Starting Rotation 5.11

Starting Rotation 5.11

After a sketchy slate on Monday, we get the return of a full slate Tuesday night and have some actual pitching options to choose from! I know, good news all around after just five games last night. With 22 pitchers to break down (two are repeats after the Rockies game was postponed), let’s get right into Starting Rotation 5.11! 

Starting Rotation 5.11 – Main Targets 

Walker Buehler 

Those who have paid attention in Discord likely assumed that John Means would be in the top slot, but we’ll get to him shortly. I don’t often say this but I believe Buehler is the top option as far as high salary goes on this slate. For one, Seattle loses the DH as they travel to Los Angeles. For another, Buehler leans heavily on the four-seam and the Mariners are third-worst against fastballs with a top-eight K rate of 25.4%. Buehler has his K rate climbing and is just under 27% to go with a matching 2.99 FIP/xFIP combo. His hard-hit rate is out of place at 41.7% but I’m not sure just that is enough reason to fade him, especially when the swinging-strike rate and CSW are 12.1% and 30.1% respectively. I can’t imagine why –

The projected lineup could work in Buehler’s favor as well. Seattle might only have two lefties in J.P. Crawford and Kyle Seager in the lineup and no, I’m not counting Yusei Kikuchi as a lefty hitter. Buehler is giving up a .343 wOBA, .794 OPS, and a 1.80 HR/9 to the left side of the plate. If you wanted to give Seager a look as a one-off since he has over a .250 ISO and is the second-best fastball hitter on the team, it could be a low-owned great play. Overall, Buehler looks like a very strong option and has picked it up in the strikeout department the last three starts with 27 total punch-outs. The fact he’s under $10,000 on DK helps as well. 

John Means 

Figuring out what to expect with a pitcher after throwing a no-hitter can be difficult. Means threw 113 pitches, which is a good bit. He’s also thrown at least 93 in every start, so I wonder how far above and beyond he went with the pitch count. You would still have to think a quick hook is in play, as Means is vital to this Orioles rotation. I’m at the point with Means that I don’t fear really any matchup, but the Mets are on the tougher side. It’s not particularly the power elements, but they are top-seven in wOBA and wRC+ while leading in walk rate and OBP against lefty pitching this year. Having said that, Means is sitting on a 30.1% K rate, 15.7% swinging-strike rate, and a 31.6% CSW. The latter two numbers are both inside the top 15 among qualified starters this season. 

His K rate has taken a significant jump this year and the four-seam/changeup combo is the main reason why, as they have 42 of 50 strikeouts. Means has the number one rating on FanGraphs for his change at 9.3 and the next closest is Gerrit Cole at 8.0.

It’s only allowed a .138 wOBA and possesses a 41.5% whiff rate. Means has both sides of the plate under a .200 wOBA and has been spectacular this year. The only small concern is how the Orioles handle him, and for that reason, I have Buehler ahead by a small margin. 

Freddy Peralta 

For a pitcher to give up five runs (including a grand slam), three walks, eight strikeouts, and still whiff eight hitters on 73 pitches is some kind of game. That’s exactly what Peralta did last time out but I’m ready to go right back to the well. For one, he put his foot down after a terrible first inning and didn’t let another run across. The opposing lineup also sets up beautifully for him as the Cardinals should play six righties and the pitcher spot. Peralta is currently striking out righties 51.5% of the time, which is absurd. His FIP and xFIP to that side of the plate is under 1.85 and St. Louis is whiffing almost 24% of the time as a team. That rate has a good chance to be higher if they’re facing this… whatever this whiffle ball is all night –

When we zoom out for the big picture, Peralta’s 40.8% K rate would be second to only Jacob deGrom, and the swinging-strike rate is 14.2%. The four-seam and slider have accounted for 50 of 53 strikeouts and both pitches are over a 32% whiff rate on the season. The walk rate of 13.1% is still a significant issue but he proved he can pitch through disaster, so I’m ready to play him again tonight with no issues. 

Robbie Ray 

Ray has got things happening this season with three straight games over 20 DK points, one of which came against these very Braves. One of the reasons for that is Atlanta is 29th in every offensive category that we discuss, saved from the basement only by Detroit. It’s been fascinating to see Ray evolve this year into a heavy four-seam pitcher.

He’s gone from throwing it 47% of the time last year to over 60% this year while dropping that slider to under 19%. In 2020, the slider was the main strikeout pitch with 33 on the year. One of the issues though was an obscene walk rate of 17.9%. His K rate has dropped a bit but it’s still 25% while the walk rate is down to a career-best 7.8%. 

Ray has thrown the four-seam 279 times already to righties and has 24 strikeouts and only a .276 wOBA allowed. He’s found another 2 MPH on it and the slider, and the whiff rate on the four-seam has jumped by 5% to 24.8%. The righty hitters do have a .344 wOBA against him but so far this year, Atlanta has all of one active player above a .350 wOBA to lefty pitching. Ozzie Albies, Marcell Ozuna, and Austin Riley are all under a .270 mark as of now. Eventually, they will hit better against lefties but until they do, we can use Ray and his newfound abilities in GPP. 

Shohei Ohtani 

The longer DK leaves the price down this low for Ohtani, the more I’m going to continue to hammer him when he starts. In the last three, he’s scored 18, 21, and 21 DK points. That’s already a solid start but what if I told you he pitched 14 innings, allowed 21 base-runners, and still managed those scores? Ohtani has whiffed 25 hitters in those three starts and he’s not even at a full pitch count. The splitter continues to be absolutely evil, as hitters are looking for their first hit against it on the year.

It boasts a whiff rate of over 61% and is responsible for virtually every strikeout. There is going to be a start where Ohtani gets his 22.6% walk rate under control and I’m going to be there for it.

His ground ball rate is almost 60% and he’s given up exactly one barrel so far. Both sides of the plate are under a .290 wOBA but righties especially are struggling to make contact with a 48.5A% K rate and no home runs allowed. Ohtani will likely see six RHH tonight and that gives him one of his best avenues of success. Houston does boast the best K rate in baseball, but Ohtani’s stuff is different. They also are only 22nd in walk rate, so perhaps this is the one that everything clicks. The salary is just too low for the potential here when he’s hitting 20+ DK points despite a terrible walk rate and WHIP.

Brady Singer

I’m not sure why Singer is so cheap, but he shouldn’t be. I know it fell apart for him in the last start but he had some umpire issues and I think that cost him towards the end of his time on the mound. It’s impossible to be mad at him because the ump in question was Angel Hernandez. Someone needs to get that man out of baseball. When Hernandez did call a proper zone, Singer was pitching well –

We’re not that far removed from him reeling off 32, 20, and 17 DK points. Any of those outcomes would play tonight and he gets the Tigers, who continue to lead the majors in strikeouts. Singer is respectable at a 23.6% K rate and combining that with a 31.1% CSW doesn’t hurt either. The ground ball rate of 50% insulates him from damage to some extent, as it’s more likely Detroit will have to string together some hits. 

Even though Detroit will likely play six lefties, Singer should be able to get through it with a .286 wOBA, .632 OPS, and a K rate of 22.4%. It is a touch worrisome that five hitters have a wOBA over .370 against the sinker because Singer uses it about 38% of the time to lefties. Having said that, his sinker is only giving up a .246 wOBA so far this year so it wouldn’t keep me away at the salary. We could pair up Singer and Buehler for barely $15,000 on DK and I wouldn’t be shocked if that winds up being popular. You can play any offense you like at that point. 

Starting Rotation 5.11 – In Play 

Lance McCullers – As he is every time he toes the rubber, McCullers is in play and that’s especially true if Buehler winds up popular. McCullers can be a grenade or a GPP-winning style play any given start, as evidenced by his 13% walk rate. He does balance that with a 27.5% K rate and a 55.1% ground ball rate but the Angels ranking sixth against the curveball is a small concern. It’s interesting because we highlighted his lack of curveball usage against righty hitters in the last start. Sure enough, he only threw nine all start, leaning on his slider and changeup. The Angels are above league average against both pitches and should roll out six RHH. In fairness, McCullers has the right side of the plate down at a .266 wOBA. The change is his highest whiff rate pitch at 47.6% but it also gives up the highest wOBA at .347. With the metrics being a mixed bag, it’s best to leave him for GPP only but still in play. 

Marcus Stroman – I never like paying this price, but I wouldn’t take Stroman out of play either. Baltimore is about average in ground ball rate to righties, but they also whiff over 24% of the time and are dead last in wOBA to that handedness. Baltimore’s lineup does have four hitters with a wOBA over .350 against righty sinkers, but I still have faith in Stroman to put up a solid game. It’s just a matter of it being fantasy relevant. His K rate isn’t great at 21%, but that would represent his career-best number so maybe he has a touch more upside than I generally give him credit for. 

Madison Bumgarner – It’s time to take him somewhat seriously. I wanted nothing to do with him at the start of the year, and that looked solid. His first three starts generated a total of seven DK points. After that, MadBum has looked vintage while throwing 23 IP, giving up three earned runs, and whiffing 25 hitters. There is a very noticeable correlation with that streak –

The curve and four-seam have been largely responsible for his strikeouts and Miami is 30th and 20th against those pitches. The barrel rate sat at 14.9% last season but he’s cut it in half at 7.1% so far this year. His swinging-strike rate also has seen a big jump from 7.5% to 12.3%. It sure looks like the 2 MPH difference in his four-seam and cutter are making a big difference, and he’s looking for his fifth straight game of 20+ DK points. 

Nathan Eovaldi – It’s been an adventure playing Eovaldi lately, with two great games and two very poor games. This one shapes up as not the greatest spot for him, as Oakland is middle of the league in K rate to righties. Eovaldi isn’t a huge strikeout pitcher as the K rate is only 22.4%. His splits look poor to righties with a .319 wOBA but the BABIP is over .380. His FIP is 1.87 to that side and 2.05 overall. He’s not getting hit hard at all with a 4.3% barrel rate and a 21.4% hard-hit rate. I really wonder if the field totally ignores him after burning them in the Tigers matchup. If that’s the case, he’s an interesting GPP option, but I would only be interested in MME formats. 

Yusei Kikuchi – Oh boy, this is scary but the 2021 stats are very kind to Kikuchi in this spot. The Dodgers have fallen to 23rd or worse in average, slugging, OPS, ISO, wOBA, and wRC+ to lefty pitching. Only two hitters in their everyday lineup have a wOBA over .370 this season in Chris Taylor and Justin Turner. Kikuchi is using his cutter almost 40% of the time and has a .307 wOBA against it.

In turn, the Dodgers are 28th against that pitch and Mookie Betts is the only player who sits above a 0.3 FanGraphs rating. The K rate isn’t monstrous at 22.7% but the ground ball rate is 52.9%, which is 10th in the league. The Dodgers are 10th as a team in ground ball rate to lefty pitching. We know the Dodgers can come to life at any point, and the 27.3% HR/FB rate to righties seems unsustainably high for Kikuchi. He’s shown ceiling to a team like Houston and could have that same outcome tonight. 

Pablo Lopez – About the only two reasons Lopez is not the main target is because he just picked against these D-Backs, and we don’t always love that. He continues to fully breakout with a 25% K rate and the lowest WHIP of his career at 1.08. You also love to see the 28.6% fly-ball rate coupled with a 28.3% hard-hit rate, which helps keep the HR/9 below 0.70. The four-seam and the change have accounted for virtually every strikeout for Lopez this season and that is a small concern because Arizona is top-five against both pitches. Lopez is also worse to LHH with a .303 wOBA and will face five in all likelihood. Lopez has pitched too well to leave him out, but I don’t think he’s a necessity at all. 

Chris Bassitt – I’m not using him but Bassitt is having an excellent season thus far. His K rate is 24.6% and he’s only yielding a 3.5% barrel rate. Bassitt throws six different pitches this year but the main three are the sinker/four-seam/cutter mix, accounting for about 75% of his mix. What’s really interesting is his best strikeout pitch is the slider with 16 but he throws it under 8% of the time. Bassitt is also suddenly generating a swinging-strike rate of 12.3% and his career mark is 8.8%, so that is a noticeable shift. It’s one of the main reasons you could play him tonight if you wanted to. 

Kenta Maeda – He went from probable chalk on Sunday to sitting in a very crowded tier tonight. The matchup is different and it’s tougher, but how much tougher is it? The White Sox are two different offenses depending on the handedness of the pitcher. When they face righties, they lead the league in ground ball rate at 52.1% and it’s almost a 4% lead. The jump to a 2.20 HR/9 for Maeda might be mitigated by the White Sox sitting bottom-four in ISO to righties. They are league average in K rate at 23.6% and Maeda has dropped to a 21.2% rate himself. One of the largest factors is his splitter since it had a 45.6% whiff rate last year compared to a 20.7% rate this season. He’s coming off his best start of the season and nobody will touch him. If he can continue to get back to what he put on the field last season, the price is very low. 

Kwang Hyun Kim – This is low-key one of the better pitching slates of the season so far, as we have a ton of options that can work in my eyes. It’s hard for me to overlook Ohtani, but Kim is well in play for $200 less. The FIP is 2.65 and the xFIP is only 3.60, which is very respectable. Kim has the K rate at almost 24%, meaning he can take advantage of the 28.7% rate Milwaukee is showing. Now, the Crew continues to be a top 10 offense in the rest of our categories but Kim has the HR/9 under 0.51 and a swinging-strike rate of 12.5%. He’s mostly a four-seam/slider pitcher, and Milwaukee is fifth against the fastball and 30th against the slider. Kim only throws the four-seam about 5% more than the slider, and the latter pitch has 12 of his 18 strikeouts and a 37.3% whiff rate. The BABIP looks like it should come down as well as both sides are over .340. We can’t play everyone for sure, but with many options available we can make some fun pivots tonight based on where the field is projected to go. 

Dylan Cease – Quietly, Cease is putting up some serious numbers this season. The K rate is 32%, he has a FIP/xFIP combo of 2.80/3.57, and his HR/9 has gone from 1.85 to 0.59. Considering the K rate last year was 17.3% and the swinging-strike rate has jumped up almost 4%, what in the world has changed for Cease? Well, for starters his four-seam and slider both are seeing a little more movement and he’s using the four-seam more. The slider has already racked up more strikeouts than it did all of last year.

Cease is getting almost 8% higher on the swing rate on balls outside of the zone and has a 5% drop in contact when hitters swing at balls inside the zone. These are pretty major shifts, and it’s important to note he’s still just 25 and is only at 161.2 IP experience-wise at the major league level. The Minnesota offense is a tough cookie and only whiffs 22.9% of the time, but are beat up a little right now as well. We could get Cease before the field notices his improvements, but it’s not an easy matchup for him. 

Starting Rotation 5.11 – Out of Play 

Jordan Montgomery – We talk about the Rays offense against lefties often, because they whiff at a 31.7% rate which is the second-worst in baseball. They are also in the bottom half in our offensive categories, and you would think that means we’d have Montgomery in play. I can’t quite get there as the leash has been fairly short with him since he’s not thrown more than 89 pitches yet. The K rate is just over 21% and the hard-hit rate is 35.1%, so neither mark is super special. What really worries me is Tampa can play six righty hitters and they have a .351 wOBA and a 1.93 HR/9 on the season. That’s enough for me to pass on a slate this size. 

*Note – Both pitchers in Colorado are repeated since they are starting tonight. 

Dinelson Lamet – The Padres are being very careful with Lamet and he hasn’t thrown more than 30 pitches yet in either start. We’d be lucky to see 50 pitches and he’s far too expensive for that, not even counting the fact he’s in Colorado. 

Antonio Senzatela – The ground ball rate is 52.4% so maybe that helps, but the K rate is 13.1% and the Padres are sporting the second-best K rate to righties in baseball. Righty hitters are tagging Senzatela for a .398 wOBA, .973 OPS, a 2.25 HR/9, and a 5.77 FIP. I’m happy to pair up the Padres offense (among others) with Singer and a pitcher like Buehler or Means tonight. 

Chase Anderson – He’s rocking a FIP/xFIP combo that is both over 5.30, has a 17.8% K rate compared to an 11.9% walk rate, and Washington can mash lefties. Righties have tagged Anderson for a .364 wOBA and an OPS of .840. There are way too many pitchers to like to take this route. 

Matthew Boyd – It’s not exactly like Boyd is out of play, but we don’t have a category for “I like about 10 pitchers better than him” so here he sits. Boyd has been quite good, but the K rate is barely 17% and the xFIP of 4.96 is a pretty stark contrast to the 2.27 ERA. With a fly ball rate of almost 46% and an HR/FB rate of just 2.1%, it’s not hard to see why the xFIP is not his friend. The scary part is a lot of that xFIP comes from the right side of the plate, something KC is rife with. Boyd did just hag 20 DK on them, so it’s possible but I’ll be fine targeting others tonight. 

Erick Fedde – Righties have gotten the better of him so far this year with a 1.80 HR/9, .310 wOBA, and a 35.9% hard-hit rate. To his credit, Fedde has a 27% K rate to that side and Philly whiffs an awful lot but there a ton of options tonight. I’m not playing one that has a career ERA of 5.12 over 222.1 IP. 

Luis Patino – It’s very unclear what his role is tonight. He could just be an opener, he could be used as a traditional starter…it’s the Rays so who really knows. He had been piggybacking with Shane McClanahan but that changed Sunday. If we get news, this will be updated but this is not the slate to take a shot at a pitcher possibly going 2-3 innings. 

Bryse Wilson – We’ve seen Wilson for 54.2 IP in the majors and none of them have been all that good. The xFIP is 5.65, the HR/9 is 1.81, the K rate is only 16.9% (10.7% in 12 IP this year), and righties have a career .368 wOBA with a .886 OPS against him. The left side of the plate is even worse and the HR/9 is up over 2.60. That’s not where I want to head, especially against the Jays. 

Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 5.11 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!