Adam Strangis Starting Rotation 5.29
Saturday is a very weird slate in that we have a monster 10 game slate in the afternoon and then just five games in the evening. The bad part of all that is the number of arms on this slate is….not great overall. That doesn’t mean we can’t find some diamonds in the rough for the Starting Rotation 5.29 to lead us to green screens again!
Starting Rotation 5.29 – Early Slate
Yu Darvish
I typically skip the pitch data breakdown for Darvish since his repertoire is so varied, but we’ll note the Astros are 12th against the cutter and first against the slider. We’ve seen the good and bad about targeting the Astros offense in the past few days. The Dodgers played them and Clayton Kershaw cleaned up for us while Trevor Bauer struggled. Darvish has had a run of picking on some bad offenses like Seattle, Colorado, and Pittsburgh so the difficulty will be ramped up here. Still, Darvish looks strikingly similar to the 2020 season with a 30.8% K rate, 0.89 WHIP, 12.4% swinging-strike rate, and a 32.3% CSW.
The splits don’t give much of a lean as both sides of the plate are at a .256 wOBA or lower and righties have the worse mark. What does help Darvish as far as the splits are the K rate to righties as it comes up to 34.5% and the Astros are predominantly a righty lineup. Every single pitch for Darvish sports a whiff are over 21% and ace-level pitching can beat the best lineup, even when that lineup whiffs only 18.4% of the time.
Freddy Peralta
Peralta reminded us in his last game that he’s still not in the stud ace tier that we can trust every single time out. His pitch count ballooned quickly to over 100 and he was out of the game before he made it through five innings. The Nationals don’t strike out a lot but Peralta still has enormous upside with a 38.4% K rate. That would be third in the majors if he had the innings to qualify but that can be the Catch-22 with him. The four-seam/slider mix do it all with 72 of 76 strikeouts on the season and they both have at least a 32.1% whiff rate and a wOBA under .275.
Just like Darvish above, the opposing lineup could fall particularly well for Peralta and his splits. Washington is projected to play five righties and the pitcher spot, and Peralta has a 47.6% K rate to that side of the plate. The xFIP is ridiculous at 1.95, along with a 1.70 FIP. Part of that is the slider usage to righties, as he’s thrown 210 of 280 to righty hitters. Much like the Darvish spot, Washington has the third-best K rate in the majors but Peralta has reached the point where he has the potential (keyword here) to overwhelm any lineup in baseball.
Austin Gomber
DK doesn’t have this noted yet but this will be the second half of a doubleheader. That means only seven innings but for pitchers, we don’t mind that. Gomber has the potential to pitch the entire game and he may not drop 31.6 DK, but we talked in Discord last time about how he’s not nearly as bad as the one Giants start indicated. Since that whooping, Gomber has posted 11, 17, 21, 21, and 31 DK points. His salary is still far too low for a pitcher with a 24.6% K rate and an xFIP under 4.00. The HR/9 is only 1.18 and the Buccos are 27th in ISO to lefty pitching.
They also whiff overall at 23.8% and are in the bottom-five in every major offensive category that we value. His .323 wOBA to righties has been a little skewed by the struggles earlier in the year and since the calendar flipped to May, Gomber has a 2.97 ERA with a 3.01 xFIP and a .258 wOBA overall. The lefty has just crossed 150 IP in the majors and it looks like some things could be clicking for him.
Deivi Garcia
I mentioned at the start that the choices are not plentiful tonight, so I’m happy to take a shot with Garcia here. There’s not a way to get around things that haven’t gone super well for him this year. Through 15.2 IP in AAA, the ERA is over 5.00 and the xFIP is 4.51. His 38.1 IP in the majors has produced a 4.91 xFIP and a 1.64 HR/9 but has also generated a 22.6% K rate. Overall, the swinging-strike rate is 11.6% which is plenty at his salary. Detroit has been much better so this is certainly not risk-free, but they still are up around the lead in K rate to righty pitching. The good news for Garcia is his career wOBA to lefties is .291. The K rate has been low at 15.1% but the Tigers lineup can push it up higher than that. Garcia is only 22 years old and a top prospect in the Yankee system, so there’s pedigree bind this and potential upside for the salary.
Honorable Mention – Nathan Eovaldi (salary is quite high), Trevor Rogers (terrible spot but talented pitcher), Mitch Keller (Road Rockies but Keller is wildly unpredictable)
Stacking Options
- Blue Jays against Sam Hentges (Vlad Jr., Teoscar Hernandez, Randal Grichuk, Bo Bichette, Lourdes Gurriel)
- Royals against J.A. Happ (Whit Merrifield, Carlos Santana, Salvador Perez, Adalberto Mondesi)
- White Sox against Matt Harvey (Tim Anderson, Jose Abreu, Yoan Moncada, Yermin Mercedes)
- Brewers against Jon Lester (Avisail Garcia, Manny Pina, Willy Adames, Lorenzo Cain, Keston Hiura)
- Cubs against Luis Castillo (Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, Ian Happ, Willson Contreras)
Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 5.29 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!
