MLB DFS

Starting Rotation 6.5

We have all 30 teams in action again today but DK has split them into nine and six-game slates. The larger slate is in the afternoon so we’ll be doing the full breakdown there (and we have options, score!), and then the six-game slate will be notes-based. There is a ton of ground to cover so let’s get rolling and dig into the Starting Rotation 6.5 to lay our framework for green screens! 

Starting Rotation 6.5 – Early Slate 

Brandon Woodruff

I worried about the ceiling potential for Freddy Peralta last night and all he did was take a no-hitter into the seventh. Milwaukee is a favorite of Starting Rotation because 60% of their rotation is in play every day, and Woodruff is one of those three. He has been lights out so far this season with a 1.27 ERA and only a 2.15 FIP and a 2.77 xFIP, so those are not concerns. The WHIP is under 0.70 and the K rate is just under 32% with a 31.4% CSW and 12.7% swinging-strike rate. 

His four-seam has been electric this season and is currently rated as the best fastball on FanGraphs. Of the 83 strikeouts recorded by Woodruff, 52 have come from the four-seam. It’s yielded a .088 average, .162 wOBA, and boasts a 30.5% whiff rate. The splits aren’t a big deal here either as both sides are under a .195 wOBA (lefties are at a .170 mark) and lefties also strike out a bit more at 33.6%. Woodruff has scored at least 32 DK in four of his last five starts and is honestly not priced accurately at $10,300. 

Lucas Giolito 

Giolito is on a roll in his last three starts with 21 IP, three ER, and 28 strikeouts. his is pretty much what we excepted from him at the start of the year and it’s been a bumpy road but we should all feel comfortable playing him. The last time he saw Detroit he only scored 16.2 DK points but manager Tony LaRussa (surprise to absolutely no one) made a bad call and left him in about 20 pitches too long. Giolito is back over a 30% K rate and he’s only getting hit hard 29.5% while sporting a 15.8% swinging-strike rate, which is seventh in baseball. 

Giolito’s changeup is the money pitch, ranked fifth in FanGraphs rating and it has racked up 48 of 78 strikeouts so far. It also sports the lowest average at .171 and the lowest wOBA at .229 with a 40.5% whiff rate. It also helps that Giolito is better to the left side of the plate with a .259 wOBA and the K rate is approaching 32%. With Detroit being mostly lefties, Giolito is in a great spot against an offense that has improved but still whiffs well over 25% of the time. 

Trevor Rogers 

This little tier is loaded and it’s honestly hard to pick just one. If you decided to go with John Means (love, love the spot for him) or Rich Hill (who offers very interesting salary savings over Means or Rogers), I’m not going to argue in the least. I’m siding with Rogers here because he gets the weakest offense to pick on, even with Ke’Bryan Hayes back for Pittsburgh. The Buccos rank 28th in wRC+, wOBA, ISO, OPS, and 23rd in OBP with a 23.7% K rate. Rogers comes into this game with a 1.87 ERA and a 3.26 xFIP but it doesn’t appear the Pirates can make that hurt.

He also sports a 30.5% K rate and his four-seam has 49 of 75 strikeouts to this point. With the Bucs ranking dead last against that pitch, we should be licking our chops for the upside here. The splits are very similar here with the K rate being almost dead equal and neither side of the plate hitting for over a .298 wOBA, and that’s the lefties. Pittsburgh typically has six righties plus the pitching spot in their lineup, perfect for Rogers. 

Chase De Jong 

If we just look at the career numbers, De Jong would be totally uninteresting. However, he’s followed the route of most pitchers and seen an increase in spin rate and velocity, and the strikeouts have followed. In the 20 IP this season in AAA, his K rate is 33.7% and it was 25% in his first start. Miami is a top-five K-rate team to righty pitching at 26.1% and is typically not anything to worry about offensively. Let’s check in with what Brian said before the last start –

De Jong touched 95 MPH in his previous start and the wOBA against the four-seam is only .189 in nine BBE. There’s plenty of risks here and maybe you don’t need to go this low, but De Jong has shown improvement on his pitches and we don’t need much at this salary from an SP2. 

Honorable Mention 

Aaron Civale – It’s hard to look past the Means, Rogers, and Hill trio but Civale could go totally overlooked with a very good shot at scoring 20 DK points. 

Jose Berrios – He’s put together three very strong starts in a row, which means Berrios is about due to have an average or sub-par start. 

Starting Rotation 6.5 – Early Slate Stacking Options 

• Rays against Kolby Allard (Randy Arozarena, Mike Zunino, Manuel Margot, Mike Brosseau, Austin Meadows)
• Astros against Ross Stripling (Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez, Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve)
• This strikes me as a slate to take 2-3 hitters in a lineup instead of a full-on 4-5 man stack past the two big lineups. It’s a fairly stout pitching slate on paper. 

Starting Rotation 6.5 – Evening Slate

Jacob deGrom – I’m not going to talk here, everyone knows to play deGOAT especially on just a six-game slate. The only thing I can add to deGrom is Starting Rotation has a new rule – two deGrom GIF’s to celebrate his starts.

This one is just absurd –

Joe Musgrove – It’s funny because the Mets are notorious for not scoring enough runs for deGrom and it may well continue tonight.

I grant you that is from April but the point stands. The Mets lineup continues to just be hurt all over the board and I’m not sure the current iteration is AAA-worthy. Musgrove is coming off a weird bullpen appearance but has full rest and still sports a 33.5% K rate, 2.08 ERA with a 2.64 xFIP, and a 14.1% swinging-strike rate. Both sides of the plate have a .260 wOBA or lower, and I’m not sure Musgrove should be priced under $9,000. 

Kevin Gausman – He has the tougher spot than Musgrove but Gausman he’s legitimately performed like an ace all season and nobody seems to talk about it ever. The Giants righty is eighth in swinging-strike rate and seventh in CSW both going with a 30.9% K rate. I do slightly worry that the 1.40 ERA doesn’t totally match the 3.05 xFIP but not enough to totally pass on him. The Cubs whiff 25.1% of the time to righty hitting and Gausman has the third-ranked fastball and first-ranked splitter in the league. That is a nasty combo and they have all 83 of his strikeouts. 

Alex Cobb – He has two starts since returning to the lineup and they’ve been quite good. Not only does Cobb control the left side of the plate with a .252 wOBA, a 2.84 xFIP, and a 27% K rate but Seattle is a top-eight K rate team to righty pitching. The Mariners normally have six lefties in their lineup and his splitter has a 36.3% whiff rate. Overall, the 3.78 ERA doesn’t make much sense with a 2.44 xFIP and he generates a 56.5% ground ball rate. Cobb has suffered through a .376 BABIP in his 33.1 IP so far, which is ridiculous. With a 12.9% swinging-strike rate in tow, Cobb is much better than some of the surface metrics would appear. This is from earlier in the season but you get the idea –

Starting Rotation 6.5 – Evening Slate Stacking Options 

• Coors Field – All of it. The Rockies get a questionable lefty and the A’s get Kyle Freeland. So a team in the A’s offense that sits seventh in ISO against lefties in Coors and the most expensive righty is Matt Chapman at $4,700. Oakland was chalky last night and that will continue again. You can fit deGrom, Musgrove, and four Oakland hitters with over $3,300 left to build. I would expect that to be the bones of cash games. In honesty, you can build with deGrom and Musgrove, have a Coors stack, and even kick in a mini stack of the other team listed. It seems silly to deviate on a six-game slate. 
• For Oakland, I’m looking at Mark Canha (with an underscore), Stephen Piscotty, Chad Pinder, Jed Lowrie, and Chapman. 
• For Colorado, I have a strong interest in C.J. Cron, Yonathan Daza, Garrett Hampson, and Ryan McMahon. 
• Red Sox Lefties against Jameson Taillon (Rafael Devers, Alex Verdugo especially)

Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 6.5 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!

Starting Rotation 6.3

We have another eight-game slate tonight and once again the pricing is making life difficult. It seems to be a recurring theme lately that we have one nailed on ace at the top of the salary ladder that will attract major attention. Past that, things get a little dicey with salaries involved so let’s get to work in the Starting Rotation 6.3 and find the green screens!

Starting Rotation 6.3 – Main Targets 

Yu Darvish 

With the Mets still hampered in their lineup and missing four starters, it’s hard not to slot in Darvish and just get different elsewhere. Over the past two weeks, New York has been striking out over 25% of the time and is below average in wOBA, wRC+, OPS, and OBP. On the Darvish side, there is room for some small regression since the ERA is 2.16 and the xFIP is 3.82. Against a better offense, I may be slightly more concerned but Darvish is also sporting a 30% K rate, 12% swinging-strike rate, and a 31.5%. Darvish throws all sorts of pitches but seeing New York rank next-to-last against the cutter brings us some comfort as well. 

It’s also easy to like Darvish because there isn’t really a sharp difference in his splits. Both sides of the plate are under a .275 wOBA, neither side hits over .210, and the WHIP doesn’t get higher than 1.01. Now, the K rate is different as righties whiff 33.6% of the time compared to 26.5% for lefties, but that’s nothing to get hung up on here. The Mets are still rolling out a questionable lineup and that’s if Jonathan Villar plays, as he is day to day on Wednesday night. 

Lance Lynn 

We’ve been talking about this a good deal lately, but Detroit has not been hitting like the pushover they have been most of the season lately. They are 13th in wOBA and 14th in OPS over the past two weeks with a K rate under 25%. That’s something we use when it’s a shaky pitcher on the mound but Lance Lynn is not in the category that I worry about. Lynn is such an aberration with his fastball approach with almost nothing off-speed. Then again, when the pitches can do this perhaps off-speed is overrated –

The four-seam has a 35.7% whiff rate while the cutter is at 23.8%. Neither pitch has given up a wOBA over .221 and Lynn has only yielded four home runs total. 

The K rate of 26.9% overall is very strong and the 12.5% swinging-strike rate matches his career-high at this point. With Detroit being a predominantly lefty lineup, it is super encouraging to see Lynn have a .217 wOBA and 0.92 WHIP to the left side of the plate. We do have to say that the K rate comes down to 21.9% but make no mistake, Detroit is still a heavy strikeout lineup. You can feel great about Lynn throwing at least 95+ pitches almost every single time out and he’s worth the salary tonight. 

Tyler Anderson 

If we’re just looking at game logs, we would think the bloom was coming off the rose for Anderson the past three starts. Perhaps that’s true but those matchups were quite difficult. This stands out as a bounce-back spot and he’s shown upside in spots with scores of 27 and 22.3 on the season. We just saw Robbie Ray carve up this Marlins lineup and while they’re not the same pitcher, Miami has a weakness to lefties. They are 22nd in wRC+, 21st in wOBA, 20th in OPS, and strike out 28.2% of the time. Anderson features a 23.3% K rate and his 4.63 ERA is a bit higher than the 4.14 xFIP. It will be strength against strength because the Marlins hit the cutter well while Anderson allows the lowest average and wOBA against it of his main pitches. The four-seam has 27 of 55 strikeouts so far. 

It would appear that Anderson has a weakness to righties with a 1.90 HR/9 but the xFIP is under 4.00 and the strand rate is 65.2%. Those rates tell us there’s been a little bit of bad luck and it’s also a good time to note that seven of the 10 home runs he’s given up have come in the past three starts. The K rate pops up just a little bit to righties at 25.4% and Miami is projected for five and the pitcher spot. 

Casey Mize 

The pitch data is brutal on paper and it’s not like we set out with the idea to target the White Sox, but DK will simply not move Mize’s price even after three straight 20+ DK point games. The strikeouts have started to flow with 20 over the last three starts and that’s very notable when Mize only has 47 on the season. The slider was a key the last time out and it has been arguably the best pitch he throws. It has the best wOBA at .236 and a 29.9% whiff rate while only giving up one home run.

To Mize’s credit, he generates ground balls at a 51.2% rate which would rank inside the top 10 if he qualified. Chicago still leads the way in ground ball rate to righty pitching at over 50%. 

Now, you can argue that ground balls aren’t what we want in DFS and generally, you’d be correct. The strikeout is king but Mize is still under $7,000! If he only whiffs four or five but goes five, maybe six innings with one or two runs given up he’ll be totally fine at this salary. Mize should face five righties and he’s held them to a .268 wOBA and a 21.5% K rate. The lefties are a small concern with a .328 wOBA but only Yan Moncada has a wOBA over .335 against righty pitching this season. I wouldn’t touch him in cash but Mize checks the boxes for a GPP play. 

Honorable Mention 

Adam Wainwright – I personally can’t stomach Waino at this salary but he is at home at least and not in Cincinnati. 

Griffin Canning – Another pitcher whose price is sky high but he gets the Mariners and has a 25.8% K rate and the 5.40 ERA doesn’t match the 4.17 xFIP. 

Starting Rotation 6.3 Stacking Options 

• Royals against J.A. Happ (Whit Merrifield, Carlos Santana, Salvador Perez, Michael A. Taylor)
• Brewers against Seth Frankoff (Willy Adames, Omar Narvaez, Kolten Wong, Avisail Garcia, Christian Yelich)
• Giants against Zach Davies (Brandon Crawford, Mike Yastrzemski, Buster Posey, Steven Duggar – Keep an eye on the lineup, they are banged up)
• D-Backs against Brett Anderson (Ketel Marte, Eduardo Escobar, Carson Kelly, Nick Ahmed, Josh Rojas)
• Angels against Justus Sheffield (Shohei Ohtani, Justin Upton, Jose Rojas, Phil Gosselin)

Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 6.3 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!

Starting Rotation 6.2

We have an eight-game main slate tonight and there are some strong pitching options again. Much like the past couple of days, I will be very focused on a core group of 4-5 pitchers. There is one clear ace but we have some chances to get ace-level production at some different salaries so let’s get to work in the Starting Rotation 6.2!

Starting Rotation 6.2 – Main Targets 

Walker Buehler 

This slate is pretty interesting because Buehler is the lone “ace” that we typically trust and will flock towards playing. It’s easy to see what even though he only had three strikeouts in the last game. If there is something to pick at, the K rate is it. Typically at this salary range, we need a large K rate and Buehler is only sitting at 25.3% which would be the lowest rate of his career thus far. The WHIP is only 0.90 which would be the best mark for him but he does tend to get hit harder than we like at 36.8%. The good news for Buehler is the Cards are very poor against his two main pitches and that could make or break this matchup. 

St. Louis has come down in K rate to righties to 22.8% which is not a big number at all. However, the four-seam has been great with 35 of 62 strikeouts. It has also yielded only a .251 wOBA and has a 24.5% whiff rate. The other great news for Buehler is the normal Cardinal lineups have six righty hitters and the pitcher spot. To that side of the plate, Buehler has held them to a .217 wOBA, 28% K rate, and just a 3.04 xFIP. Now, I’m not telling you to not play Buehler tonight but I feel strongly that we have other paths and we don’t have to pay up here. 

Sean Manaea 

The price is high but the spot is truly excellent for Manaea. Seattle is sixth in K rate at 27.4% and that means Manaea can take advantage of his 24.2% rate. The barrel rate is barely over 6% and the fly ball rate is right at 36% while the Mariners are 28th in hard-hit rate against lefty pitching. It makes sense why Seattle is 25th or worse in OBP, slugging, OPS, wOBA, and wRC+ on the season. It’s really nice to see Manaea getting a 12.1% swinging-strike rate since that’s the highest of his career and he’s seen a 4% drop in his contact rate on all pitches. The change and the curve have both see spikes of 10% in whiff rate from 2020, so it’s not hard to see why the K rate and swinging-strike rate have improved so much. 

What is fascinating is the Mariner lineup is still projected for five lefties in this game and if that happens, it’s a huge advantage for Manaea. He’s faced 62 this year and held them to a .214 wOBA, a .499 OPS, a 2.10 xFIP, and has struck them out at a 38.7% rate. The Mariners lineup is important for him because it can make a difference in his upside. It’s not that he’s been terrible to righties but they do have just a 19.6% K rate, a .354 wOBA, and a 4.22 xFIP. I’ll be deciding on Manaea after that lineup comes out. 

Jordan Montgomery 

Perhaps the biggest boom or bust spot on the slate is the Rays offense against Jordan Montgomery. Let’s start with the Rays side of the equation. Brian has been the Rays whisperer, but he has been consistent in saying boom or bust because that’s what the Tampa offense is for sure. Against lefty pitching, it becomes even more apparent. They have hitters that have track records of hitting lefties well but it has not happened much this season. They rank 25th in OBP, 23rd in slugging, 24th in OPS, and 18th in ISO. The surprising part is they’re also eighth in wOBA but 20th in wRC+ and strikeout 30.8%, just 0.2% away from leading the league. They are a mixed bag, to say the least. 

For Montgomery, he’s also a roller coaster ride. The last four starts have resulted in scores of 2.3, 34.8, -0.1, and 31.7. He has a good enough K rate at 24.7% and a solid enough ground ball rate at 40%, but the risk is certainly there. The Rays will typically roll out six righties and that would lead us to think there is a danger for Montgomery. He’s only generated a 21.8% K rate and a 4.24 xFIP to go with the wOBA of .332. Only one batter in the projected lineup is below a 25% K rate to combo Montgomery, so the odds are this battle tilts to one side significantly. With the upside Montgomery has shown, he is well worth a look in GPP ONLY. 

Alek Manoah 

I’m not sure Manoah could have been more impressive in his first start in Yankee Stadium. If you have a few minutes, check out this article from the awesome Nick Pollack that digs into every pitch –

He went six strong innings with seven strikeouts and only two hits allowed. Perhaps the most important facets were the Jays letting him throw 88 pitches and he threw his entire arsenal. We see during debut games that pitchers don’t always throw everything they have and go very fastball-heavy. That was not an issue at all with Manoah with everything on display. He generated an 11.4% swinging-strike rate and had a 31.8% K rate overall. The four-seam averaged right around 95 MPH and featured a 42.9% whiff rate. His off-speed stuff is also capable of this – 

Miami is striking out over 26% of the time and sits 29th in ISO, 25th in wOBA, and 23rd in wRC+. While there is still always risk associated with young pitchers like Manoah, he’s walking into a much better spot than the previous game and I believe the price is more than fair for his potential here. Playing him at a $2,000 savings over Buehler could unlock quite a bit. 

Shane McClanahan 

It would be really nice if the Rays would let him throw more than 80 pitches, and that has to be noted with McClanahan. Regardless of how good he is going, the clock is ticking on him in a big way as far as staying in the game. At the same time, he still can pay off this price on limited pitches as he just demonstrated against the Royals, racking up six strikeouts in five innings and 63 pitches. The 29.6% K rate is well worth playing since the walk rate is only 6.5% and the swinging-strike rate is an absurd 17.7% to go with a 34.4% CSW. For context on those last two metrics, McClanahan would rank second and third if he qualified. It’s not remotely a surprise when you see him throw pitches like this – 

New York isn’t a massive strikeout team at 23.7% to lefties but the youngster has been better to righty hitters so far. They only have a .264 wOBA, .198 average, 2.75 xFIP, and a 31% K rate. We’ve continued to see the Yankees struggle and the Manoah/McClanahan combo could combine for 12-15 strikeouts and gives us a path to be different. 

Starting Rotation 6.2 Stacking Options 

1. Coors Field – Both teams will be more popular than yesterday as the pitching is far worse on paper. For the Rockies, we’re looking at CJ Cron, Ryan McMahon, Charlie Blackmon, and the bottom of the lineup for salary savings (Brendan Rodgers, etc…). On the other side, Texas hitters are Willie Calhoun, Joey Gallo, Adolis Garcia, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and Nate Lowe. 
2. Braves against Jon Lester (Ronald Acuna, Ozzie Albies, Austin Riley, Dansby Swanson, William Contreras)
3. Nationals against Drew Smyly (Trea Turner, Ryan Zimmerman, Josh Harrison, Juan Soto, Yan Gomes)
4. Orioles against Randy Dobnak (Cedric Mullins, Trey Mancini, Anthony Santander, D.J. Stewart, Freddy Galvis)

Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 6.2 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!

Starting Rotation 5.30

We get another 10 games for the Sunday slate and we actually have ace pitchers to trust! Those have been in short supply the past couple of days so this is a welcome change of pace. We also have some semi-decent punt options to take chances with so let’s get down to business in the Starting Rotation 5.30! 

Starting Rotation 5.30

Max Scherzer 

Mad Max takes the hill today and should be fairly chalky in all formats. For starters, Milwaukee is still fourth in K rate to righty pitching at 26.4%. Scherzer is still over a 35.5% K rate even with all the innings he’s thrown and he’s cut the walks down this year as well. The WHIP has really gone down from 1.38 last year to 0.85 this season and his 16.3% swinging-strike rate is fourth in the majors. Milwaukee should roll out four lefties and it’s interesting to note that the changeup is going to be heavily in play for Scherzer today. He’s not thrown a slider to a lefty hitter all year, using the change instead and it’s generated a .154 wOBA and a 32.3% whiff rate. 

That could be part of the reason that lefties are only sporting a .225 wOBA overall against Scherzer and the HR/9 is down to 0.61. It’s a bit odd to see the 2.14 HR/9 to the right side of the plate but the 2.89 xFIP and 23.5% HR/FB rate tell us Mad Max has been unlucky there. The Brew Crew is 22nd in ISO and 30th in OPS. Even with other strong options, Scherzer stands to be popular. 

Brandon Woodruff

We didn’t have to go very far to find another strong option as Woodruff against Scherzer looks like a fantastic pitcher’s duel on paper. The righty for Milwaukee just reminded us of his upside even in tough spots as he worked the Padres for 34 DK and eight strikeouts. That’s not a huge surprise with a 30.8% K rate, 5.9% walk rate, and a 0.70 WHIP. The hard-hit rate is under 27% and the 46.2% ground ball rate is exactly what you want from a high K rate pitcher. To top it all off, the 31.3% CSW is top 15 in the majors. 

Both sides of the plate are under a .205 wOBA against Woodruff and the K rate doesn’t move that much either. His four-seam has taken over the lead in FanGraphs rating and the other metrics back that up. Of the 73 strikeouts Woodruff has, 45 have come from the four-seam and it’s generated a .089 average, .162 wOBA, and a 30.3% whiff rate. We can make a strong argument to go double ace right in the same game today. 

Lucas Giolito 

It certainly appears the things are starting to click in for Giolito these past two games. He’s accumulated 14 IP, 16 strikeouts, and just two earned runs. The xFIP is hovering right about 3.55 which isn’t that different than last year and tells us the 4.04 ERA is still a touch inflated. His K rate has taken a hit as well from 33.7% last year to 28.6% this year, but Baltimore helps in that respect. They sit at 24.7% to righty pitching and are 0.5% from being inside the top 10. Baltimore is also 25th or worse in average, OPS, ISO, slugging, OBP, wOBA, and wRC+. With the pitch data in Giolito’s favor, this could be a fantastic spot. 

The changeup is the strikeout superstar with 40 of 66 so far and it’s only yielded a .234 wOBA and has a 38.1% whiff rate. You have to love the fact Baltimore is in the bottom-three to that pitch in addition to Giolito likely facing five lefties. They have a 0.64 HR/9 and a .242 wOBA against him this season. The .347 wOBA to righties looks worrisome but the .294 BABIP and 24.1% HR/FB have to come back to Earth at some point. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Giolito be not super popular on this slate, and I would be looking to take advantage of that. 

Tarik Skubal 

Bet you didn’t expect this one, did you? Listen, there’s every reason to stack the Yankees. I won’t blame anyone for doing so today. His game logs have caught my eye though and I wanted to dig deeper. Over the past four starts, Skubal has pitched 21 innings, struck out 31 hitters, given up two earned runs in three of four games, and has thrown at least 90 pitches. In three of those starts, he’s scored at least 19 DK and the past two games have been over 21. Is there some type of link that makes everything make sense? 

In the last start, he stuck with just four pitches and ditched the splitter and cutter. That’s not a big change, but the CSW sat at 31% that game. For reference, the season rate for Skubal is 26.6% and he generated a 38% whiff rate. It was pretty much the same story on the 19th as he just went with the four pitches and honestly, that may be almost all it takes. His splitter is terrible with a .548 wOBA given up. Losing that out of the mix is a huge gain for Skubal. 

The four-seam needs work with a .451 wOBA and .315 average but his slider and change are actually getting good results. They both have a wOBA under .265 and both are over a 34% whiff rate. This slider is from 2020 but illustrates how good his slider can be –

New York is only 17th against the fastball this season and is 23rd in ISO against lefties. Skubal has also generated 21 ground balls over the last four starts and before that he’d never been over three in any appearance. The Yanks are fifth in ground ball rate to lefty pitching. There’s every chance Skubal ends up with negative points in this one and maybe the past two starts have just been picking on Cleveland and Seattle. That still wouldn’t explain the 19.7 DK against Minnesota where he stuck with a four-pitch mix. This is also the case where New York is likely going to be very popular and you can take it the opposite direction. Imagine getting 20 DK against the chalk stack of the slate. 

Michael King 

This isn’t particularly a “King is pitching against Detroit” flow chart deal. It’s more that he is $4,000. We’ve talked about it before that when a pitcher is this cheap, we have to talk about him because it can be such an advantage building lineups. King threw 54 pitches last time out which was five days ago and he’s not a stranger to pitching multiple innings. Starting is a different animal but if we can get four innings and some strikeouts, things can work out. In the course of limited action this season, he’s faced 24 lefties and held them to a .245 wOBA, a .471 OPS, and a 29.2% K rate. Those are the metrics that make me excited since the Tigers typically roll out 5-6 lefties and whiff at a top-three rate. 

Honorable Mention – Eduardo Rodriguez (weather looks dicey, but he’s a great play if they play), Steven Matz, Josh Fleming, Kyle Freeland

Starting Rotation 5.30 Stacking Options 

1. Twins against Brad Keller (Nelson Cruz, Miguel Sano, Josh Donaldson, Alex Kirilloff)
2. Rockies against Chad Kuhl (Ryan McMahon, Raimel Tapia, Charlie Blackmon, Trevor Story, C.J. Cron)
3. Yankees against Skubal since they are still in play even though I do think Skubal has a strong path to success (Aaron Judge, Gleyber Torres, DJ LeMahieu, Gary Sanchez)
4. Royals against Matt Shoemaker (Carlos Santana, Adalberto Mondesi, Andrew Benintendi, Whit Merrifield, Salvador Perez)

Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 5.30 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!

Starting Rotation 5.29

Saturday is a very weird slate in that we have a monster 10 game slate in the afternoon and then just five games in the evening. The bad part of all that is the number of arms on this slate is….not great overall. That doesn’t mean we can’t find some diamonds in the rough for the Starting Rotation 5.29 to lead us to green screens again! 

Starting Rotation 5.29 – Early Slate 

Yu Darvish 

I typically skip the pitch data breakdown for Darvish since his repertoire is so varied, but we’ll note the Astros are 12th against the cutter and first against the slider. We’ve seen the good and bad about targeting the Astros offense in the past few days. The Dodgers played them and Clayton Kershaw cleaned up for us while Trevor Bauer struggled. Darvish has had a run of picking on some bad offenses like Seattle, Colorado, and Pittsburgh so the difficulty will be ramped up here. Still, Darvish looks strikingly similar to the 2020 season with a 30.8% K rate, 0.89 WHIP, 12.4% swinging-strike rate, and a 32.3% CSW. 

The splits don’t give much of a lean as both sides of the plate are at a .256 wOBA or lower and righties have the worse mark. What does help Darvish as far as the splits are the K rate to righties as it comes up to 34.5% and the Astros are predominantly a righty lineup. Every single pitch for Darvish sports a whiff are over 21% and ace-level pitching can beat the best lineup, even when that lineup whiffs only 18.4% of the time. 

Freddy Peralta 

Peralta reminded us in his last game that he’s still not in the stud ace tier that we can trust every single time out. His pitch count ballooned quickly to over 100 and he was out of the game before he made it through five innings. The Nationals don’t strike out a lot but Peralta still has enormous upside with a 38.4% K rate. That would be third in the majors if he had the innings to qualify but that can be the Catch-22 with him. The four-seam/slider mix do it all with 72 of 76 strikeouts on the season and they both have at least a 32.1% whiff rate and a wOBA under .275. 

Just like Darvish above, the opposing lineup could fall particularly well for Peralta and his splits. Washington is projected to play five righties and the pitcher spot, and Peralta has a 47.6% K rate to that side of the plate. The xFIP is ridiculous at 1.95, along with a 1.70 FIP. Part of that is the slider usage to righties, as he’s thrown 210 of 280 to righty hitters. Much like the Darvish spot, Washington has the third-best K rate in the majors but Peralta has reached the point where he has the potential (keyword here) to overwhelm any lineup in baseball. 

Austin Gomber 

DK doesn’t have this noted yet but this will be the second half of a doubleheader. That means only seven innings but for pitchers, we don’t mind that. Gomber has the potential to pitch the entire game and he may not drop 31.6 DK, but we talked in Discord last time about how he’s not nearly as bad as the one Giants start indicated. Since that whooping, Gomber has posted 11, 17, 21, 21, and 31 DK points. His salary is still far too low for a pitcher with a 24.6% K rate and an xFIP under 4.00. The HR/9 is only 1.18 and the Buccos are 27th in ISO to lefty pitching.

They also whiff overall at 23.8% and are in the bottom-five in every major offensive category that we value. His .323 wOBA to righties has been a little skewed by the struggles earlier in the year and since the calendar flipped to May, Gomber has a 2.97 ERA with a 3.01 xFIP and a .258 wOBA overall. The lefty has just crossed 150 IP in the majors and it looks like some things could be clicking for him. 

Deivi Garcia 

I mentioned at the start that the choices are not plentiful tonight, so I’m happy to take a shot with Garcia here. There’s not a way to get around things that haven’t gone super well for him this year. Through 15.2 IP in AAA, the ERA is over 5.00 and the xFIP is 4.51. His 38.1 IP in the majors has produced a 4.91 xFIP and a 1.64 HR/9 but has also generated a 22.6% K rate. Overall, the swinging-strike rate is 11.6% which is plenty at his salary. Detroit has been much better so this is certainly not risk-free, but they still are up around the lead in K rate to righty pitching. The good news for Garcia is his career wOBA to lefties is .291. The K rate has been low at 15.1% but the Tigers lineup can push it up higher than that. Garcia is only 22 years old and a top prospect in the Yankee system, so there’s pedigree bind this and potential upside for the salary. 

Honorable Mention – Nathan Eovaldi (salary is quite high), Trevor Rogers (terrible spot but talented pitcher), Mitch Keller (Road Rockies but Keller is wildly unpredictable)

Stacking Options 

1. Blue Jays against Sam Hentges (Vlad Jr., Teoscar Hernandez, Randal Grichuk, Bo Bichette, Lourdes Gurriel)
2. Royals against J.A. Happ (Whit Merrifield, Carlos Santana, Salvador Perez, Adalberto Mondesi) 
3. White Sox against Matt Harvey (Tim Anderson, Jose Abreu, Yoan Moncada, Yermin Mercedes)
4. Brewers against Jon Lester (Avisail Garcia, Manny Pina, Willy Adames, Lorenzo Cain, Keston Hiura)
5. Cubs against Luis Castillo (Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, Ian Happ, Willson Contreras)

Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 5.29 and make sure you follow me on Twitter at @bucn4life! Be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD ACCOUNT account here at Win Daily Sports. Gain access to our Projection Models and jump into our Discord where we will have our experts talking plays across every sport and slate!

Starting Rotation 5.28

It’s Friday night and we have plenty of games to choose from, but it doesn’t look like we’re going to have an overwhelming amount of choices. We do have a repeat from yesterday and we have one of the best pitchers in baseball, so let’s get rolling in the Starting Rotation 5.28! 

Starting Rotation 5.28 – Main Targets 

Gerrit Cole 

I’m hard-pressed to think of any reason why Cole won’t be the overwhelming chalk in cash and hovering at 50% or higher in GPP. This is one of the better spots he could ask for and there isn’t another pitcher with the same style of upside tonight. The last time he saw this lineup he posted 12 strikeouts for 39.1 DK points and it’s not hard to see why.

Cole sits third in K rate, eighth in swinging-strike rate, and second in CSW on the season. That comes with a 1.71 FlIP, 2.23 xFIP, and a 1.81 ERA. We’re early on in the season, but he has the be the favorite for the AL Cy Young at this juncture. With Detroit still flirting with leading the majors in K rate to righties, this is a lock and load situation. 

Walker Buehler 

I still don’t believe that Buehler will outscore Cole, but there’s every chance he gets close. He’s been on a roll with at least 20 DK points in the last four games and the last two spots wouldn’t have looked great on paper. He’s worse to lefties with a .308 wOBA, a 1.42 HR/9, and a 23.1% K rate. Even still, he walked right through the Arizona and San Francisco lineups that are loaded with lefties. Every single one of his pitches has a whiff rate over 26.5% this season and only the cutter has a wOBA over .276. The good news for Buehler is he’s only thrown the cutter to lefties 67 times on the year, so the Giants being the best cutter time isn’t a large concern. 

Overall, the FIP/xFIP combo is solid at 3.35 and 3.29 but you can see why Coles is a much better play on paper. Buehler also only has a 26.6% K rate, which is right around 10% lower than Cole. One aspect that is helping Buehler is the first strike rate is 8% higher than 2020 at 66.7%. I like Buehler overall but would plan on being far more invested in Cole. 

Hyun Jin Ryu 

Ryu is sort of a Steady Eddie type of pitcher at this point but the matchup vaults him into higher consideration. Cleveland has already been no-hit twice and they have not been able to hit lefties thus far. They rank 25th in wRC+, 26th in wOBA, OPS, and 23rd in slugging. The K rate is only 22.2% and Ryu is down from 2020 but 24.6% is nothing poor, especially at this salary. The hard-hit rate is only 22.9% and Ryu has a 30% CSW, which is still top 30 in the league.
The wOBA to righties is over .300 but the BABIP is .297, a touch high and the xFIP is only 3.31. My one fear is the K rate is only 21.3% and that is low but Cleveland has been such a poor offense, I can’t ignore Ryu in this game. He has a 20 point upside at a very playable salary.

Shohei Ohtani 

Note – Due to *checks notes* ….transportation issues, Ohtani will start tonight instead. Everything is the exact same.

Normally, Ohtani is a building block on any slate for me but I think we need to have some caution here. While the Angels insisted there were no injury concerns, Ohtani’s velocity was down in his last start by 3-6 MPH. That is a huge drop and effectively took the four-seam out of the mix. He threw it 40 times but it was not nearly as efficient and he threw his cutter 32% of the time, knowing the fastball wasn’t there for him. If his four-seam/splitter combo is down 5-6 MPH, Ohtani is not going to be that great of a pitcher. 

Even with the struggles last game, the splitter still only has two hits given up and a 58.2% whiff rate with a .084 wOBA. Oakland’s lineup typically features five righties and that should help Ohtani as well. The right side of the plate only has a .200 wOBA, .401 OPS, and a massive 44.8% K rate. If Ohtani is right, I would absolutely love him here since Oakland is over 24% in K rate to righty pitching. There is a significant risk because there is no way to know where the velocity sits before the game starts. 

Casey Mize

I don’t blame you if you don’t want to take this risk, but I’m still interested in the way Mize has been pitching over his last handful of starts. He’s cleared 21 in his past two and now has three straight over 17 DK which is great to see from the young man. The K rate is still not special at 18.7% but he’s racked up 17 over the past 20 IP pitched so he’s getting there. We’ve seen repeatedly this season that New York can struggle with righty pitching. They are top 10 in K rate at 25.1%, 22nd in slugging, 16th in OPS, 17th in ISO, and 14th in both wOBA and wRC+. 

I’m not going to sit here and pretend this is a sure-fire play. The FIP and xFIP are both over 4.40 while the ERA is 3.42, so things could go south. New York is projected to play seven righty hitters and that would be the best scenario for Mize. He’s held RHH to a .279 wOBA, 0.99 WHIP, and the 18.4% K rate. The price and pedigree make sense to take some chances in GPP tonight. 

Honorable Mention – Ian Anderson, Sean Manaea

Starting Rotation 5.28 Stacking Options 

1. White Sox against Matt Harvey (Tim Anderson, Jose Abreu, Yoan Moncada, Yermin Mercedes)
2. Twins against Kris Bubic (Nelson Cruz, Josh Donaldson, Kyle Garlick, Mitch Garver, Jorge Polanco)
3. Nationals against Brett Anderson (Trea Turner, Juan Soto, Josh Harrison, Yan Gomes, Ryan Zimmerman)
4. Brewers against Jon Lester (Avisail Garcia, Manny Pina, Willy Adames, Lorenzo Cain, Keston Hiura)
5. Rangers against Justus Sheffield (Adolis Garcia, Nick Solak, Charlie Culberson, Khris Davis)
6. Red Sox against Cody Potent (J.D. Martinez, Rafael Devers, Xander Bogaerts, Kike Hernandez)

Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 5.28 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!