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Starting Rotation 4.11

Adam Strangis 4 years ago

written by Adam Strangis

Starting Rotation 4.11

The good news is we have a 10 game slate on this wonderful Sunday afternoon! The bad news is the pitching leaves an awful lot to be desired. There’s not a single ace at our disposal and some pitchers are priced crazy high for their potential. With 10 games, we’re going to keep a small player pool in the Starting Rotation 4.11 to narrow our focus to find the green screens!

Starting Rotation 4.11 – Cash Picks

Marcus Stroman ($9,100 DK/$9,400 FD)

Marlins Ranks vs Pitch Types – FB – 28th SL – 20th CT – 8th

I hope Mr. Stroman enjoys being in the cash picks because he’s not a pitcher that I turn to very often. If we just played pitchers for swag, Stroman would be a top play across all formats.

Strut score, @PitchingNinja? 🔥🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/DmR54mA1sF
— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) April 7, 2021

Like I mentioned, this slate is tough. Typically, Stroman is not a pitcher that has a lot of upside especially when he’s over $9,000. In the course of his career, Stroman has a K rate of just 19.5% but does counter that with a 58.8% ground ball rate. The CSW in his first start was dead in line with his career numbers as well at 27.1% so there’s not likely new upside for strikeouts after a year away.

When we do look at Stroman, I prefer to go after a righty-heavy lineup and the Marlins fit that bill with only two projected lefties in their main eight spots. The wOBA is about equal to each side of the plate at about .301 but the K rate goes up to 20.4% to righty hitters. Miami does have the fifth-lowest ground ball rate as a team so far but they also are striking out 23.5% of the time and hitting under .200. This is about as good of a spot that Stroman can have, even if the price is still gross.

Trevor Williams ($8,300 DK/$8,000 FD)

Pirates Ranks vs Pitch Type – FB – 20th CB – 26th CH – 11th SL – 12th

Another starter that is mostly a stranger to cash picks is ex-Bucco Trevor Williams. The ex-Bucco part seems to be increasingly important anymore. Let’s take a look at the first eight starts for former Pirates starters –

So that seems bad if you’re a Pirates fan. Williams was outstanding in his first start for the Cubs and actually displayed some strikeout upside. When we’re early on in a season, it can be very difficult to know if a player is for real or if it’s just a small sample size. I’m more prone to buy in if there’s a definite change for the player and Williams checks that box with a brand new pitch mix.

Williams dialed back the four-seam usage and relied more heavily on the change and curveball. The only hits he allowed were off the four-seam and the sinker, while the curve and change gave up no base hits and two strikeouts. The Pirates are whiffing 25% of the time so far and I won’t say I totally trust Williams, but the 36.5% CSW was eye-popping from him. On this slate, he comes in as a “safe-ish” option.

Honorable Mention – The GPP section will be slightly bigger and we can maybe bump a player into cash, based on projected ownership.

Starting Rotation 4.11 – GPP Picks

Jordan Montgomery ($9,900 DK/$8,500 FD)

Rays Ranks vs Pitch Tpe – CH – 21st CT – 18th CB – 17th FB – 12th

Montgomery is closest to cash but I’ll be the first one to say that I have a mental block with this price. His last 48 IP over 2019-20 produced an ERA well over 5.00 but the xFIP was under 3.65. Are we seeing a pitcher who was on the wrong end of some bad luck throughout 50 innings correct? Was it just one good start? These are fair questions that we don’t have strong answers to yet. You can say the same thing about Williams but at least his matchup is better.
Tampa is a mixed bag against lefties. They whiff over 27% of the time, which is certainly appealing. They are also right about the top 12 in wOBA, ISO, OBP, wRC+, and OPS. Montgomery changed his pitch mix as well, which is notable. The cutter was his least-used pitch last year but he leaned on it in this first start. That and the sinker allowed the lowest ISO in 2020 so leaning into the cutter could really work out. His change and his curve were his two pitches that got the most strikeouts with a combined 35 out of 55. This could be his most beneficial pitch mix and the Rays are below average against all three but I won’t pretend that he’s set in stone. This start could go either way in my eyes.

Jordan Montgomery, Nasty 80mph Curveball. 😨

Severino, insta-k strut. pic.twitter.com/Whhhm6t1FJ
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 5, 2021

JT Brubaker ($7,800 DK/$6,200 FD)

Cubs Ranks vs Pitch Types – SL – 24th FB – 25th CH – 7th

Now, the Pirates’ pitching isn’t typically something we like but Brubaker has a little bit of potential here. He’s only pitched 51.1 innings in the big leagues but there are some positive metrics to like. The K rate is right at 24%, the ground ball rate is 47.6% and the hard-hit rate is under 29%. These are all good signs that could hint at something that could turn into a great start. The slider is of particular interest. Of all starting pitchers last year that logged 30 IP, Brubaker’s slider was 26th across baseball. That was in his first taste of major league action.

Three Cubs boasted a FanGraphs rating over 1.0 against the slider in 2020 and Ian Happ, Anthony Rizzo, and Jason Heyward could cause issues at the plate for Brubaker. Still, Brubaker whiffed 24 of his 48 strikeouts with the slider last season. It was also his second-best ISO allowed pitch at .148. The Cubs as a team have been so bad to start the year that it’s at least worth a shot. They are dead last in average and OBP while they rank no better than 25th in any major offensive category we value. On top of that, the K rate is the fourth-highest against RHP. It’s risky, but there is a ceiling here after seeing Brubaker score 14.8 DK points in four innings versus the Reds in the first start.

Chris Flexen ($6,800 DK/$7,000 FD)

Twins Ranks vs Pitch Types – FB – 7th CT – 16th CH – 2nd CB – 6th

This is going to be the test of strikeouts are king because there’s plenty of metrics that would lead us towards the Twins today. First off, the pitch data skew in their favor as they are top-eight against three of four pitches. Minnesota is also top 10 in all of the major offensive categories so why are we even looking at Flexen? For all the Twins do very well, they are striking out at the fifth-highest rate against righty pitching thus far.

The first start since 2019 for Flexen in America was pretty interesting as well. His pitch mix was significantly different as he used the four-seam almost 60% of the time in 2019. He jumped his cutter usage to almost a third of the time and he struck out three hitters while giving up just one hit. Byron Buxton is the only Twins hitter with a FanGraphs rating over 0.1 so far this season which is intriguing. Getting into shape has helped Flexen a lot and this is going to be a fun test. This is not a single entry play but I still want some exposure if Flexen continues to put it together.

Honorable Mention – Both Matt Shoemaker and Daniel Ponce de Leon have some appeal but I don’t feel strongly about either. Shoemaker especially had some concerning metrics with fly ball rate, CSW, and a small dip in velocity.

Gas Can of the Slate – Tanner Roark is pitching for the Blue Jays today which means we need some Angels in the lineup. Since the start of last season, Roark has displayed a 6.80 ERA or higher along with an xFIP of a least 5.84. The K rate is under 19%, the hard-hit rate is at least 39%, and the fly ball rate has spiked over 45%. He threw the fastball and slider about 58% of the time in the first start and they both had an xwOBA over .720.

Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, and Jared Walsh all have wOBA’s over .440 so far against righty pitching with ISO’s of at least .450. Sure, those numbers have to come down some but it may not happen today. If that wasn’t enough, guess which three hitters are the best fastball/slider hitters on the team? I think the three main players in this stack are pretty clear.

Secondary Players – Anthony Rendon, David Fletcher, Max Stassi

Starting Rotation 4.11 Betting Section

Free Bet

Record – 7-4

Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 4.11 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!

4 years ago 0 comments

Starting Rotation 4.10

Adam Strangis 4 years ago

written by Adam Strangis

Starting Rotation 4.10

We’re back in action on this fantastic Saturday with 11 total games, split into five and six-game slates. There will be a quick notes section for the early slate because that slate is a little more cut and dry. I mean, Jacob deGrom is picking so we can already tell which direction we’re heading. The six-game slate is a bit more interesting so let’s run through it all in the Starting Rotation 4.10 and find the green screens!

Starting Rotation 4.10 – Early Slate

Cash Picks – Cash starts and ends with deGrom and there’s not much of a discussion. Last time out he only went six innings and threw under 80 pitches, yet racked up seven strikeouts and 24.5 DK points. Not only was his velocity up to 99 MPH on the fastball, he only threw that and the slider. He didn’t even need anything else in his arsenal. That’s a very scary thought.

The secondary pitcher for cash on DK looks to be Michael Pineda. He’s not a pitcher I love for cash but the quality dips sharply after deGrom on this slate. In the first outing, Pineda generated a 35.8% CSW, a 60% ground ball rate, and a .242 FIP. Seattle is over 28% in K rate to righty pitching so even with a couple of runs given up, Pineda has upside. It doesn’t hurt that Seattle is 22nd against the slider and 26th against the fastball, the main two pitches for Pineda.

Honorable Mention – I really don’t love anyone else for cash games.

GPP Picks – Carlos Martinez didn’t do much to warrant attention in the first start but this could be an interesting spot. I’m not going to hold it against Martinez that the Reds beat him up a bit and the Brewers….they are not the Reds. Milwaukee is whiffing at a top-four rate so far this year to RHP at 29.2%. They also match that with a bottom-six standing in OBP, OPS, wOBA, and wRC+. I’m willing to continue to pick on the Brewers to some extent until they make me stop. I’m taking a stand (as much as you can for five games) and really honing in on these three pitchers. I don’t typically play lefty pitchers against the White Sox and Twins which leaves me not super interested in Yusei Kikuchi and Mike Minor.

Main Slate

Note – Tonight shapes up very similar to last night where I’m not 100% sure where the chalk goes writing the night before. I don’t see a lot of “safe” picks so let’s do it this way. I’m going to go over pitchers that I’m interested in and we’ll decide tomorrow how to divvy them up.

Ian Anderson ($8,900 DK/$8,600 FD)

Phillies Ranks vs Pitch Type – FB – 15th CH – 11th CB – 24th

First off, the pricing between DK and FD is way different tonight. Anderson is an exception as the price is pretty stagnant and I think he’s going to be my number one overall on this slate. It does fly in the face of my “pitchers against the same team twice is iffy” rule but there’s not much I can do about that. The walks are the main concern for him as through 37 IP in the majors, the walk rate is just over 10%. That’s truly not ideal but the K rate helps a lot at 30.4%. His CSW was at 33% in the first start, up 3% from 2020. The changeup is so important to him since it’s been his out pitch in the majors. He’s only allowed a .071 average and a .029 ISO on it thus far. Only one hitter has a FanGraphs rating of 1.0 or higher and it’s Didi Gregorius.

Anderson has been fairly even in his splits so far with a wOBA no higher than .252 and an average no higher than .186. He’s only given up two home runs and whiffs LHH at a 36.7% rate. Philly is only projected for three but the righties whiff at a 24.1% rate against Anderson thus far. We all know that Brian is a hater but when a pitcher has Anderson’s pedigree as a high-end prospect and has generated a 53.3% ground ball rate to go with a 25% hard-hit rate, I’m in.

Jordan Lyles ($6,000 DK)

Padres Ranks vs Pitch Types – FB – 21st CH – 18th CB – 20th

Lyles is a great example of the different pricing as he’s aggressively priced on FD but on DK, he’s very cheap. Now, I might well be misreading the situation but I feel like Lyles could pick up steam as the SP2 of choice in cash. He went almost six full innings last start even though he was supposed to be an opener. Lyles is far from the pitcher I’d use in cash on most nights but $6,000 could point us in that direction.

Since the Padres lost Fernando Tatis, they haven’t done a lot offensively. It’s only been three games but they’ve generated three, two, and three runs since. Lyles had the good stuff working in his first start with a 32.9% CSW and his strikeouts were evenly spread through his three main pitches. I certainly don’t expect Lyles to maintain a 34.8% K rate like the first start. I mean, his career rate is 17.2%. Still, we don’t get pitchers at this salary that we can actually make a case for. San Diego is 30th in K rate to RHP so far at just 18.8% but I don’t need 7-8 whiffs at this salary.

Julio Urias ($9,500 DK/$10,000 FD)

Nationals Ranks vs Pitch Types – FB – 13th CH – 14th CB – 4th

I typically will not give lefties against the Nationals much of a look, but Urias has to be discussed tonight. It’s kind of funny that he’s still only 24 even though it feels like he’s been pitching for about six years. Coors Field can be a tough place for pitchers but Urias just went seven and whiffed six hitters in his first start. The CSW sat at 34.2% which is excellent and his changeup did most of the damage with four of the six strikeouts. It’s interesting to note that his changeup velocity was up about 2 MPH so perhaps that made a difference. The Rockies only made hard contact 11% of the time in the first start as well.

Washington is already 16th in plate appearances against lefties and displaying why they can be a dangerous lineup. The .417 wOBA as a team is second only to Houston, as is the .958 OPS. They’re also ninth in walk rate already but they are whiffing 27.7% of the time which is the seventh-most among teams with 50 or more plate appearances. This is a really interesting spot. If Urias is going to break out this year, getting through lineups like this could be the key. I’m not paying top dollar in cash unless the projected chalkiness is overwhelming, but GPP is interesting.

Jeff Hoffman ($6,900 DK/$7,700 FD)

D-Backs Ranks vs Pitch Types – FB – 6th SL – 30th CH – 28th CB – 23rd

I’m really hesitant to put a lot of faith into Hoffman based on one start. He was excellent last time out, striking out six hitters across five innings. The CSW was 29.9% which would be a career-high ratio and he allowed hard contact under 28% of the time. It has to be noted that he started throwing a slider, which he hasn’t done regularly since 2018. Folks might look at the 9.28 ERA last season but A. it was across just 21.1 IP out of the bullpen and B. Hoffman has a 4.86 ERA career outside of Coors Field. Certainly, that’s not great or anything but the 7.36 in Coors drives some of his stats.

We’ve been talking about it the past couple of days but Arizona continues to be a weaker offense without Ketel Marte. They did score five last night but that was against a bullpen that had to take over in the fifth inning. The fact that they are dead last to the slider catches my eye as well. This isn’t to say Hoffman is safe (he is NOT), but a new team may give him a new lease on his pitching outlook. He’s still under $7,000 and deserves a look, at least. Just understand I feel he’s the riskiest pitcher we’ll discuss.

Steven Matz ($8,700 DK/$9,200 FD)

Angels Ranks vs Pitch Types – FB – 8th CH – 17th CB – 29th

I deliberately saved Matz for last in Starting Rotation 4.10 because I’m betting I’m going to be on a limb here for the most part. I’m not going to sit here and pound the table and say Matz is going to smash the Angels and he’s the best play of the slate. What I am going to say is I think the Angels may be a little bit overrated against lefty pitching. Let’s just take a look at the qualified hitters last season against LHP –

So obviously Matz has to deal with Anthony Rendon and Mike Trout. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. I’m not super concerned with David Fletcher’s .145 ISO and Justin Upton features a 32.4% K rate. After that, Shohei Ohtani and Jared Walsh are lefty hitters. Matz has a career 0.71 HR/9 to the left side of the plate and just a .264 average. Ohtani’s wOBA was under .300 against lefties last year as it was.

Matz had his velocity up and the CSW was at 33%. It’s not hard to see why when he was throwing pitches like this –

Steven Matz, K'ing the side.

K's 6, 7 and 8. pic.twitter.com/bM0GnxtiE0
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 5, 2021

That changeup was just falling right off the table to go along with 95-96 MPH gas. He was also using the changeup more than ever before so his approach is slightly different as well. If the Angels project to be chalky again, playing Matz could be some really fun leverage and a risk/reward pick for GPP.

Gas Can of the Slate – I’m really liking the Blue Jays tonight… I kid, I kid. I mean I am sort of interested but they have been tough to peg down in the early going. Instead, I’ll focus elsewhere. It’s possible that Chris Paddack for the Padres just isn’t that good and I’m pretty interested in Texas bats tonight. He’s always been worse on the road and his HR/9 to LHH away from San Diego is 2.09. The K rate also dips below 20% and the middle of the order looks awfully appealing. David Dahl is likely back in the lineup after an illness, Nate Lowe is sporting a .953 OPS already and Joey Gallo is hitting above .270. These three hitters are three of the top four changeup hitters on the Rangers and Paddack gave up 11 homers on the fastball last year. They are super cheap and affords you some big bats like J.D. Martinez against a lefty or possibly some Dodgers righties.

Secondary Targets – Possibly Jonah Heim, we’ll need the lineup

Starting Rotation 4.10 Betting Section

Free Bet

Record – 6-3

Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 4.10 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!

4 years ago 0 comments

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Starting Rotation 4.9

Adam Strangis 4 years ago

written by Adam Strangis

Starting Rotation 4.9

We’re back in action for Friday and it’s a smaller slate than we’re accustomed to but there’s money to be made nonetheless. Starting Rotation was about as good as it can get yesterday, nailing six of the top seven DK scores on the slate. If you played someone, your pitchers did well and that is simply what you love to see. I have to say that today’s slate looks like a challenge. If you’re just looking at the fantasy points per game, there are a ton of options. There’s also a lot of volatility to each pick so let’s dig into the Starting Rotation 4.9!

Starting Rotation 4.9 – Cash Picks

Lance McCullers ($9,100 DK/$9,000 FD)

A’s Ranks vs Pitch Types – SL – 25th FB – 28th CB – 19th CH – 20th

The fact McCullers is starting the cash picks should tip you off about how unstable some of these options are. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big McCullers fan but he’s not exactly known for his consistency. The first thing that jumps out at me for McCullers is hello to his new slider! He’s never thrown a slider before this season and McCullers introduced it with a bang, using it the most of any pitch. Of his seven strikeouts, six came from the slider and he didn’t give up a hit against it. Perhaps even more fascinating was that he threw it 34 total times and 33 came against righty hitters. Only three Oakland hitters are in the positives against the slider and one (Jed Lowrie) hits lefty.

There were other encouraging metrics as well, including an 80% ground ball rate and just 30% hard contact rate. On top of that, the 34.1% CSW would be the top number of his career if it held out. McCullers only went five and is not normally super efficient with his pitch count. That was the case last time with 95 pitches thrown but at least we know he’s stretched out, right? Some of the other plus signs with McCullers are his career ERA at home is 2.51 (save the jokes, only I make terrible jokes in this article) and both the FIP and xFIP were under three from the first turn. I never love McCullers in cash, but armed with a new pitch I’m willing to chase his strikeout upside a bit.

Tyler Mahle ($7,500 DK/$8,400 FD)

D-Backs Ranks vs Pitch Types – FB – 6th SL – 30th SF – 9th (i’s not a common pitch, so grain of salt)

I do have to note right off the bat that Statcast and FanGraphs disagree on pitch types. FanGraphs has Mahle throwing a cutter 21.4% and the slider only 8.3% so I’m not sure where the truth lies. Either way, Arizona is 13th against the cutter so I’m not freaked out if Mahle’s pitch is closer to a cut fastball. What did the damage for him was the four-seam and he sat 2 MPH higher than normal and it touched 98 MPH during that start. It was his main strikeout pitch as well so that’s always a nice trick to have up your sleeve.

Mahle generated a 32.1% CSW in his first start but he also got a little lucky by some measures. The hard-hit rate was 60% and his FIP was 6.05 compared to the 3.60 ERA. Another scary aspect is over his career, Mahle has scuffled significantly with lefties. They own a .371 wOBA, a .270 average, and a 2.10 HR/9. While he’s scheduled to face four of them in the D-Backs lineup, the quality of those lefties is questionable. Ketel Marte is on the IL so the most dangerous lefty might be Eduardo Escobar? We saw even in Coors they couldn’t get much going without Marte yesterday. I’m not totally on board with Mahle but he does fit nicely on DK as an SP2.

Cash/GPP Picks

Note – I’m throwing in two pitchers that interest me here but I can honestly say I don’t have a good handle on projected ownership the night before. We’ll go with the chalk in cash like always but we’ll need to wait until tomorrow to hash out exactly which pitcher goes into what category.

Zach Plesac ($9,600 DK/$8,600 FD)

Tigers Ranks vs Pitch Types – FB – 9th CH – 14th SL – 18th CB – 20th

We can’t skip Plesac in this article but I’ll be upfront and say I’m lukewarm about playing him as the highest-salaried pitcher on the slate for DK. I almost certainly wouldn’t for GPP if he’s chalky. Here’s my largest concern with Plesac coming into this start –

His 2019 wasn’t spectacular by any means. The K/9 was very mediocre at best and the FIP/xFIP combo was over 5.00, hiding his ERA of 3.81 in my view. That sample was over 115 IP, so not exactly a small amount. Last season he pitched well, and he was only 25 so folk thought he had taken a step forward. That could definitely still happen, but you can’t tell me his first start didn’t look identical to his 2019 season. we’re paying a top salary for that? I don’t know about all that.

The Tigers are still stringing out at a hefty mark of 26.6% so there’s plenty of room for Plesac to rack up some strikeouts and pay off. I just am not convinced that’s super likely. His fly-ball rate coming out of that start was over 47% and his CSW was 17% Last season it was 29.5% so that’s a big jump. Most pitchers so far have seen it be relatively stagnant through a start or two. This could be chalked up to an average start but Plesac has a lot more time as an average pitcher in the majors than a good one right now. Look, if he’s chalk I’ll play him in cash but my overall interest isn’t that high.

Joe Musgrove ($8,500 DK/$9,700 FD)

Rangers Ranks vs Pitch Type – CT – 14th SL – 14th FB – 7th CH – 23rd

Big Joe Musgrove was on fire the last start, going six innings and whiffing eight hitters. I’ve always felt his raw stuff could have him in the mix for a very strong two or three starter in the league, and he flashed all of it last game. So why is he not in the sure-fire cash game picks? Texas has a bad offense by our preseason educated guess, right? Not so fast, at least to this point in the season.

I fully expect after 162 games, the Rangers will have a sub-par offense. At this juncture, they are smacking around righty pitching with a .402 wOBA, .183 ISO, .913 OPS, and a .408 slugging. All of those marks are inside the top-eight in baseball currently. The K rate is over 26% but Musgrove also has a career .326 wOBA to LHH. He’ll face four or five tonight and that could be problematic. His CSW after one start is a massive 42.3% in part because his velocity was up across the board on every pitch. If he’s not chalky, I won’t take that risk in cash but I like Musgrove to tame the Rangers’ offense. It’s just a matter of format as to where I would play him.

Honorable Mention – Possibly above all else, I’m not sure what to do with Zack Wheeler. There’s no denying that he was phenomenal against the Braves the first time out, with seven innings and 10 strikeouts. The CSW was 36.7% and his velocity was up a little bit as well. Atlanta has started slowly overall with a K rate over 30% to righty pitching and a bottom-six mark in wOBA but I’m not sure how long that lasts. I don’t think we’ll make money, in the long run, targeting Atlanta’s offense and I’m not looking to do it tonight. For me, he’s totally out on FD as the most expensive option. I’m not sold on Wheeler yet, but as always will let the projected chalk guide me.

Gas Can of the Slate – This might be the first main slate we’ve had access to the 2021 version of the Big Red Machine. They won’t see my Buccos pitching tonight, but they do draw Taylor Widener of the D-Backs. He pitched well enough against the Padres in his first start but we have 120 innings from 2019 on between AAA and the majors. In that time frame, his HR/9 has been over 2.00 with a fly ball rate over 40%. His xFIP during that time is over 5.55 so there’s nothing in his profile that makes me think we should shy away.

Enter the Reds, who are literally top-two in average, slugging, OPS, ISO, wOBA, and wRC+ at this stage of the season. Widener used his fastball over 70% of the time in that first start and in his 26 IP has a career .397 wOBA, .268 average, and a 2.70 HR/9 to LHH. Enter Mike Moustakas who feels like a must-play at just $4,100. He’s mashing with a .520 wOBA so far and the price simply isn’t high enough. Additionally, he was the third-best fastball hitter last year behind Joey Votto and Nick Castellanos. He’s the lone expensive Red but is their best fastball hitter and is nuclear at the plate right now. Keep an eye out for cheap lefties like Tyler Naquin and Tucker Barnhart as well to take advantage of the lefty weakness for Widener. I’ll stack Reds until they make me stop.

Secondary Options – Jonathan India, Eugenio Suarez

Starting Rotation 4.9 Betting Section

Free Bet

Yesterday was a Cubs and Mets ML parlay, so I’d like to say good morning to Michael Conforto and I hope that fastball you’re getting hit with later on doesn’t hurt too badly.

Record – 6-3

Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 4.9 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!

4 years ago 0 comments

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Starting Rotation 4.8

Adam Strangis 4 years ago

written by Adam Strangis

Starting Rotation 4.8

We have another quick turnaround for MLB as we get a seven-game slate at 1:10 PM. Yesterday got a bit dicey in cash games but it was a good example of why we eat chalk anytime we can. Milwaukee’s Brandon Woodruff scored just over 30 DK points and totally dominated. He was only 4% rostered so it looked great…until the 42% Jack Flaherty started pitching and we started going backward. It didn’t help that Alec Bohm went nuts at about 35% so hitting the chalk hitters is always super important. With that in mind, let’s get into this slate and find who we need to focus on in the Starting Rotation 4.8 to fin the green screens!

Starting Rotation 4.8 – Cash Picks

Corbin Burnes ($9,400 DK/$$9,400 FD)

Cardinals Ranks vs Pitch Types – CT – 17th FB -26th CH – 14th SL – 5th CB – 23rd

I’m in love with this spot for Burnes. Based on one start, he’s upped his cutter usage and dropped the sinker usage way down which is a great sign. The three off-speed pitches are roughly used the same but the cutter has been his most valuable weapon in his arsenal. Burnes really broke out last year when he added the cutter and it was lethal, racking up a .169 average, .085 ISO, and 34 strikeouts. That was easily his out pitch last season and eight of his 11 whiffs in the first game came from (stop me if you heard it before) – the cutter.

The Cards are flirting with a 28% K rate to righty pitching so far and Burnes owned the right side of the plate last season with a .207 wOBA given up and a .140 average. St. Louis will typically be a righty-heavy lineup with five in their everyday lineup and the pitcher spot. The only hitters St. Louis had with a rating over 1.0 against the cutter are Paul Goldschmidt and Tommy Edman. In the first start, Burnes had a massive 39.1% CSW (reminder that’s called+swinging strikes) and that’s almost 10% higher than 2020. He had a top-three rated cutter by FanGraphs value last season and has picked up right where he left off. He is my number one play on the board in a vacuum, so we’ll see how chalky he’s projecting for tomorrow.

Jake Arrieta ($8,500 DK/$8,500 FD)

Pirates Ranks vs Pitch Types – FB – 22nd CB – 27th SL – 13th

To those folks who are new to baseball, one aspect I’m typically going to shy away from is pitchers who see the same team twice in a row. I’ve seen stats on both sides of the fence here, but as a rule of thumb, a team has a better idea of how to combat a pitcher if they get said pitcher two straight starts. Arrieta finds himself as an exception today because my rebuilding Buccos are dog water offensively. That’s being…generous since Ke’Bryan Hayes will still be missing in action. The 26.3% K rate is poor along with a .192 average as a team. Arrieta surpassed 20 DK points in his first start and seems primed to do it again.

Now, if the field doesn’t move towards Arrieta I will happily not use him today (or any day). This is a pitcher that hasn’t had a K rate over 19.1% since 2017. The strikeout is the great equalizer in DFS and that’s why we don’t care if pitchers like Shane Bieber give up a homer or two along the way when they whiff 12. Even though Arrieta went six strong in the first game, there were some not-so-great metrics. He gave up a hard-hit rate of 44.4% and his ground ball rate was a ghastly 27.8%. If he’s not generating ground balls, Arrieta will get ambushed by better offenses. Last season saw Arrieta give up a 1.77 HR/9 to LHH and he does face four but Colin Moran is about the only one that worries you. Going lower than Arrieta in cash is a little scary so I feel the field will gravitate here as their default SP2.

Lance Lynn ($8,700 DK)

Royals Ranks vs Pitch Types – FB – 1st CT – 19th

The DK price is the only one listed as I have little interest over on FD when Burnes is $500 more. Lynn is such an oddball pitcher. He doesn’t really throw much else but variations of his fastball and yet…here he is just plugging away striking hitters out. One of his best aspects is his pitch count. This guy is a machine and he threw 99 pitches in his first turn. In 2020, he hit at least 102 pitches in every single start, which is quite notable in this day and age. For one, pitchers just don’t do that all the time and that means he wasn’t getting knocked around either. The Royals ranking first against the four-seam is somewhat of a concern but Lynn threw it 67.8% of the time last year so that’s just what he does.

His CSW was up by about 1% in the first game and the velocity was up a tick as well, both good signs for Lynn coming out of the gate. It’s definitely too much to expect him to sit down 12 hitters like Bieber did yesterday but a strong six innings are well within reach. If I have one fear, it’s his righty splits. They did get to him a bit last year with a wOBA over .330 and a 1.73 HR/9. I tend to think that Arrieta is more popular for this reason. The Royals have their power on the right side of the plate. They also have just a 23.9% K rate so far so I’m interested to see what the field is projected to do here.

Honorable Mention – None

Starting Rotation 4.8 – GPP Picks

Jose Berrios ($9,800 DK/$9,600 FD)

Mariners Ranks vs Pitch Types – FB – 27th CB – 15th CH – 1st

If you just open up the slate and look at my cash picks, you’re likely asking yourself why Berrios isn’t there. This guy just rocked for 40 (!) DK points, wouldn’t we want him in Seattle against an offense that is whiffing 28.6% to righty pitching? The answer is both yes and no in my eyes. The first reason we might just roll with Burnes outside of my love for him is Berrios is not going to score 40 DK again. Sorry, he just isn’t. Now it’s also fair to say that Burnes likely doesn’t hit 30+ again but Berrios as the highest-salaried pitcher is downright scary in my view.

We talked about last time his curve has been the key for him and it was in this first game. He recorded eight strikeouts with it but Seattle has held their own against the curve so far. The Mariners are also 12th in wRC+ and above average in wOBA, ISO, and OPS so far this season. They whiff but they are dangerous at the same time. We saw that against Lucas Giolito a couple of nights ago. Berrios recorded a 41.7% CSW and he’s never been above 29.2% in any season. Both Burnes and Berrios feel like we’re chasing a touch but I think Burnes has the clearer path to success. If Berrios is overwhelming chalk, we’ll ride it in cash without question but Burnes would be intriguing leverage.

Adam Wainwright ($7,500 DK/$7,400 FD)

Brewers Ranks vs Pitch Type – CT – 9th CB – 25th FB – 21st CH – 8th

I am very aware that Waino sports a -8.8 in his DK points per game column but this could be a very good get right spot. His best days are long behind him but there are spots where we can take calculated risks with him. Considering how the Brewers offense has started out, I’m looking to attack until they give me a reason not to. They are no higher than 25th in OBP, slugging, OPS, ISO, wOBA, and wRC+ against righties so far this season. Their K rate is flirting with 31% as a team and they aren’t getting much going.

Still, understand the risk you’re walking into. Wainwright did struggle a little bit with lefties and homers last year, sporting a 1.95 HR/9 and only a 17.2% K rate. He should face four lefties in the lineup tomorrow in Kolten Wong, Christian Yelich, Omar Narvaez, and Travis Shaw. In the first start, Waino generated a 57.1% ground ball rate but got BABIP’d to death with a .462 mark. The Reds offense is a much better group than the Brew Crew and Waino either turns back the clock or flops. At his age, it’s not always a graceful decline so be cautious.

Jon Gray ($7,000 DK/$6,200 FD)

D-Backs Ranks vs Pitch Types – FB – 4th SL – 28th CH – 29th

Let’s get nuts. Look, pitching overall on this slate isn’t anything to write home about and Gray is coming off a stellar start against the Dodgers in Coors Field. Not many pitchers emerge from that with 20 DK points but that’s exactly what Gray did last game. On the surface, not much really jumps out. The velocity was in line with 2020 and the CSW wasn’t anything different for him at 29.3%. That doesn’t mean I expect him to suddenly strike out 35% of the hitters like he did but the Arizona offense is sputtering and sadly will likely be without Ketel Marte in this game. He left last night with what looked like a not-insignificant hamstring injury.

Even with Marte smoking the ball early, Arizona hasn’t done much as they are 21st in wOBA, 14th in ISO (.160), 18th in OPS, and 21st in wRC+. Taking Marte out of the lineup isn’t going to help those marks in the least. To no surprise, he’s also their best fastball hitter so that mark deflates without him as well. Gray is not reliable at all but he does have a 4.61 ERA career in Coors and is only slightly worse to LHH. With no Marte, there are worse risks to take and he’s as cheap as you can go on FD.

Honorable Mention – Tyler Anderson

Gas Can of the Slate – The Marlins are rolling Nick Neidert out tomorrow so I’m pretty interested in Mets hitters. Neidert only has a combined 49.1 IP above AA ball, with 8.1 coming in the majors last season. He hasn’t displayed strikeout stuff very much, sitting at under 20% in any action since 2019. In that season with A+ ball, his fly-ball rate was over 50%. If these ratios stick, he’s going to get crushed in the majors. He’s a heavy fastball pitcher and I’m looking at the typical suspects of Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, and the lefty outfielders of Brandon Nimmo and Michael Conforto. Alonso and Lindor are both under $5,000 so let’s pick on the new guy and LGM!

Starting Rotation 4.6 Betting Section

Free Strikeout Prop

TBD

Record – 5-3

Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 4.8 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!

4 years ago 0 comments

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Starting Rotation 4.7

Adam Strangis 4 years ago

written by Adam Strangis

Starting Rotation 4.7

The train keeps on rolling today and we get our first big day slate as Wednesday tends to be the getaway day for a lot of teams. Generally, this is a good spot to punt catchers since the starter played the night before. We have two really strong arms at the top of the salary chain today so we may need a punt or two in the Starting Rotation 4.7!

Starting Rotation 4.7 – Cash Picks

Shane Bieber ($10,600 DK/$11,500 FD)

Royals Ranks vs Pitch Type – FB – 1st SL – 17th CB – 17th

There are not many pitchers who can give up three runs and still rack up over 26 DK but that’s exactly what Bieber did in his first game. It was really just the first two innings where things were a bit rocky so I have exactly zero fears about Bieber himself in this spot. I still expect there to be some sort of regression Fromm a 41.1% K rate last year but you wouldn’t know it from the first start. The CSW was at 40% which is 6.2% higher than what he displayed last season. The only “concern” I could come up with is the velocity was down just a tick but he still managed to whiff 12 hitters so it wasn’t that big of a deal for Bieber.

By the splits, I could see Bieber giving up a bomb or possibly two again because the power he gave came from the right side of the plate. RHH had a 1.36 HR/9 against him last season and the Royals’ power is White Merrifield, Jorge Soler, and Salvador Perez. They are all righties but Perez and Soler whiff over 23% to RHP and Soler was over 35% in 2020. I don’t care much if my pitcher gives up a homer once in a while when he’s one of the best strikeout artists in the game.

Trevor Bauer ($10,200 DK/$11,500 FD)

A’s Ranks vs Pitch Type – FB -27th SL – 25th CB – 12th

I’m certainly not going to kill Bauer for giving up some production in Coors Field, because plenty of pitchers will. It was good to see his strikeout stuff working right out of the gate with 10 strikeouts. Much like we talked about with Clayton Kershaw last night, the pitching environments don’t get much more opposite than Oakland and Coors.
Last year Bauer simply dominated righty hitters with a .192 wOBA and a .146 average to go with a 34.1% K rate. Lefties whiffed 37.7% of the time but did have a 1.89 HR/9. That facet is muted in Oakland and the A’s have really scuffled out of the gate. They’re striking out almost 29% of the time to righty pitching and five of the hitters are projected to be righties. The lefties include Mitch Moreland and Matt Olson who could pop for a homer, but they carry K rates over 25% in the early going. If we can comfortably fit both pitchers on DK, we could be looking at 20+ strikeouts combined.

Brandon Woodruff ($7,200 DK/$7,600 FD)

Cubs Ranks vs Pitch Types – FB – 18th CH – 14th SL – 18th

The first game didn’t go Woodruff’s way but I’m not sure someone who has this style of strikeout stuff should ever be this cheap. He whiffed 31.1% last season and still struck out 25% on the first start while he featured a .462 BABIP. That’s not happening again. We featured last night that the Cubbies struggle against the fastball and Woodruff throws a variation of it around 55-60% of the time. Freddy Peralta whiffed eight hitters last night and Woodruff could replicate that feat. His velocity was up about 1 MPH in that first start as well. Even the CSW rate was only down 2% so there aren’t any huge warning signs here. The fly ball rate was about 36% last year and only 16.7% in his first start which continues the positive takeaways from the metrics. Chicago is striking out over 27% of the time so far to righties and sitting 25th in wOBA. If I don’t have a route to play Bauer and Bieber, I’m likely to pair one of them with Woodruff.

Honorable Mention – Kenta Maeda, Aaron Nola

Starting Rotation 4.7 – GPP Picks

Blake Snell ($9,900 DK/$9,800 FD)

Giants Ranks vs Pitch Types – FB – 14th CH – 3rd SL – 27th

The pricing difference is more significant over on FD but Snell might get overlooked fairly easily on this slate with Bieber and Bauer right above him. Snell was fine in his first start but didn’t exactly make a statement about how far he could go in a game. Snell couldn’t get through five innings and Bieber and Bauer are very much safer. It also doesn’t help that the Giants smacked lefties last season and have picked up where they left off this year. They are only whiffing 17.6%, are fourth in ISO, have a .365 wOBA, and a .883 OPS as a team.

Now, Snell is still very talented and struck out eight hitters in that first start. The CSW was directly in line a 29.1% with what it was last season. Anytime we can get a very talented pitcher at (I’m assuming) lower popularity, it’s worth looking at in GPP. He should face a righty-heavy lineup and he whiffed them at a 27.6% rate last year with just a .232 average.

Hyun Jin Ryu ($7,300 DK/$8,200 FD)

Rangers Ranks vs Pitch Types – CH -16th CT – 10th FB – 20th

I really dig this spot for Ryu. First off, the Rangers are striking out a ton against lefty pitching so far this year. Heading into last night, Texas had the sixth-most plate appearances against the handedness. The five teams ahead of them have a high-water mark of a 17.6% strikeout rate. Texas is at 32.7% and their most dangerous bats are on the left side of the plate. Joey Gallo and Nate Lowe are lefties and Ryu held LHH to a .249 wOBA last season. He survived in Yankee Stadium and this is a much softer matchup. The CSW was down a little bit at 22.8% in the first start but it was the Yankees, so that’s tough to gauge. You can make a strong argument to approach GPP’s as a Woodruff/Ryu pair with maybe a Blue Jays stack.

Pablo Lopez ($6,800 DK/$7,300 FD)

Cardinals Ranks vs Pitch Types – FB -17th CH – 11th CT – 27th CB – 24th

I don’t think many will go to this play and I’m hoping they don’t. I’m a Lopez fanboy but this spot is solid for him. He’s at home and that’s always been a factor as his home ERA is three runs better than the road version. Lopez is also worse to LHH with a .310 wOBA, .269 average, and a 14.7% K rate. The Cardinals lineup is only projected for three lefties. The RHH are good hitters with the likes of Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado but the 36% K rate to RHH in 2020 looks excellent for Lopez. St. Louis is striking out at a 26.3% rate so far against righty pitching which works in our favor as well. Lopez only struck out four hitters in the first start but the 29.9% CSW would be the highest rate of his career if it held up. With Woodruff and Ryu sitting just a little higher, Lopez will likely get the Snell treatment. The Field will skip over him and we can likely get Lopez at single digits.

Honorable Mention – Kevin Gausman since the Padres offense is missing Fernando Tatis for the foreseeable future

Gas Can To Attack – I have a feeling that Brian will talk about the Blue Jays and they are absolutely a great play. They are getting up there in price so I’m going to hone in on a team that has some cheaper hitters that could really do some damage today. Detroit’s Matt Boyd had an OK first start in the frigid weather against what could be a very brutal offense. You’ll have to excuse me if I’m not buying some renaissance here and I’m going with the Twins lineup. Last season Boyd gave a .410 wOBA and an ugly 2.55 HR/9. Enter some Minnesota hitters with the big gun being Nelson Cruz. My running joke is Cruz has been mashing lefties since the Jurassic Era. Last season, this dude whiffed under 8% and sported a .586 wOBA, .442 ISO, 1.445 OPS, and a 283 wRC+. My word. Lock him in.

My next two pieces are Byron Buxton who has been ON FIRE to start the season with three bombs and a stolen base already. He’s under $4,000 and I suspect he’ll be very chalky. The .250 ISO last season against lefties is nothing to sneer at either. I don’t always spend on catcher but Mitch Garver is really on my radar as well. He had a .360 wOBA last season and should be able to take advantage of Boyd in this spot.

Secondary Hitters – Jorge Polanco, Willians Astudillo (can’t spell that last name without Stud)

Betting Section

Free Strikeout Prop

TBD

Record – 3-3

Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 4.7 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!

4 years ago 0 comments

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Starting Rotation 4.5

Adam Strangis 4 years ago

written by Adam Strangis

Starting Rotation 4.5

The Monday slate ahead of us seems a little weird. It’s always a fun time when we get Jacob deGrom on the mound because we can wax poetic on how awesome he is. The issue with tonight’s slate is the quality of pitchers goes downhill in a hurry. DK is going to be a challenge to find that SP2 but that’s what the Starting Rotation 4.5 is here to do so let’s dig in!

Starting Rotation 4.5 – The Lock

Jacob deGrom ($10,700 DK/$11,000 FD)

FB – 44.9% (7th) SL – 35.6% (10th) CH – 16.9% (4th) CB was under 3%

Listen, we have a running joke in the Discord that if you don’t play a player that the staff thinks is a lock, you get The Slap. That means we send a GIF of someone getting slapped in the face. deGrom is that player tonight. The quality of the starting options is not that great after deGrom. He is a stone lock in cash games and honestly, I’ll happily eat this chalk in GPP as well. On paper, no alternative should get all that close as far as potential for fantasy points.

Looking back at last season, deGrom had a K rate of 38.8% to go with a 2.38 ERA. That mark looks accurate with a 2.26 FIP and 2.46 xFIP with just a 0.93 HR/9. deGrom is also a pitcher that I don’t sweat the pitch data looking strong for the Phillies. The fastball/slider combo was valued at 11th each among starters last year via FanGraphs.com and he’s on the shortlist of the best pitcher in baseball. Even the splits favor deGrom as he held RHH to a .221 wOBA and whiffed them over 42% of the time. Philly is projected for five righties and the pitcher spot. Good luck with that.

Note – If you want to get really crazy in GPP, a hitter like Bryce Harper could be interesting. deGrom gave up a 1.05 HR/9 to lefties and with the insane amount of popularity deGrom will carry, nobody will pay for Harper.

The Best of The Rest

Dustin May ($8,800 DK)

FB – 56.9% (16th) CT – 24.6% (11th) CB – 13.4% (14th) CH was 5.1%

This is where it starts o get tricky. May checks in as likely the “safest” SP2 but I’m certainly not in love with him. His raw stuff is very good –

Dustin May, Wiffle Ball Two Seamer (with tail) pic.twitter.com/7X1BvWFOKy
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) March 31, 2021

The issue for May is the stuff hasn’t exactly played as you would want in the majors. Over his 90.2 IP so far, the K rate is under 21%. He also started to get taken out of the yard with a bit more regularity, sporting a 1.45 HR/9 last season. I’m not super concerned with that as he’s never had a mark over 0.89 at any level in his career, but we have to at least note it. We do love to see a hard-hit rate under 29% ( I mean, you try to hit that two-seamer) and a fly ball rate at 26.1%. Oakland was a pretty average team in K rate last year at 23.7% but they’ve started out the year at almost 28% against righty pitching.

One metric that could help May is the A’s are projected to be slightly righty heavy with five in the lineup. May held the right side of the plate to a .226 wOBA, .198 average, and whiffed 21.8% of them. Oakland was (and should continue to be) one of the friendliest parks to pitchers as well. May might not have the normal upside we want at this price range, but I do feel like he’s the best option as far as safety goes. I would likely lean towards him as my cash game SP2.

Michael Wacha ($7,200 DK)

FB – 42.5% (9th) CT – 27.1% (22nd) CH – 29.2% (12th) CB was 1.1%

This might seem a little odd but I’m willing to test this Red Sox lineup while they’re down and out. They just got smoked over their three-game set against the Orioles and only scored five runs in the process. They tied for the second-worst OPS and the third-worst average through the three games. Now, it’s a three-game sample so let’s not get too nuts. At the same time, Boston’s lineup after J.D. Martinez, Xander Bogaerts, and Rafael Devers is questionable at best. Wacha hasn’t been super fantasy relevant for a little bit, but perhaps going to Tampa helps extract the best out of him.

Heading out of spring training, that theory looks like it could hold water. Through 15 innings, he gave up one run and whiffed 12 hitters. Last season he had issues with home runs with a 2.38 HR/9, in part due to a fly ball rate over 40% for the first time in his career. The changeup is his strikeout pitch with 24 of his 37 coming from that pitch. Only Bogaerts had a FanGraphs rating over 1.0 against that pitch last season, which is interesting. The splits didn’t look great for Wacha last year with at least a .347 wOBA to each side of the plate. You’re banking on Tampa Bay voodoo and Boston staying mired in a slump to start the year.

Carlos Rodon ($6,700 DK)

Only pitched 7.2 innings in 2020

This…this is a leap of faith. Rodon has gone from being a top-five pick in his draft to not being offered a contract at first during this past offseason. He eventually came back to the White Sox on a one-year prove-it deal and this will be his first start of the season. Rodon is in better shape this season and has worked on a fourth pitch this spring training. He’s always been a fastball/slider/changeup pitcher but did add a curve this year. It might only be spring training but he did whiff 16 hitters in 13.2 innings so perhaps things might just be clicking with a new approach to the game.

Seattle has added Mitch Haniger and Taylor Trammel from 2020 but my goodness were they awful against lefty pitching last season. They were dead last in average, OBP, OPS, wOBA, and wRC+. That came with a 27.3% K rate which was the third-most in baseball. Due to injury and other factors, Rodon has pitched a combined 42.1 innings since 2018. This is an unknown commodity but with a career 22.6% K rate, he’s cheap enough to take some chances with tonight.

Honorable Mention – Adrian Morejon carries a pedigree and a big fastball, sitting around 96 MPH. The young lefty hasn’t fared well over 27.1 IP so far in the majors and facing the Giants is not a great spot to trot out an unproven lefty. Still, young pitchers with talent can find things quickly and he does sport a K rate of 28.1% in his career with just a 5.1% walk rate. The price is a touch too high for my liking overall.

Gas Can To Attack – Brian is going to preach the White Sox stack which I love and agree with so I’ll take a different track. The Houston Astros could be slightly overlooked on this slate because the Angels starter Jose Quintana isn’t frightfully bad. However, the Astros smack lefty pitching and have for a while. The main three that I want are Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa, and Yuli Gurriel. Bregman and Guriel both have ISO’s over .250 and wOBA’s over .365 while Correa is not far behind in wOBA at .330. If you go back to 2019 (i.e. not a 60 game season) Correa had a monster .405 wOBA and .231 ISO against southpaws.

Quintana only threw 10 innings last season so I’m more looking at his 2019 year when he only whiffed 20.4% of the hitters he faced. He’s used a three-pitch mix of fastball/curveball/changeup but it was mostly the first two offerings. Dial it back to 2019 and Gurriel and Bregman were third and seventh against the curve in all of MLB. I really like this spot and with the price of Correa and Gurriel, the stack is easy to build salary-wise.

Secondary Pieces – Kyle Tucker, Martin Maldonado, Yordan Alvarez

Starting Rotation 4.5 Betting Section

Free Strikeout Prop

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!

Jacob deGrom O 8.5 K’s -139

Record – 2-2

Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 4.5 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!

4 years ago 0 comments

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Starting Rotation 4.4

Adam Strangis 4 years ago

written by Adam Strangis

Starting Rotation 4.4

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!

Starting Rotation 4.4 Cash Picks

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

Starting Rotation 4.4 GPP Picks

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.

Starting Rotation 4.3 Betting Section

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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!

4 years ago 0 comments

MLB Premium

Starting Rotation 4.3

Adam Strangis 4 years ago

written by Adam Strangis

Starting Rotation 4.3

Saturday brings us our first split slate of the season and both sides have it split right down the middle with five games on each. When we hit those days, the game plan for this article will be to have a notes-based approach to one slate and then the full breakdown to the other. For today, we’ll hit some notes for the early slate and then breakdown the “main” slate that starts at seven o’clock. Let’s get right into the action on the mound for the games today in the Starting Rotation 4.3 and find the green screens!

Starting Rotation 4.3 – Early Slate Notes

Cash – Pitching on both slates isn’t anything to write home about but it’s a big yikes on the early slate. I honestly wouldn’t play cash on DK as I can’t find a second pitcher I’m comfortable with. Zach Plesac is almost surely going to be chalk on each site and it’s hard to argue. He boasted a 27.7% K rate last season and the Tigers whiffed 14 times total in the first game. Sure, most of that was Shane Bieber but this is still an offense that struck out at the highest percentage against righties last season. Plesac featured a pitch mix last season of a fastball, slider, and changeup. Detroit was 29th against the slider and 20th against the change and those two pitches made up about 52% of Plesac’s offerings in 2020.

GPP – So we’re not going to mess with cash on the early slate, at least on DK. FD it makes a little more sense because you just lock Plesac and move on. The other options on DK include a completely unknown version of Corey Kluber against a Toronto offense at over $10,000. That’s a hard pass for me. He’s coming off injuries and ineffectiveness. The “best” option in my eyes may just be the debuting Kohei Arihara. We can use this blog from fangraphs.com to get an idea of what to expect from the Japanese player. His fastball is around 92 MPH which can play in the majors. Seeing as how he’s less expensive than some hitters on this slate, I’m willing to punt and hope he’s passable with 10 DK or so. Kansas City was about average in K rate last year and Arihara is the least scary option.

Gas Can To Attack – I’m going to add this section to the article. We always talk about who I’m playing but not who I’m attacking. The early slate brings us plenty of options but the main two I’m going after are Matt Harvey and Tyler Anderson. Harvey hasn’t been good in…well… a long time. In 2019 over 59 innings he had a 7.09 ERA with a 9.45 FIP. His HR/9 in that season was over 1.73 to either side of the plate and last year he only pitched 11 innings. Wheels up with the Boston offense like J.D. Martinez, Xander Bogaerts, and Rafael Devers especially.

As far as Anderson goes, I love playing Cubs against lefty pitching. He pitched for the Giants last season and when he was away from San Francisco, the ERA ballooned to 6.83. The K rate is 21% for his career and it fell to 15.8% last season so there is production to be had. I will say the Cubs as a team took a dip last year against the lefties but this is where I feel the 60 game schedule plays a role. In 2019, Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, and Willson Contreras all had ISO’s over .300 against lefties. Even Ian Happ was above .230 in that category and they all had wOBA’s over .320 (the first trio were over .400). The early look at the weather has the wind blowing out on top of it, which is always a boon to Wrigley hitters.

Starting Rotation 4.3 Cash Picks – Main Slate

Corbin Burnes ($8,000 DK/$9,200 FD)

FB – 36.5% (17th) CT – 31.4% (23rd) all other pitches were under 13%

Much like yesterday, there’s not a pitcher that is a slam dunk option in my eyes. Burnes is going to be the closet for two main reasons. First, he’s sporting the best K rate from 2020 on the slate at 36.7% and that is massive. He does walk his fair share of hitters at 10% but the K rate makes up for it. Burnes also cut into a monster HR/9 from 2019. That season it was 3.12 but last year it went down to 0.30. The biggest reason (and the second reason I like Burnes) was he added a cutter in 2020 and it was positively evil.

Only two other pitchers had a higher valued cutter in 2020 and they were Dallas Keuchel and Yu Darvish. That’s not bad company to keep. He threw it 300 times total and recorded 34 of his 88 strikeouts with it. Opposing hitters managed just a .169 average and a .085 ISO against it, and the Twins were near the bottom of the league against that pitch last year. The pitch hovers around 96 MPH with some nice vertical movement. The cherry on top is Burnes shut righties down last year, holding them to a .207 wOBA and a .140 average. With Minnesota’s projected lineup sporting five RHH and a pitcher’s spot, things line up very well for Burnes. The Twins are a dangerous team but they can be had with a 24.4% K rate last year against RHP.

Joe Musgrove ($8,600 DK/$8,600 FD)

FB – 39.1% (29th) SL – 24.2% (4th) CB – 19.9% (7th) CH was under 11%

I don’t totally love Musgrove for cash but this is a tough slate for pitching generally. That isn’t to say he doesn’t sport some positive metrics. Last season (39.1 IP so the sample was small) saw Musgrove have his best stretch as far as K rate at 33.1%. He’s never been over 21.9% in a season so we have to expect that to come down somewhat but even 25% would be solid. Big Joe has always had good raw stuff and maybe he started to put it together.

The D-Backs don’t strike out a ton at just 20.3% and that is a slight concern here. The flip side of that is Musgrove allowed a hard contact rate under 25% last year along with a fly ball rate of just 31.2%. Another factor that helps Musgrove is he was actually slightly reverse splits last year. RHH hit him better with a .333 wOBA to a .290 mark to LHH. That’s out of character over his career so I don’t expect it to stick around but I won’t complain if he keeps Ketel Marte under wraps. Last year saw Musgrove display a 2.15 xFIP and a 35.3% K rate to the right side of the plate and that’s enough for an SP2 tonight.

Honorable Mention – Perhaps Lance Lynn but I don’t like using a lot of pitchers against the Angels

Starting Rotation 4.3 GPP Picks – Main Slate

Jose Berrios ($8,800 DK/$8,800 FD)

FB – 51.5% (24th) CB – 29.8% (21st) CH – 18.8% (24th)

I’ll be quite honest, myself and Mr. Berrios…we simply don’t get along. Listen, when his curveball is on, it’s a thing of beauty and he can get after any lineup. I’m just not sure I’ve ever rostered him on one of those days. Berrios can just be…underwhelming. That’s easy to say from my Lay-Z-Boy but hey, that’s what I’m here for. His K rate was 25.1% last year which was about his career-best number. The 4.00 ERA is fine and in line with the 4.28 xFIP and 4.05 FIP but again, there’s nothing spectacular there.

Berrios splits the fastball into a four-seam and a sinker about equally. He needs the curve to work because his four-seam gave up a .339 average and a .286 ISO last season. In contrast, the curve sat at a .169 average and a .060 ISO. There’s still upside by the splits because Berrios kept the ball in the yard against RHH last year with a 0.58 HR/9. Lefties displayed a 1.69 mark (hello Christian Yelich one-off) and the Brew Crew lineup is projected for four righties and the pitcher slot. Still, don’t be lulled into any thoughts of safety with Berrios.

Chris Flexen ($6,000 DK/$6,500 FD)

N/A as he pitched 2020 in the Korean Baseball League

I know Ghost is happy as he held down the KBO end of the Win Daily coverage when we had no sports to play. I’m looking at Flexen tonight in part because he’s quite cheap. We saw last night that Yusei Kikuchi was somewhat popular as a $6,000 pitcher and that could replicate. The Dodgers are still in Coors facing bad pitching, so we know the drill. To get a little bit of a better idea of Flexen, you can check out this short profile from USA Today.

The short story is Flexen went to Korea, lost around 35 pounds, and jumpstarted his career. He flopped with the Mets to the tune of an 8.07 ERA but found himself in the KBO. That doesn’t guarantee success by any stretch tonight. However, Flexen offers a curve, cutter, change, and fastball if he keeps the same repertoire with Seattle. He pitched 16 innings in the spring and whiffed 17 batters, capping it off with three scoreless innings. There’s no telling how he pitches tonight but he’s cheap enough to find out.

Honorable Mention – None

Gas Can To Attack – Jon Gray pitches in Coors tonight against the Dodgers. In the truncated season last year, he had an 8.39 ERA at home with a .412 wOBA and a 3.77 HR/9 to lefties. I’m not sure we need to go much further.

Starting Rotation 4.3 Betting Section

Free Strikeout Prop

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!

Record 1-1

Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 4.3 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!

4 years ago 0 comments

MLB

Starting Rotation 4.2

Adam Strangis 4 years ago

written by Adam Strangis

Starting Rotation 4.2

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!

Starting Rotation 4.2 Cash Picks

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

Starting Rotation 4.2 GPP Picks

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.

Starting Rotation 4.2 Betting Section

Free Strikeout Prop

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!

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!

4 years ago 0 comments

MLB

Starting Rotation Opening Day

Adam Strangis 4 years ago

written by Adam Strangis

Starting Rotation Opening Day

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!

Cash Picks

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.

GPP Picks

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.

Starting Rotation Opening Day

Free Strikeout Prop

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!

4 years ago 0 comments

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Starting Rotation 4.3

Starting Rotation 4.3 – Early Slate Notes

Starting Rotation 4.3 Cash Picks – Main Slate

Starting Rotation 4.3 GPP Picks – Main Slate

Starting Rotation 4.3 Betting Section

Free Strikeout Prop

Starting Rotation 4.2

Starting Rotation 4.2 Cash Picks

Starting Rotation 4.2 GPP Picks

Starting Rotation 4.2 Betting Section

Free Strikeout Prop

Starting Rotation Opening Day

Cash Picks

GPP Picks

Starting Rotation Opening Day

Free Strikeout Prop

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