. Last season he had issues with home runs with a 2.38 HR/9, in part due to a fly ball rate over 40% for the first time in his career. The changeup is his strikeout pitch with 24 of his 37 coming from that pitch. Only Bogaerts had a FanGraphs rating over 1.0 against that pitch last season, which is interesting. The splits didn’t look great for Wacha last year with at least a .347 wOBA to each side of the plate. You’re banking on Tampa Bay voodoo and Boston staying mired in a slump to start the year.
Carlos Rodon ($6,700 DK)
Only pitched 7.2 innings in 2020
This…this is a leap of faith. Rodon has gone from being a top-five pick in his draft to not being offered a contract at first during this past offseason. He eventually came back to the White Sox on a one-year prove-it deal and this will be his first start of the season. Rodon is in better shape this season and has worked on a fourth pitch this spring training. He’s always been a fastball/slider/changeup pitcher but did add a curve this year. It might only be spring training but he did whiff 16 hitters in 13.2 innings so perhaps things might just be clicking with a new approach to the game.
Seattle has added Mitch Haniger and Taylor Trammel from 2020 but my goodness were they awful against lefty pitching last season. They were dead last in average, OBP, OPS, wOBA, and wRC+. That came with a 27.3% K rate which was the third-most in baseball. Due to injury and other factors, Rodon has pitched a combined 42.1 innings since 2018. This is an unknown commodity but with a career 22.6% K rate, he’s cheap enough to take some chances with tonight.
Honorable Mention – Adrian Morejon carries a pedigree and a big fastball, sitting around 96 MPH. The young lefty hasn’t fared well over 27.1 IP so far in the majors and facing the Giants is not a great spot to trot out an unproven lefty. Still, young pitchers with talent can find things quickly and he does sport a K rate of 28.1% in his career with just a 5.1% walk rate. The price is a touch too high for my liking overall.
Gas Can To Attack – Brian is going to preach the White Sox stack which I love and agree with so I’ll take a different track. The Houston Astros could be slightly overlooked on this slate because the Angels starter Jose Quintana isn’t frightfully bad. However, the Astros smack lefty pitching and have for a while. The main three that I want are Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa, and Yuli Gurriel. Bregman and Guriel both have ISO’s over .250 and wOBA’s over .365 while Correa is not far behind in wOBA at .330. If you go back to 2019 (i.e. not a 60 game season) Correa had a monster .405 wOBA and .231 ISO against southpaws.
Quintana only threw 10 innings last season so I’m more looking at his 2019 year when he only whiffed 20.4% of the hitters he faced. He’s used a three-pitch mix of fastball/curveball/changeup but it was mostly the first two offerings. Dial it back to 2019 and Gurriel and Bregman were third and seventh against the curve in all of MLB. I really like this spot and with the price of Correa and Gurriel, the stack is easy to build salary-wise.
Secondary Pieces – Kyle Tucker, Martin Maldonado, Yordan Alvarez
Starting Rotation 4.5 Betting Section
Free Strikeout Prop
Every day, I’ll have one prop that I’m chasing for free in the article. Anything else that I’m playing will be located in our Premium Sports Bets!
Jacob deGrom O 8.5 K’s -139
Record – 2-2
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