Adam Strangis Starting Rotation 6.12
Saturday is a little bit of a wonky day as we do get a split slate day but a whopping 11 games are in the afternoon. The evening slate looks dreadful for pitching outside of Trevor Bauer so we’re going to focus on breaking down the 11 game slate that is today’s main option. Hopefully, you’re ready to eat some chalk today because there is one very clear ace option in Starting Rotation 6.12 we need to be heavily interested in!
Starting Rotation 6.12 – Main Targets
Corbin Burnes
We talked yesterday about Brandon Woodruff and that didn’t exactly work out as he had a very pedestrian start compared to his capabilities. It needs to be said that Burnes has been far better than Woodruff in any given category. He’s over a 42% K rate on the season with a 0.97 FIP, 1.71 xFIP, and a 1.97 ERA. The barrel rate is 4.2% and when teams do make contact, Burnes has a 50.8% ground ball rate. That would rank eighth in the league if he qualified and the 18.5% swinging-strike rate would be behind only Jacob deGrom. Lastly, Burnes has a 36.3% CSW and that would lead all of baseball. Basically, if deGrom wasn’t having his historical season (please be alright), Burnes would be widely recognized as a top-five pitcher right now. On paper, there is no other option on this slate that matches the upside as he’s coming off a 43 DK point start.
Joe Musgrove
I’m not as worried about the pitch data since Musgrove is kind of all over the board here and doesn’t lean on anything in a major way. The Mets offense is still hurting and for a few innings, Musgrove was going toe-to-toe with deGrom in the last start. It unraveled a bit but Musgrove has been beyond expectations this season. The ERA, FIP, and xFIP are all under a 2.95 mark and the K rate is a career-high of 34.2% while the walk rate is only 5%. Musgrove is also generating a 14.6% swinging-strike rate and the WHIP is only 0.84.
His slider and curveball are both under a .180 wOBA and both are over a 35% whiff rate, with the cutter lagging. Truthfully, the cutter hasn’t done him a lot of favors this year with the worst wOBA and average given up among his pitch types. Having said that, he has both sides of the plate under a .275 wOBA and both sides are over a 31.5% K rate. The salary is a touch high but such is the state of the slate today.
Wade Miley
Miley gets the fortune of catching Colorado on the road, and that means he faces a totally different offense. The Rockies are 23rd in OBP, 24th in slugging, 25th in OPS, 22nd in ISO, and 25th in wOBA and wRC+. That mess of a package comes with the fourth-highest K rate of 27.5% which should help the 21.1% K rate from Miley himself. The 9.5% swinging-strike rate and the 25.5% CSW don’t particularly jump off the page, but the venue of the game (yes, Cincinnati is better than Coors) does Miley a world of good. Miley should be facing six righties and the pitcher spot, which certainly works for him. He’s given up a .279 wOBA and a .60 HR/9 to that side of the plate with a 3.36 xFIP. Another aspect that pushes Miley into consideration is the ground ball rate, which is 59% to righties. That’s exactly what we want to see when targeting a pitcher in Cincy and we always love Rockies Road matchups (and ice cream).
Jameson Taillon
Let’s.
Get.
Nuts.
The overriding goal of Starting Rotation is to present options, ranging from safe to risky so you can build lineups around the pitching, pending on how risky you want to get. That’s why we added Honorable Mention because if you guys disagree about one of my picks, you can pivot to someone you like better. I also like trying to find that one gem that the field may possibly skip. Pitching Taillon today is 100% not for everyone, and I totally get it. How often does a pitcher with an ERA over 5.00 grab a coveted feature spot in the article? I mean, it’s way too late to go back and research that number but let’s say not many and call it square.
So, why am I looking at Taillon? There are a few specific metrics that have him match up very well against Philly. For starters, the K rate is a career-high 25.8% and Philly is eighth in K rate to righties at 25.5% so that checks a box. Taillon isn’t getting hit all that hard at a 29.5% hard-hit rate and his xFIP is a much more palatable 4.35 than the 5.09 ERA. He’s also generating a 13.2% swinging-strike rate, which is a top 20 mark in the majors. Some things are going right for Taillon and the four-seam fastball is at the center of it with 41 of 58 strikeouts. It has yielded a .326 wOBA but also carries a 32.5% whiff rate and Philly is one of the worst teams against it.
Lastly, the splits for Taillon are exactly what he needs to survive the Philly lineup. To righties, he’s giving up a .277 wOBA, 3.76 xFIP, and a 0.91 WHIP. He should see six and the pitcher’s spot in the normal Phillies lineup. Lefties crush him for a 2.31 HR/9, 5.10 xFIP, and a .382 wOBA. So if you don’t play Taillon today, play Philly lefties including Odubel Herrera and Byrce Harper. With everything we talked about and Philly ranking 27th in fly ball rate to righties (that helps offset a fly rate over 48% from Taillon), he has a clear, if narrow, path to success today.
Starting Rotation 6.12 Honorable Mention
Rich Hill – I went to give him a full breakdown until I noticed he’s thrown under 60 pitches in the past two starts. Looking back through Marc Topkin’s (Marc is an awesome guy on Twitter) work for the Tampa Bay Times, it was easy to find that manager Kevin Cash was content with Hill going five strong and going with the bullpen. If Hill gets 90+ pitches, he could dominate but there’s a serious risk.
Alex Cobb – We want lefty-heavy offenses when considering Cobb and Arizona fits that bill for sure. He’s smacking the left side of the plate around this season with a 27.7% k rate, 2.84 xFIP, 1.02 WHIP, and a .234 wOBA. I’m not totally in love with the price and Cobb has shown he can get blown up in any start, but he shouldn’t be totally ignored.
Yusei Kikuchi – I do prefer Miley right in this salary, but they are somewhat interchangeable. Cleveland only whiffs to lefties at a 23% rate but Kikuchi does boast a 25.9% K rate himself. The 1.76 HR/9 is a bit ugly but the HR/FB rate is 25% and the xFIP is only 3.38. Like Miley, Kikuchi generates ground balls at a good clip of 49.7% and Cleveland is ninth in that metric at 45.9%.
German Marquez – I’d bet Marquez is way more popular than Taillon and that will be interesting to see how it shakes out. I suppose the largest issue in my eyes is Marquez only strikes out lefties at a 21.3% rate as opposed to 29.8% to righties on the road. The Reds are balanced typically between lefties and righties but don’t be surprised if he’s popular with the field.
Starting Rotation 6.12 Stacking Options
Before we hit the options, I need to apologize so everyone to read. Yesterday, I had the Angels listed as a stacking option against Brady Singer which is cool….except for Singer was pitching against the Oakland A’s. It was a very poor mistake on my part and the community deserves better. I didn’t catch it until I sat down to write Friday night, and that was 100% on me. Hopefully, it didn’t cause too much confusion and I’ll continue to put the best foot forward in covering these slates without a giant-sized error like that again.
- A’s against Jackson Kowar (The rookie Royals pitcher didn’t get out of the first inning, all hands on deck for the A’s with Matt Olson, Mark Canha, Seth Brown, Sean Murphy, and Mitch Moreland at the forefront).
- Braves against Zach Thompson (Ronald Acuna, Freddie Freeman, Austin Riley, William Contreras, Ozzie Albies)
- Brewers against Chad Kuhl (Willy Adames, Avisail Garcia, Omar Narvaez, Dan Vogelbach, Luis Urias) – note – I left of Christian Yelich just due to price as I would just play Acuna
- Red Sox against Steven Matz (Xander Bogaerts, Hunter Renfroe, J.D. Martinez, Bobby Dalbec, Rafael Devers)
- Yankees against Vince Velasquez – I know the Yanks haven’t hit that well but VV has a 99.2% strand rate to righty hitting. The FIP is over 6.00 and he has a 2.30 HR/9. Something has to give. I’m looking at Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and Miguel Andujar as opposed to a massive stack.
Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 6.12 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!
