Adam Strangis Starting Rotation 4.26
Sunday was a pretty solid day for the Starting Rotation article and we have a fresh nine-game slate today to replicate those results. It’s a fairly interesting slate with plenty of options, just like yesterday. That’s led me to add a section to the article moving forward. After the main write-up, we’ll quickly touch on every single pitcher on the slate. It won’t be an in-depth look but this way we’ll hit on everyone. With some extra goodies ahead of us and full write-ups, let’s dig into the Starting Rotation 4.26 and find our path to the green screens!
Starting Rotation 4.26 – Main Targets
Corbin Burnes ($10,400 DK/$11,100 FD)
We won’t be spending a ton of time here because Burnes is simply put the best play on the slate on paper and it’s not relatively close. If Burnes pitched in a league that Jacob deGOAT was not a part of, he would be widely recognized as the best pitcher in said league. He’s the first starting pitcher in the modern era to record 40+ strikeouts through four starts without a single walk. The statistics across the board are simply incredible. His cutter is rated at a 7.7 on FanGraphs. The only two pitches (not just cutters, mind you) that have a higher rating are the Tyler Glasnow fastball at 7.9 and the Trevor Bauer fastball at 7.8.
Burnes has a K rate over 41% and the fourth-highest swinging-strike rate in the league. Miami is striking out at a 25.4% clip to righty pitching so far. Burnes is a stone lock for cash and honestly, you’d likely want to be overweight in GPP. He has to have some sort of regression coming but it’s a smash spot and the DK price is laughable. FD a least is competitive.
Shohei Ohtani ($7,700 DK/$9,100 FD)
I honestly feel like this is some sort of trap. The last time we saw Ohtani on the mound, he was still throwing fire with a four-seam that’s averaging 97.2 MPH. The Angels were true to their word and kept him at 80 pitches but Ohtani demonstrated his upside in those four innings with 18.2 DK points. Oh, he did that while putting eight men on base. That feels like an outlier, as does his 26.8% walk rate currently. His fly-ball rate is only 13.3% so far and the swinging strike rate of 13.4% is excellent for his salary.
With the Rangers whiffing at a league-leading 30.3% against righties, Ohtani may well be chalky. I can’t say I’d argue that in the least, even with it being the second straight start against Texas. We saw White Sox flamethrower Michael Kopech whiff 10 hitters in five innings just yesterday. If there is a concern, it’s how Ohtani has handled lefties so far this season. They have a .333 wOBA and just an 18.2% K rate although Ohtani has only faced 22 thus far. Both the FIP and the xFIP are over 7.00 and it would be foolish to not talk about that at all. Still, I have trouble believing that’s remotely real over the long run. In his career lefties have just a .282 wOBA and a 24.4% K rate. With the Rangers being the worst strikeout team in the majors, my fears are muted for Ohtani. I’ll be playing him a lot, it’s just to be determined if it’s in cash games.
Trevor Rogers ($8,400 DK/$9,600 FD)
I mentioned with Burnes that he has the fourth-highest swinging-strike rate in the game. Burnes doesn’t even have the highest mark in this game among starting pitchers as Rogers is third. His fastball is remarkably electric, accounting for 23 of his 31 strikeouts to this point. The whiff rate on it alone is 38.7% and that’s despite throwing it so much. Rogers sits seventh in CSW (Burnes does have the advantage there since he’s first) and the mark is 34.2%. His K rate is 35.6% which is top 15 in the league while the FIP is 2.37. I’m not sure most of the public has caught on to just how good Rogers can be if he has it all working.
That’s not to say this spot is without risk. Rogers does walk hitters at an 11.5% rate and Milwaukee leads the league in walk rate to LHP at 13.8%. The Brewers can hit lefties as well, sitting inside the top 10 in OBP, OPS, ISO, wOBA, and wRC+. However, we saw yesterday that talented pitchers can still have good games against offenses that look great inside the splits. John Means was a good play against Oakland. With the upside that Rogers has, he could carve up this Milwaukee lineup that is second in baseball in K rate to LHP at 32.1%. That’s a massive number.
Rogers has been lethal to RHH as well, with a 34.3% K rate 2.48 FIP, and a .229 wOBA. Lastly, Milwaukee has the third-least plate appearances to lefties this year. Their high ranks in offensive categories could be misleading with how poor the offense has been overall. Taking splits out of the equation, they are 25th in wOBA and wRC+ overall. This is not as scary a matchup that it appears to be on paper and I’m 1,000% here for a major pitcher’s duel.
Deivi Garcia ($7,100 DK)
I’ve mentioned before I can be a sucker for young pitchers of some pedigree and the Yankees’ third-ranked prospect fits the bill. He’s not the easiest to get a handle on, including the pitch mix. Garcia pitched 34.1 innings in the majors last year and only 40 innings in AAA in 2019. That’s not a ton of time at those levels, but he has sported a K rate over 22% at both spots. His WHIP in the bigs last season was only 1.19 and the walk rate was only 4.1%. The fly ball rate over 41% at both stops isn’t totally ideal, but the hard contact rate of 27.4% last year was very solid. The stuff will absolutely play –
Garcia also generated a respectable 11.3% swinging-strike rate and a 25.6% CSW. The Orioles are sporting the fifth-highest K rate to righty pitching so far at 27.2% and are 23rd in ISO to go with 27th or worse in wOBA and wRC+. Garcia was a bit worse to righties in his stint last year with a .344 wOBA and a 2.41 HR/9. Honestly, that would be one of the bigger concerns here since the Orioles are projected to roll out five righty hitters. Even then, the 23.8% HR/FB rate for righties feels awfully high. This isn’t a lineup that should strike fear into us either. I of course wouldn’t preach this pick for cash, but in GPP he has some upside at his salary. Hopefully, FD recognizes a major league pitcher for his next start.
Julio Urias ($9,700 DK/$9,900 FD)
Urias has been a bit of a tricky pitcher so far. He’s started four games and been excellent in two of them and very average in two of them. Being a young arm and pitching for the Dodgers almost surely means he doesn’t have a long leash, which is a bit scary at this salary. However, nobody will play him with Burnes costing just $700 more. It’s too easy to get there. On top of that, using lefty pitchers against the Reds offense isn’t something I’ll make a strong habit of this season. Urais sports a 26% K rate with a tiny 4% walk rate, and the WHIP is under 1.00 for the first time in his career. Both the swinging-strike rate and the CSW are career-bests at 13.8% and 31.5% as well. This pitch is just silly and is an example of the talent the lefty has –
I hesitate to use this as a deciding factor because of how early it is in the season. Think about it, most teams are at 20 or so games played. Last year, that was a full third of the year. This year it’s around 1/8th of the year but the Reds have two different offenses – one at home and one on the road. The road version ranks bottom six in average, OBP, slugging, OPS, ISO, wOBA, and wRC+ with a 23.6% K rate. Urias should face six righties and the pitcher’s spot and his splits suggest that would work best for him. The RHH has just a .229 wOBA, a .209 average, and a 25.4% K rate with a 0.50 HR/9. Do I believe he can out-score Burnes? Not particularly. If you play MME, it’s worth it to have some exposure in case he does.
Mystery Pitcher
Let’s play a game. We’re going to take names out of this one and just go straight statistics, and you tell me if you want to play this pitcher. The mystery man has a FIP and xFIP both under 4.00 on the season. The K rate is not spectacular at 18.2% but the walk rate is 3.4% and the HR/9 is 0.93. His BABIP is .333, which is high. This pitcher is doing a very solid job of generating ground balls at 50.7% and even the hard contact is solid at 30.9%. Heck, even the barrel rate is only 7.4%. The swinging-strike rate is not good at 7% and the CSW suffers because of it at 23.2%. The good news is the salary is not overly high.
Here’s where things get very interesting. The mystery man has a .376 wOBA to RHH but the BABIP to that side of the plate is a ridiculous .425. His FIP to righties is 2.81 and the K rate jumps up a hair to 20.4%. That’s great because he will face a righty-heavy lineup. Said lineup is 30th in average, 20th in OBP, 29th in slugging, 26th in OPS, 25th in ISO, 26th in wOBA, 23rd in wRC+, and 16th in ground ball rate. This spot sounds like it could go in favor of the pitcher, right?
Say hello to Matt Harvey against the Yankees.
Make ZERO mistake – this is likely the craziest call of the season. It’s not even a case of the Yanks are likely to be chalk, so play the pitcher against them just for the sake of leverage. There is a fairly strong statistical case to make this play, especially at $5,300 on DK as your SP2. He can still get it up there at 94 MPH –
I’d be a little leery on FD where you can’t prop him up with a Burnes or a strikeout artist of your choice. This is NOT a single entry style play. If you’re not doing 3-max or more, I would likely let this one go. I feel strongly that the stats tell us as the Yankees are hitting right now, Harvey has a chance of hitting 12-14 DK points. We all are well aware the Yankees could go nuts at any point. This could backfire spectacularly….or it could work at super low ownership and catapult you up the leaderboards.
Starting Rotation 4.26 – In Play
Tyler Mahle – He’s been incredible this season and sits eighth in K rate at 38.8%. I’d want to see the Dodgers lineup. Mahle has owned the left side with a .139 wOBA and a 40.8% K rate. RHH has a .361 wOBA and generally, we’re not going to make money targeting the Dodgers. However, they’re coming off a rivalry series and an extra-innings game last night that was a heart-breaking loss. If there was a time to use a big strikeout arm against them, this could be it.
Zack Wheeler – The Cardinals are still inside the top 10 in K rate to righty pitchers, so the 26.3% K rate for Wheeler plays well. The 1.31 WHIP and the 1.52 HR/9 for Wheeler leave him as a very low priority target for the Starting Rotation 4.26.
Charlie Morton – Ground Chuck has a 3.05 FIP and a 3.29 xFIP, contrasting his 3.91 ERA. His K rate is 28.7% and the ground ball rate is 49.1%. That’s the combo you need for Morton to be successful. The Cubs rank ninth in ground ball rate and whiff the sixth-most to RHP.
Anthony DeSclafani – His finest start of the season has come in San Francisco against this Rockies lineup. I’m always happy to go after the Rockies lineup in their first game outside of Coors after a homestand, I’m just not likely to do it at the expense of Ohtani. DeSclafani has a 23.6% K rate and a massive 57.4% ground ball rate, the latter of which ranks fourth among starting pitchers.
Sean Manaea – Sort of the same story as DeSclafani as I’m very focused on Ohtani. The Rays are a very feast or famine offense against lefties, with a K rate of 29.5% which is the fifth-most in the league. They also rank inside the top 12 in the offensive categories we value and I feel much better with Ohtani.
Starting Rotation 4.26 – Out of Play
Jose Urquidy – He’s coming off a poor start but Coors Field so we can’t penalize him too harshly for that. Still, Urquidy is not a high strikeout arm himself at 22.5% and the fly ball rate is over 51%. The Mariners are inside the top 10 in K rate as a team but sport a projected six RHH and Urquidy is yielding a .419 wOBA and 1.74 HR/9 to that side of the plate.
Zach Davies – A pitcher who has more walks than strikeouts, a 6.00 xFIP, and a 6.7% swinging strike rate against a team that got no-hit yesterday? That doesn’t seem like a great mix. Both sides of the plate have a wOBA over .370 and RHH are at .422 with a 2.8% K rate. There’s no interest in the Starting Rotation 4.26.
Adam Wainwright – He’s not terrible and is coming off a game where he struck out 10 (!) hitters. The WHIP is over 1.50 and the splits aren’t great with a wOBA over .320 to both sides. Philly is average against the cutter and curve, which are the main two pitches for Waino. Still, I have a hard time trusting any ceiling even though the Phils are coming out from the mountains of Colorado.
Rich Hill – I’m looking to stack against him. Oakland is 13th against the curveball and Hill throws it 45% of the time. That’s not even counting his 5.48 FIP, 2.20 HR/9, and a .399 wOBA to RHH which the A’s will have plenty of tonight.
Austin Gomber – The Giants are seventh in walk rate against lefty pitching and Gomber is over 17% himself. San Fran is also fifth in ISO this year to lefties and Gomber has a fly ball rate of over 40%. Pitching in San Fran will help, but not enough to interest me.
Jordan Lyles – The 20.7% K rate isn’t terrible but the 2.11 HR/9 is and the Angels are 21st in K rate to righties. It’s hard to see much of any upside for Lyles since he’s giving up a .362 wOBA to righty hitters.
Justus Sheffield – We don’t make a habit of targeting the Houston offense with lefty pitching. The Astros are eighth in OPS and have the sixth-lowest K rate to LHP. Sheffield only has a 22.2% K rate and a 5.13 FIP, so I’ll pass.
Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 4.26 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!
