For the first time since Opening Day, we have some decent options on this slate. Last night’s main slate featured a slobber-knocker of a pitcher’s duel between Corbin Burnes and Jose Berrios. I’m not sure we get to that level again but we have plenty of options nonetheless. It’s also kind of nice to not have to deal with Coors Field chalk for the first time all season so let’s toe the rubber for the Starting Rotation 4.4 to find the green screens!
Ian Anderson ($9,800 DK/$9,000 FD)
FB – 48.7% (7th) CH – 30.5% (4th) CB – 20.8% (8th)
I believe Anderson winds up chalky, but if I’m wrong we could bump him into the GPP section. This spot isn’t the absolute best for him but I still do like it. We only have a very small sample of Anderson in the majors, a total of 32.1 innings. The K rate is excellent at 29.7% but the walk rate is high at 10.1%. That could bite him as the Phillies were top 10 in walk rate last year against RHP. Anderson was excellent as well when it came to fly balls with just a 27.5% rate and a 25.9% hard contact rate to boot.
There is some regression coming due to his 3.45 xFIP compared to the 1.95 ERA. Perhaps my largest fear is the pitch data which does not look kindly to Anderson. Philly was top 10 against all three of his main offerings and that could be a problem. His main two pitches were the four-seam and the change as he threw them over 700 times last year. They both had an ISO of .060 or under and the change only got hit for a .071 average. Jean Segura and Didi Gregorius were the only Philly hitters that really hit the changeup well last year so I’m fine using Anderson in cash if he’s projected as popular. I also don’t want to take under 40 IP in the majors as “this is what Anderson will always be”.
Brady Singer ($8,700 DK/$7,500 FD)
FB – 57.9% (23rd) SL – 37.4% (30th) CH was used under 5%
The field may well turn to Aaron Civale in Detroit and I’m not exactly going to argue that. What I will argue is that I actually prefer Singer. What we have in Singer is the 18th overall pick in the 2018 draft and made his debut last year with 64.1 innings pitched. The results were fairly strong as a rookie, with a 4.06 ERA and a 4.05 xFIP. The K rate was over 23% and the walk rate was a touch high at 8.7%. So why do we like him here? There are a couple of factors that have me interested.
First, the pitch data really favors Singer since Texas was in the bottom 10 last season against both pitches. There’s also the matter of his ground ball rate being 53.1% and the hard-hit rate being 24.9%. His fastball is a sinker so that’s always going to generate a high clip of grounders. Singer also really started to figure some things out towards the end of the year in 2020. He racked up a 3-1 record with a 1.50 ERA, a .114 batting average against, 25 strikeouts, nine hits, and eight walks in his last four starts (24 innings). I’m not always a fan of a two-pitch pitcher without overwhelming stuff but we have more good news.
Singer has worked on his changeup and changed his grip on it, as reported in kansascity.com. That is a huge piece of Singer’s development so opposing teams can’t sit on the sinker. He only threw it 50 times last season but it sported a .083 ISO. If he can use it with any regularity, this could turn into a major weapon. Lastly, we can add in the Rangers lineup getting considerably worse from 2020 where they had a 25.3% K rate to RHP. If Singer isn’t popular enough in cash, I’m very in for GPP.
Honorable Mention – Civale, Zach Davies is dependent on the Wrigley wind and Pirates lineup since Ke’Bryan Hayes could sit with a wrist injury
Michael Pineda ($9,200 DK/$7,300 FD)
FB – 50.1% (24th) SL – 38.5% (18th) CH – 11.4% (24th)
Pineda is a cagey veteran who is capable of pretty strong fantasy outings but is also capable of ruining your lineup. When talking about him, it’s best to combine his last two seasons since it spans just over 170 innings. The K rate is between 22.5% and 23.3% with an HR/9 just under 1.40. Pineda really limited hard contact in his minimal action last year with a 23.1% rate and the .321 BABIP against seems abnormally high. Throughout his career, Pineda has been even as far as splits go so I don’t think there’s a strong platoon advantage for the Brewers lineup.
It’s important to keep in mind that the Brew Crew was only 1% from leading the majors in K rate to RHP last season. I’m not sure there’s much reason to think the lineup got significantly better either. His slider was has been his main strikeout pitch and only Christian Yelich and Keston Hiura rate well against that pitch. If he can survive those hitters, Pineda could throw up a big fantasy number.
Tarik Skubal ($7,300 DK/$6,000 FD)
FB – 60.1% (27th) CH – 16.4% (15th) SL – 15.7% (23rd)
We’re talking about another 2020 rookie as Skubal broke camp in the Tigers rotation. The lefty doesn’t exactly have a lot on the surface the would make you want to play him today. His ERA over 32 innings was 5.63 and the 5.75 FIP would back that up. He displayed a terrifying fly ball rate of 54.2% which helps explain his 2.53 HR/9. Righties did all of the damage with eight bombs and a 24.3% HR/FB rate. An encouraging sign with the homers is it was never an issue through the minors. Not much that I’ve described sounds fun until you realize Skubal had a K rate of 27.6%.
Skubal lived and died by the four-seam last year as his secondary pitches just didn’t work for him. It’s not that surprising to see a rookie struggle with his secondary pitches. His four-seam sits in the high 90’s and can be a serious weapon but there has to be something else going with it, otherwise, MLB hitters will catch up to any cheddar being thrown. Skubal worked on a split-change during the spring and whiffed 18 hitters over 17 innings of work. Granted it’s just the spring but he only allowed three runs as well. Cleveland didn’t whiff a ton against LHP last year at just 20.5% but their lineup has looked putrid so far. I always am willing to take shots with young pitchers with some gas and Skubal checks that box for me.
Honorable Mention – Not a ton today. I wish I could say Mitch Keller but even I’m not too excited about that.
Gas Can To Target – In the past three years, Jeff Hoffman has pitched about 100 innings and his ERA has not below 6.56 and the HR/9 has hovered between 2.70 and 1.27. He’s given up hard contact over 40% of the time the past two seasons while mostly relying on a fastball and changeup. Both sides of the plate got him last year but in his career, RHH have a .411 wOBA, .313 average, and a 2.31 HR/9. I’m looking right through the heart of the Cards lineup here. Nolan Arenado and Tyler O’Neil both had ISO’s over .200 against righties last year while Paul Goldschmidt was over .375 in wOBA along with being their best fastball hitter (17th overall in MLB last season). Dylan Carlson, Paul DeJong, and Tommy Edman are all secondary options in the stack as well.
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!
Bruce Zimmerman O 3.5 K’s -107
Record – 1-2
Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 4.4 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!
My goodness was it fun to have baseball back yesterday! Between the articles, bets, and calls in the Discord, we had a very solid first day of action. I will remind you guys to not get too crazy with the bankroll. MLB is a grind and is tough as far as the variance. Play within the means, be smart with it, and we’re going to grow that bankroll, continuing with the Starting Rotation 4.2!
Note – The numbers under the pitcher represent how often he threw a pitch. The number in the parentheses is how the opposition ranked against said pitch type in 2020 until 2021 data stabilizes.
Blake Snell ($9,700 DK/$9,500 FD)
FB – 50.6% (29th) CH – 19.8% (29th) SL – 15% (4th) CB – 14.6% (7th)
Well, it took all of one day for the starting pitching to look like it got hit with an ugly stick. Yesterday it felt like we had options. Today is different for sure. Snell lands atop the board here but I think the field will take one of two paths. The first is to just lock in Snell. The only other ace-style pitcher on the slate is Trevor Bauer, but he’s in Coors Field. The second path could be to just pay down and get the bats they want. I lean most take the best pitcher they feel comfortable with, hence Snell.
That’s not to say there aren’t concerns here. For one, Arizona carried the seventh-best K rate against LHP last season at just 21%. The pitch data is either good for Snell or quite bad for Snell, pending which pitch he’s using. The pitch mix is not guaranteed to be the same since he’s with a new team. All in all, Snell is likely the “safest” option on the board. Even if the strikeouts aren’t flowing, The D-Backs struggled in other ways against the southpaws last season. They were no higher than 25th in OBP, slugging, OPS, ISO, wOBA, and wRC+ through last season. The only real addition to the lineup is veteran Asdrubal Cabrera so Snell stands to likely be popular on both sites.
Pablo Lopez ($7,000 DK/$7,800 FD)
FB – 55.1% (26th) CH – 29.8% (3rd) CT and CB were under 9% of the time
I’m going to come clean right now and flat out say I have a very pro Pablo Lopez bias. I think he’s extremely talented and it’s only a matter of time before he really puts it together. He’s still barely 25 years old and this is an interesting spot for him. For one, he’s always been better at home with a career 3.28 ERA compared to 6.11 on the road. I do have some concerns about the Rays lefties in this matchup because Lopez gave up a .310 wOBA and a 14.7% K rate to that side of the plate.
However, the righties whiffed 36% of the time against Lopez. The projected Rays lineup A. loses the DH and B. has four lefties in it. The Marlins righty is dependent on the four-seam and change, having at least a 15% whiff rate on those two pitches. His fastball used to be a weakness but has steadily improved over the past three seasons to the point it was his highest-valued pitch last year. Lopez is cheap and has potential here even with some potentially scary LHH like Austin Meadows and Brandon Lowe in the batter’s box. We would back off this pick if the Rays really overloaded on LHH.
Honorable Mention – Possibly Ryan Yarbrough, I’d want to see how popular he’s projected to be
Jesus Luzardo ($7,900 DK/$7,200 FD)
FB – 53.3% (21st) SL – 22.4% (9th) CH – 23.9% (25th)
This is a slate to take some risks so let’s get nuts. Luzardo is one of the most talented pitchers on the slate for just pure stuff and filthiness. He flew through the minors and did scuffle a little bit in his first “full” season last year with a 4.12 ERA and a 1.37 HR/9. There are some encouraging signs underneath for Luzardo. His fly-ball rate was just 30.7% and the hard-hit rate was 32% so there’s nothing totally egregious there. Luzardo also still struck out a hitter per inning, which is nothing to sneer at.
Here’s what gives me some strong encouragement. Firstly, Luzardo was excellent at home last year. That’s not a huge shock as Oakland checked in at 31st in runs and home runs last year in park factor. Luzardo also struck out lefties over 25% of the time and the Astros are suddenly a little bit lefty-heavy. Sure, they still have Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, and Carlos Correa. The loss of George Springer is a big deal for the Houston lineup and Luzardo likely has three lefties to face in the heart of the order. This spot is certainly dangerous, but there’s a wider range of outcomes and one includes a strong start from the A’s youngster. The pitch data is encouraging for Luzardo and on this slate, he’s worth some exposure.
Yusei Kikuchi ($6,000 DK/$7,500 FD)
CT – 39.9% (26th) FB – 37.7% (8th) SL – 16.1% (2nd) SF thrown 6.3%
When we’re talking about safe options for tonight, we’re really not going to find them on this slate as far as there not being nit-picks. I feel like Coors Field (especially the Dodgers bats) will be the focus of salary spent. There’s not a ton of great options at pitcher so the field will try to win with the hitters and not blow up with their pitchers. Kikuchi is carrying some momentum from spring training where his fastball had some serious life to it and hit up to 97 MPH. With the Giants ranking 26th against his primary pitch last year, I am interested.
Now, we have to talk about the drawbacks here. The Giants were quietly elite against the lefties last season. They finished top-four in average, OBP, slugging, OPS, wOBA, and wRC+ last year against southpaws. That is hard to get by in this spot but if Kikuchi is figuring out how to pitch in the majors, we want to be ahead of the curve. The fact he’s the cheapest starter on DK does help his case, but do not think there isn’t significant risk in playing Kikuchi. He could check in chalky just because of the price and if that’s the case, he’d be my SP2 for cash games. I would just prefer to go GPP-only here.
Honorable Mention – Johnny Cueto, (FD only)
Note – So we haven’t talked about Trevor Bauer much unless it’s been in passing. It’s easy to say “He’s in Coors” and be done with it but that’s not good enough. Does he have upside, even in a tough environment? Of course, he does. The man is the reigning and defending NL Cy Young. However, there are some frightening metrics overall for Bauer. His strand rate was 90.9% last season. That’s just not happening again. His ERA was 1.73 and the xFIP was 3.25 which means he’s due some home run regression as well.
That would be backed up by the massive 47.8% fly-ball rate that Bauer displayed last year. There are not many worse parks to have a monster fly ball rate. It led the league last year and for some context, Gerrit Cole was second at 43.1%. Cole had an 18.7% FB/HR rate while Bauer was 12%. Colorado also only whiffed 22% of the time at home against RHP last year, 21st in the league. The lefties had the advantage on Bauer with a .258 wOBA and a 1.89 HR/9 last year. There are some serious red flags here and I would rather play some Rockies LHH ahead of Bauer.
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Friday Free Bet
Orioles O 3.5 Runs
Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 4.2 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!
It’s getting warmer in most parts of the country and that can only mean one thing – Major League Baseball is BACK!! After a challenging season on the diamond last year, MLB is intending to run a complete 162 game schedule and we’re going to be here with a pitching breakdown through it! The goal is to identify the pitchers we want in both Cash and GPP formats using metrics to tell us who we should target so let’s dig into Starting Rotation Opening Day!
Note – The numbers under the pitcher represent how often he threw a pitch. The number in the parentheses is how the opposition ranked against said pitch type in 2020 until 2021 data stabilizes.
Yu Darvish ($10,400 DK/$10,700 FD)
FB – 24.8% (29th) CT – 40.2% (12th) SL – 14.6% (4th) CB – 12.4% (7th)
It’s a bit weird to begin Starting Rotation Opening Day with a pitcher I’m not super excited about. I will not likely land on Darvish, but I believe he might be popular on DK especially. I do think there are reasons to not spend up. Brian outlined this in his fantastic Picks and Pivots article but Darvish was well above career averages last season. He set career highs in left on-base percentage, ERA, FIP, xFIP, and HR/9. Furthermore, Arizona sported the third-lowest K rate against righty pitching last year. If Darvish sticks with his cutter-heavy approach, that could pose an issue against Arizona as well. They were 12th against that pitch last season as a team. When you’re paying this price, you need strikeouts and a lot of them. If Darvish is projecting to be chalky, perhaps we eat it. If not, I’d be happy to go elsewhere.
Luis Castillo ($9,200 DK/$8,900 FD)
FB – 52.3% (19th) CH – 30% (30th) SL – 17.7% (12th)
Over on FD, Castillo feels like a bargain since he’s under $9,000. St. Louis finished with a top 12 strikeout rate against righties last season, making Castillo appealing right off the bat. The changeup data is very intriguing as well. According to BrooksBaseball, the changeup was a big weapon for Castillo. He recorded 54 of his 96 strikeouts last year with the change, generating a swing 61% of the time. With the Cardinals finishing dead last against the pitch last year, that’s a great start for Castillo’s potential success. They were also 22nd or worse in OPS, ISO, wOBA, and wRC+. There’s no getting around this offense wasn’t that great last season.
Now, there’s also no getting around the Cards are a different offense this year. You can’t add Nolan Arenado and not be better offensively. Past that addition, the Cards lineup looks strikingly similar to the 2020 season. It also has to be noted that Arenado finished with a negative FanGraphs rating against the change last year. Castillo looks rock solid by any metric we can trot out.
Tyler Glasnow ($8,800 DK/$10,000 FD)
FB – 60.6% (20th) CB – 35% (10th)
I’m not sure I can properly state my Glasnow love. He’s my dark horse to win the AL Cy Young this season. He just needs to stay healthy, I believe he is that talented. Perhaps the biggest criticism of Glasnow out there is he’s a two-pitch pitcher with a fastball and curve. It’s a fair critique since he threw those two pitches over 95% of the time last year. Well, that’s not the case this season. Take a look from MLB.com –
“I know he’s pretty excited about it, and he should be because he feels like he can land that pitch [for strikes] fairly consistently,” Cash said before the game. “With Glas, it’s a lot of fastballs at the top of the zone [and] featuring that snap curveball right off that fastball. … A slider has a little bit more shape, a little bit more tilt to it, and something that he can harness in the zone a little bit better.”
Last season saw Glasnow give up too many runs which can be easy to do with a 1.73 HR/9. However, his K rate spiked to over 38% and his xFIP was 2.75 compared to his 4.08 ERA. His walk rate was a bit high at 9.2% but that was still the second-best mark of his career. Adding a pitch should help keep the ball in the park. Opposing teams teed off on his fastball, hitting a home run 15 times off that pitch. With a new offering, that can quell some of the bombs. With Miami holding a top 10 K rate against RHP last season, I’m in love with Glasnow for this slate. The fish also finished dead last in ISO against righties with the 26th wOBA. Glasnow can offer the upside of any pitcher on the DK side for far less salary.
Kyle Hendricks ($7,700 DK)
FB – 54.5% (30th) CH – 28.9% (22nd) CB – 16.6% (28th)
I have no interest in Hendricks on FD as I’d rather play Castillo if nothing else. DK is a different story since the field will want to fit at least one or two Coors Field bats in their lineup. Many will likely turn to Hendricks, hoping he can pick on the Pirates lineup. It can best be described as “nine players that will try to hit the baseball” because it’s not good at all.
The best hitters would be Bryan Reynolds and possibly Ke’Bryan Hayes, but there are questions about the latter’s qualities as a hitter. The Pirates finished eighth last year in K rate to RHP and were 30th in OBP, slugging, OPS, wOBA, and wRC+. Even with some positive movement, they are still going to be a bad offense. Hendricks doesn’t possess the qualities we typically look for with just a 20.3% K rate but teams make hard contact just 26.4% of the time. He’s not going to be a slate-breaker but a solid outing is all you need.
Honorable Mention – Kenta Maeda (Brian goes deeper in Picks and Pivots, we’ll need to see if he’s chalky)
Note – On FD, I would have a strong inclination to play Shane Bieber in cash. He gets the Tigers, who led the league in K rate to RHP last season. I can’t possibly see him whiffing 41.1% of the hitters faced or stranding 91% of base runners again but even with regression this is still a nuts matchup.
Jack Flaherty ($8,600 DK/$8,600 FD)
FB – 55.8% (11th) SL – 28.7% (26th) CB – 13.6% (29th)
Flaherty had a pretty strange 2020 season. For one, he barely pitched over 40 innings. When we talk about 202 stats, they all need a large grain of salt because the season was so short and different from the norm. In Flaherty’s case, the K rate was in line at 28.8%, his fly ball rate went down to 25.7% and his xFIP was 3.42 compared to a 4.91 ERA. One of the biggest aspects that hurt Flaherty was a strand rate of just 68.8%. In the previous season, he sported an 83.3% strand rate and that is a huge gap.
The Reds lineup can be dangerous as they were sixth in ISO BUT they also were 28th in average and sixth in K rate to righties. The weather is supposed to be quite chilly for Opening Day and that almost always favors the pitcher. The NL lost the designated hitter this year as well, so pitchers will have a slight advantage in that league. Lastly, Flaherty had a 9.45 ERA on the road which drove some of his struggles. I’m not taking a 13.1 and 40.1 inning sample size as an indication of what he can do on the mound.
Brandon Woodruff ($8,000 DK/$8,700 FD)
FB – 65.1% (17th) CH – 17.6% (9th) SL – 10.7% (16th)
When a pitcher goes against names like Nelson Cruz, Miguel Sano, and Josh Donaldson, that’s not always who we’re chasing. This could quietly be a pretty good spot for Woodruff though. The Twins sported the seventh-highest K rate to RHP at 25.5%. They also finished 22nd in OBP. With a fastball-heavy approach, Woodruff could find success in this spot. It doesn’t hurt him that the Twins will lose their DH in this game either. The flip side of this matchup is Minnesota was top 10 in wOBA, wRC+, and ISO last season. Woodruff was tougher on RHH with a 33% K rate and a 0.96 HR/9 in 2020. With the main power hitters for the Twins being righty hitters, Woodruff could be low-rostered with a big ceiling.
Note – On FD, Gerrit Cole is in play in any format. I tend to prefer him in GPP because I’d just play Bieber in cash. However, Cole draws a good matchup based on the handedness of the Blue Jays lineup. Toronto is projected to have seven of nine hitters on the right side of the plate and Cole dominated righty hitters last season. He only allowed a .201 batting average and a .250 wOBA to that side of the plate. The other wild card is who’s catching Cole. The Yankees have stated that Gary Sanchez will catch Cole to start the season. That didn’t go super well last season through 46 innings. Cole sat at a 3.91 ERA, .776 OPS, and 12 of 14 homers came with Sanchez as his catcher. That doesn’t mean there’s not a ceiling to be had but Bieber is the safer play.
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!
Thursday Free Bet
Padres O 4.5 runs, -132 on DK SportsBook
Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation Opening Day 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!
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