Adam Strangis Starting Rotation 4.3
Saturday brings us our first split slate of the season and both sides have it split right down the middle with five games on each. When we hit those days, the game plan for this article will be to have a notes-based approach to one slate and then the full breakdown to the other. For today, we’ll hit some notes for the early slate and then breakdown the “main” slate that starts at seven o’clock. Let’s get right into the action on the mound for the games today in the Starting Rotation 4.3 and find the green screens!
Starting Rotation 4.3 – Early Slate Notes
Cash – Pitching on both slates isn’t anything to write home about but it’s a big yikes on the early slate. I honestly wouldn’t play cash on DK as I can’t find a second pitcher I’m comfortable with. Zach Plesac is almost surely going to be chalk on each site and it’s hard to argue. He boasted a 27.7% K rate last season and the Tigers whiffed 14 times total in the first game. Sure, most of that was Shane Bieber but this is still an offense that struck out at the highest percentage against righties last season. Plesac featured a pitch mix last season of a fastball, slider, and changeup. Detroit was 29th against the slider and 20th against the change and those two pitches made up about 52% of Plesac’s offerings in 2020.
GPP – So we’re not going to mess with cash on the early slate, at least on DK. FD it makes a little more sense because you just lock Plesac and move on. The other options on DK include a completely unknown version of Corey Kluber against a Toronto offense at over $10,000. That’s a hard pass for me. He’s coming off injuries and ineffectiveness. The “best” option in my eyes may just be the debuting Kohei Arihara. We can use this blog from fangraphs.com to get an idea of what to expect from the Japanese player. His fastball is around 92 MPH which can play in the majors. Seeing as how he’s less expensive than some hitters on this slate, I’m willing to punt and hope he’s passable with 10 DK or so. Kansas City was about average in K rate last year and Arihara is the least scary option.
Gas Can To Attack – I’m going to add this section to the article. We always talk about who I’m playing but not who I’m attacking. The early slate brings us plenty of options but the main two I’m going after are Matt Harvey and Tyler Anderson. Harvey hasn’t been good in…well… a long time. In 2019 over 59 innings he had a 7.09 ERA with a 9.45 FIP. His HR/9 in that season was over 1.73 to either side of the plate and last year he only pitched 11 innings. Wheels up with the Boston offense like J.D. Martinez, Xander Bogaerts, and Rafael Devers especially.
As far as Anderson goes, I love playing Cubs against lefty pitching. He pitched for the Giants last season and when he was away from San Francisco, the ERA ballooned to 6.83. The K rate is 21% for his career and it fell to 15.8% last season so there is production to be had. I will say the Cubs as a team took a dip last year against the lefties but this is where I feel the 60 game schedule plays a role. In 2019, Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, and Willson Contreras all had ISO’s over .300 against lefties. Even Ian Happ was above .230 in that category and they all had wOBA’s over .320 (the first trio were over .400). The early look at the weather has the wind blowing out on top of it, which is always a boon to Wrigley hitters.
Starting Rotation 4.3 Cash Picks – Main Slate
Corbin Burnes ($8,000 DK/$9,200 FD)
FB – 36.5% (17th) CT – 31.4% (23rd) all other pitches were under 13%
Much like yesterday, there’s not a pitcher that is a slam dunk option in my eyes. Burnes is going to be the closet for two main reasons. First, he’s sporting the best K rate from 2020 on the slate at 36.7% and that is massive. He does walk his fair share of hitters at 10% but the K rate makes up for it. Burnes also cut into a monster HR/9 from 2019. That season it was 3.12 but last year it went down to 0.30. The biggest reason (and the second reason I like Burnes) was he added a cutter in 2020 and it was positively evil.
Only two other pitchers had a higher valued cutter in 2020 and they were Dallas Keuchel and Yu Darvish. That’s not bad company to keep. He threw it 300 times total and recorded 34 of his 88 strikeouts with it. Opposing hitters managed just a .169 average and a .085 ISO against it, and the Twins were near the bottom of the league against that pitch last year. The pitch hovers around 96 MPH with some nice vertical movement. The cherry on top is Burnes shut righties down last year, holding them to a .207 wOBA and a .140 average. With Minnesota’s projected lineup sporting five RHH and a pitcher’s spot, things line up very well for Burnes. The Twins are a dangerous team but they can be had with a 24.4% K rate last year against RHP.
Joe Musgrove ($8,600 DK/$8,600 FD)
FB – 39.1% (29th) SL – 24.2% (4th) CB – 19.9% (7th) CH was under 11%
I don’t totally love Musgrove for cash but this is a tough slate for pitching generally. That isn’t to say he doesn’t sport some positive metrics. Last season (39.1 IP so the sample was small) saw Musgrove have his best stretch as far as K rate at 33.1%. He’s never been over 21.9% in a season so we have to expect that to come down somewhat but even 25% would be solid. Big Joe has always had good raw stuff and maybe he started to put it together.
The D-Backs don’t strike out a ton at just 20.3% and that is a slight concern here. The flip side of that is Musgrove allowed a hard contact rate under 25% last year along with a fly ball rate of just 31.2%. Another factor that helps Musgrove is he was actually slightly reverse splits last year. RHH hit him better with a .333 wOBA to a .290 mark to LHH. That’s out of character over his career so I don’t expect it to stick around but I won’t complain if he keeps Ketel Marte under wraps. Last year saw Musgrove display a 2.15 xFIP and a 35.3% K rate to the right side of the plate and that’s enough for an SP2 tonight.
Honorable Mention – Perhaps Lance Lynn but I don’t like using a lot of pitchers against the Angels
Starting Rotation 4.3 GPP Picks – Main Slate
Jose Berrios ($8,800 DK/$8,800 FD)
FB – 51.5% (24th) CB – 29.8% (21st) CH – 18.8% (24th)
I’ll be quite honest, myself and Mr. Berrios…we simply don’t get along. Listen, when his curveball is on, it’s a thing of beauty and he can get after any lineup. I’m just not sure I’ve ever rostered him on one of those days. Berrios can just be…underwhelming. That’s easy to say from my Lay-Z-Boy but hey, that’s what I’m here for. His K rate was 25.1% last year which was about his career-best number. The 4.00 ERA is fine and in line with the 4.28 xFIP and 4.05 FIP but again, there’s nothing spectacular there.
Berrios splits the fastball into a four-seam and a sinker about equally. He needs the curve to work because his four-seam gave up a .339 average and a .286 ISO last season. In contrast, the curve sat at a .169 average and a .060 ISO. There’s still upside by the splits because Berrios kept the ball in the yard against RHH last year with a 0.58 HR/9. Lefties displayed a 1.69 mark (hello Christian Yelich one-off) and the Brew Crew lineup is projected for four righties and the pitcher slot. Still, don’t be lulled into any thoughts of safety with Berrios.
Chris Flexen ($6,000 DK/$6,500 FD)
N/A as he pitched 2020 in the Korean Baseball League
I know Ghost is happy as he held down the KBO end of the Win Daily coverage when we had no sports to play. I’m looking at Flexen tonight in part because he’s quite cheap. We saw last night that Yusei Kikuchi was somewhat popular as a $6,000 pitcher and that could replicate. The Dodgers are still in Coors facing bad pitching, so we know the drill. To get a little bit of a better idea of Flexen, you can check out this short profile from USA Today.
The short story is Flexen went to Korea, lost around 35 pounds, and jumpstarted his career. He flopped with the Mets to the tune of an 8.07 ERA but found himself in the KBO. That doesn’t guarantee success by any stretch tonight. However, Flexen offers a curve, cutter, change, and fastball if he keeps the same repertoire with Seattle. He pitched 16 innings in the spring and whiffed 17 batters, capping it off with three scoreless innings. There’s no telling how he pitches tonight but he’s cheap enough to find out.
Honorable Mention – None
Gas Can To Attack – Jon Gray pitches in Coors tonight against the Dodgers. In the truncated season last year, he had an 8.39 ERA at home with a .412 wOBA and a 3.77 HR/9 to lefties. I’m not sure we need to go much further.
Starting Rotation 4.3 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!
Record 1-1
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