Adam Strangis Yesterday’s slate made it challenging to find a whole bunch of options but tonight’s slate makes up for it. There are at least seven pitchers that I would say can be considered ace-level options tonight and I’m not sure how far I’ll stray from them. We just don’t need to get all that cute with so many quality arms to choose from in Starting Rotation 5.19 so let’s get to work breaking it down!
Starting Rotation 5.19
Corbin Burnes
It can be odd to know that the next pitcher is on the slate but he’s not the best option (in my eyes, a least). His cutter would be one of the 10 best-ranked pitches in baseball if he hadn’t missed some time and it’s been absurd. Of the 58 strikeouts Burnes has racked up, 32 have come from the cutter. It’s boasting a 36.7% whiff rate and just a .210 wOBA. Looking at the larger picture, Burnes has a 19.1% swinging-strike rate which would be second and his 37.7% CSW would lead all pitchers by 2.7%. The overall K rate of 45.3% is stunning as well. This isn’t a normal run of the mill cutter –
If you wanted more reason to play him, Burnes has both sides of the plate at a .218 wOBA or lower and he’s at his best pitching to righties. The K rate is 55.4%, the xFIP is 0.54, and the FIP is 0.01. The Royals should play five and two of the lefties are not remotely scary. Burnes is my top option on a crowded slate, especially considering his salary went down after 23.7 DK last game. A reminder that he only threw 78 pitches in five innings, returning from Covid. The salary makes no sense.
Max Scherzer
The veteran just keeps on ticking and I don’t particularly have any concerns about him only throwing five innings last game out. The Nationals staked him to a huge lead and it was very likely a case of saving him for the course of the season. Scherzer looks like he pretty much always has at this point with a 35.8% K rate, a 15.9% swinging-strike rate, and a 32.6% CSW. He resides in the top 10 in all three of those metrics while the Cubs still rock a 25.8% K rate to righties, seventh in baseball. I’m never going to be in love with a fly-ball pitcher at Wrigley Field and Scherzer does carry a 51.8% fly-ball rate, a stark contrast to the 39.8% mark he held last year. The HR/FB rate is 14% which isn’t terrible and the 2.98 xFIP doesn’t give us much concern in that aspect.
There are likely to be four lefties in the Cubs lineup, which eliminates the slider for Scherzer for those four batters. He’s legitimately not thrown a slider to a lefty all year, utilizing his changeup and cutter instead. Both of those pitches have a whiff rate over 30% and 10 strikeouts each, nothing to sneer at. The changeup has been especially lethal with a .061 wOBA allowed, the best of any pitch. This could be the one slate that you can argue you don’t need to play Scherzer with other legitimate options with his upside, but I still expect him to be fairly popular.
John Means
The last time we targeted the Rays with a lefty, David Peterson scored over 25 DK points and Means is a very superior pitcher, at least talent-wise. Tampa continues to scuffle with lefties this year, ranking no higher than 22nd in OBP, OPS, wOBA, ISO, wRC+, or slugging. They also have the second-worst K rate to that side with a 31.9% mark, while Means sits at 28% on the year. His swinging-strike rate of 15.9% is 10th and the 31.3% CSW is inside the top 20 among starters. He’s lowered the contact rate (contact made on all pitches) from 75.6% last season to 69.8% this year, which helps explain the jump in swinging-strike rate to be sure.
His changeup is ranked as the best in the majors, and he bumped it up about 5% from last year. It’s not hard to see why it’s ranked as the top change, as it’s only allowed a .137 wOBA, .106 average, and has a 40.9% whiff rate with 24 of 53 strikeouts. The Rays will likely counter Means by stacking six righties in their lineup but it doesn’t particularly matter for Means. Both sides are almost dead even at about a .197 wOBA and RHH strike out at a higher rate of 29.5%. I love Means and his upside today since he won’t be taken out of the game in the seventh inning while twirling a shutout to get pinch-hit for today.
Trevor Rogers
Rogers throws a slider and a changeup in there to keep teams honest, but his star pitch is that four-seam to this point. Not only did he add velocity on it this season up to 94.9 MPH, but it has 40 of his 57 strikeouts so far. That pitch is also generating a 30.5% whiff rate, .292 wOBA, and only a .198 average. When a pitcher can throw a four-seam that much and get those kinds of numbers, you know it’s a really good pitch. The overall K rate for Rogers is 32.6% and the walk rate is a bit high, but still under 10%, and his HR/9 is a tiny 0.41. The xFIP tells us that regression is likely to be a thing for Rogers, but why wouldn’t it be at a 1.84 ERA? If the xFIP of 3.44 is accurate, Rogers is still a dynamic pitcher.
With the Phillies Ranking so poorly against the fastball and flirting with a 30% K rate to lefties, we have to give some attention to Rogers here. He’s had some pretty tough spots and frankly, this isn’t one of them on paper. RHH only have got him for a .258 wOBA and a 33.3% K rate, so I’m not exactly fearful of the Philly lineup. They are no higher than average in our offensive categories and Rogers is that talented that he can flirt with 25 DK points in just about any given start.
Shohei Ohtani
Maybe DK has a glitch in the algorithm that weighs the hitting performances too heavily for Ohtani.
I’m going to say this with emphasis – Ohtani is the most mispriced player on this entire slate. You should NOT in any way be able to play Ohtani and Burnes as your pitchers and have over $4,000 left for your hitters. Don’t let that mistake pass without using it.
It really all came together for Ohtani in that last start as he exceeded 30 DK points while pitching seven innings. Cleveland has steadily climbed the ranks of K rate to righties and now sits at 25.1%, 11th in the majors. The walk rate is also only 7.3% and that’s 28th, lessening our fears about Ohtani’s walk issues. He continues his MVP campaign here with a 36.4% K rate and a 4.2% barrel rate. The swinging-strike rate has climbed over 14% and the CSW is just under 32%. One of the biggest reasons for these metrics is the splitter, which is just a hair behind Kevin Gausman for the top spot in the majors.
I’m having trouble coming up with adjectives to describe it. The splitter has 28 of 38 strikeouts, has given up one singular base hit, and has a sixty percent whiff rate. This pitch is ridiculous and Cleveland ranking well against it means nothing to me. The small nitpick with Ohtani is the lineup he faces since Cleveland will likely play five lefties. On the year, they have been the trouble spot for Ohtani with a .319 wOBA and “just” a 26.7% K rate. Righties have whiffed 48% of the time and he should still face four of them. The lefty wOBA also looks good considering a 28.6% HR/FB rate, which is ugly. Ohtani is way too talented to get too concerned with these splits, which are a little worse than they should be. You can play Burnes and Ohtani with the upside of 20-25 strikeouts and have over $4,000 left per player. That is a no-brainer path and even though the slate is loaded up top, this is the way to go for me.
Clayton Kershaw
Kershaw is coming off a weird start in which he struck out 11 hitters but gave up five runs in six innings. The 3.20 ERA looks about fair with a 2.49 FIP and 3.07 xFIP in tow, along with a 0.71 HR/9. The K rate of 28.1% is almost identical to last season but the 16.4% swinging-strike rate and 33.2% CSW are both up significantly since last season. Kershaw’s slider is ranked fourth in the majors and it has been the star in the strikeout department. Sure, the wOBA is up slightly to .256 and the slugging is .333, but it’s also generating a 44.4% whiff rate and has 45 of 57 strikeouts. He can also still do this –
Kershaw has also been a little unlucky to righty hitters. His BABIP is .340 and that’s driving some of the .310 wOBA to that side of the plate. His K rate is 29.3% to righties and the D-Backs do present a challenge with a 21.6% K rate. They have also hit lefty pitching extremely well, ranking in the top five of all our categories except average. They are ninth there, so while this is Clayton Kershaw we’re talking about, I can’t say he’s a MUST have on this slate as he is the highest-salaried pitcher and I don’t see the need to pay for him.
Jack Flaherty
This pitch data spot for Flaherty looks wonderful since the Pirates are missing their best slider hitter in Colin Moran. As it stands, they would rank about 22nd without his rating and they are obviously dead last against the other two pitches. On top of that, the four-seam has been the out pitch with 26 of 48 strikeouts (the slider has 15). The four-seam has just a .224 wOBA given up and oddly only an 18.9% whiff rate. With the Pirates being the worst team in the league to that pitch, it’s easy to see why Flaherty has a great spot as far as pitch data.
You could possibly mount an argument that the upside isn’t super person since the Pirates have four lefties and Flaherty only sports a K rate of 18.3% to that side of the plate. Pittsburgh is only sitting at a 22.9% K rate to righty pitching but this lineup is just very poor overall. Flaherty is sporting a 33% K rate to the right side and the Buccos have four plus the pitcher’s spot so there is still upside to be had here, even if he’s not one of the bigger names on the slate. I can’t say I’ll have a ton of him tonight but he deserves to be mentioned.
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