Thursday 6/26 MLB Thoughts & Analysis

Athletics @ Tigers

Jeffrey Springs has allowed 11 runs (nine earned) over his last 26 innings with a 19.8 K-BB%, due to just three walks! Generally one of the better pitchers in the game at avoiding hard contact, that’s true this year too (36.7%), generating a 3.91 xERA that’s not only his only estimator below a 4.24 ERA, but his only estimator below four and a half. A lot of that is carryover effect from a very poor start. His last 30 day estimators are more league average.

Thirty-four year old Dietrich Enns has all of 26.1 innings of major league experience, the most recent of which came in 2021. Since then, he has pitched to a sub-10 K-BB% in 176 innings in Japan and a 15 K-BB% in 167.2 innings in the KBO last year. Yet, in 62.1 AAA innings this year, he sits at a 21.1 K-BB%. Projections are only for a few major league innings this year and range from 3.46 (Steamer) to 5.27 (THE BAT).

Blue Jays @ Guardians

Kevin Gausman has allowed 17 runs over 20 innings with an 11.7 K-BB%. However, all four of his barrels (7%) have left the park with a 33 HardHit% over that span. Gausman’s splitter velocity has cratered though, sitting 86.7 mph over his first seven starts, but just 84.6 mph over his last eight, while his fastball velocity has held steady. Yet, the pitch grading on his splitter has increased substantially, so it might have been part of the plant to get more movement or better locate? Anyway, Gausman is also carrying a  .358 BABIP and 63.7 LOB% over this 20 inning stretch. I’d expect some improvement. Aside from a 3.01 Bot ERA, estimators ranging tightly between a 3.74 SIERA and 3.88 xERA give some confidence that he’s been a bit better than league average.

After not having exceeded five strikeouts in any of his first nine starts, Tanner Bibee has only been below six in one of his last six with a 19.9 K-BB% over that span, while also improving his contact profile (5.7% Barrels/BBE, 34.3 HardHit%). He’s leaned a bit more on his slider and less on his cutter, though PItchingBot easily grades both as his most elite pitches, while Pitching+ likes the sinker a bit more. Bibee is down to a 3.59 xERA on the season with his contact neutral estimators over the last month in the same range.

Believing that Gausman has been a bit unfortunate, while Bibee is finding his rhythm, draws me towards the total here. The Blue Jays haven’t hit nearly as well on the road, while Cleveland is a sub-par offense. Toronto has one of the best defenses in the league, while this particular projected lineup is a strong defensive build for Cleveland. Both bullpens are middle of the pack, but the weather appears to be neutral in a negative run environment here. Let’s go under 8 (-110).

Mariners @ Twins

The nine runs Emmerson Hancock allowed in his last start were equal to what he allowed in his previous six starts combined. Don’t be fooled though. It was a .245 BABIP and 89.8 LOB% suppressing that ERA. Because he has allowed six or more runs three times, Hancock’s 5.43 ERA is in line with his 5.49 FIP with 14 of his 15 barrels leaving the park (HOW? In Seattle?), but a 4.37 xFIP is his only estimator below four and a half.

Simeon Woods-Richardson also has a 5.06 ERA that’s above all of his estimators, though none of them drop below four and a half. In fact, both pitchers have a 4.97 xERA. SWR reached six innings for the first time this year in his last start, but when your barrel rate (12%) is higher than your K-BB (10.6%), it’s never a good sign.

I am a bit concerned about the weather at Target Field on Thursday afternoon. Cool, a bit windy and maybe even rainy, but even factoring all that in, I like playing the over (4.5 -128 F5) against these two pitchers. I believe Seattle may be the best road offense in the league.

Rays @ Royals

Shane Baz has walked 11 of his last 73 batters and has just a 12.2 K-BB% on the season with a walk rate (9.7%) bordering on double digits. The good news is that he has shown some promise with a 13.4 SwStr% that suggests better than a 23.2 K% over his last four starts. He just has to get to strike three before ball four. His estimators have two outliers to a 4.10 (xERA) to a 4.22 (Bot ERA) range that suggests a near average pitcher. Those are a 4.83 FIP with 14 of his 24 barrels turning into home runs and a 3.11 dERA that I don’t understand at all.

Simple to say that with a 11.5 K-BB% and borderline contact profile (8.1% Barrels/BBE, 40.3 HardHit%), Michael Lorenzon is running estimators about a half run worse than Baz (4.21 xERA to 4.54 xFIP with an elevated 4.71 FIP and 5.87 dERA). That’s it. That’s who he is.

I have Baz as the better pitcher by about half a run and we spoke yesterday about the near 30 point Tampa Bay wRC+ advantage against RHPs, along with a more than two-thirds of a run edge in bullpen estimators the last 30 days. The Rays brought it home on Wednesday night and for similar reasons at a similar price, I’m going back to the well at -120. I have full game a slightly better edge than F5 at the same price.

Phillies @ Astros

Cristopher Sanchez has allowed five runs over 22 innings in just three starts and hasn’t walked a batter in five straight after walking 11 of his previous 101 batters. His 17.6 K-BB% is up three points from last season with a 6.5 point jump in hard contact rate (40.8%), but still just 5.9% Barrels/BBE due to his 55.7 GB% , which is actually a point below his career rate. He’s somewhat solved his issues against RHBs, as they’ve been a bit below league average against him this year (.299 wOBA, .308 xwOBA). Sanchez’s worst estimator is a 3.46 Bot ERA, though all except a 2.79 dERA are above his 2.87 ERA (80.6 LOB%).

Hunter Brown’s four strikeouts last time out was just his third time below eight strikeouts in his last 11 starts. A 23.5 K-BB% overall compliments a 32.2 HardHit% to produce estimators ranging from a 2.51 dERA to a 3.02 xERA with one major outlier, his 3.94 Bot ERA. A 108 Pitching+ likes all of his pitches graded averagely on PitchingBot quite a bit more and if you’re considering results, the latter system may be right. Brown is essentially the top guy on the pitch matchup ratings board below with Junk having only a small sample in 2025.

For the third time in this very tightly contested series, I’m siding against a strong pitcher for the Phillies. And all three times it had less to do with starting pitching and much more to do with massive defensive and bullpen edges for the Astros. It’s more of the same on Thursday at -138, but also a lot about how Houston has destroyed southpaws. In fact, I’m splitting a unit between the Astros and their team total (3.5 -120). Follow Rocky Jade on Action Network for more.

Cubs @ Cardinals

Shota Imanaga makes his first major league start since May the Fourth when the Force wasn’t with him when he yanked a hamstring. He struck out eight of 17 AAA batters in his most recent rehab start. Perhaps good news, perhaps nothing as we learned when Frankie Montas shut down the Braves on Tuesday after stinking it up in rehab starts at all levels. Imanaga had elite pitch modeling through eight starts (2.73 Bot ERA, 112 Pitching+) with an ERA quite a bit higher (2.82), but not nearly high enough according to an 11 K-BB% with 10.5% Barrels/BBE. Imanaga doesn’t have another estimator below four and a half with a .222 BABIP and 86.7 LOB% shining up his ERA. I’ve never seen dERA hate a performance so much (7.17). So what do we actually have here?

You get an even worse K-BB (8.8%) out of Andre Pallante, but with far fewer barrels (7.1%), despite more hard contact (44%). We all obviously know the reason for that is a monstrous 64.1 GB%. While Pallante’s Bot ERA is more than two runs north of Imanaga’s and his 4.48 ERA matches a 4.43 FIP with 11 of 19 barrels leaving the yard, additional estimators only run as high as a 4.18 xERA because of that elite ground ball rate.

The Cubs have a strong defense. The Cardinals are better. The Cardinals have a good offense. The Cubs are better. Bullpens are comparable. They are both solid base running teams. This comes down to whether you think Imanaga is better than his early season indicators. Not only that, whether you think he’s quite a bit better than Pallante’s that average out a bit below four. I don’t know that I can say that’s the case and will accept the F5 price of +122 for the home team.

Bullpen stats L30 days...

Dodgers @ Rockies

Clayton Kershaw has sharpened up a bit over his last three starts (19.7 K-BB% with 6.4% Barrels/BBE, although a 48.9 HardHit%). The hard contact is something he hasn’t been able to shake in five of his six starts (not counting facing six Mets before being suspended for rain). He’s been above 50% in all other starts. Yet, because of the low barrel rate, a 3.96 xERA matches a 3.94 dERA as his only estimators below four. In fact, those two are more than one-third of a run below any other estimator, including a truly awful 5.09 Bot ERA. The pitch modeling is slightly better over this recent three start run. In fact, he reaches a 100 Pitching+.

Austin Gomber struck out four of 18 Braves, with a single walk, while not allowing a run on two hits in his first start of the season. Good stuff. He followed up with 4.2 innings and nine runs against the Diamondbacks, failing to strike out any of the 26 batters he faced (4.9 SwStr% vs 13.2% in his first start). You can easily guess which one was at Coors. Gomber’s projections range from 4.88 (ZiPS) to 6.12 (THE BAT) with a median right around five and a half.

I don’t really trust anything I’m running with these small samples or projections, but I oddly have three completely unrelated things showing some very minor value in this game that I may throw into a SGP parlay just for fun if I can find a boost. Kershaw to go over 4.5 strikeouts at +115 or better, the Dodgers to score more than 3.5 runs in the first five innings and Rockies to win the game at a price above +220. Of course, I can’t get all three things on one site right now.

Marlins @ Giants

Jansen Junk has only started one game, but does have six outings of at least four innings to his name. A 27.2 inning sample is not large, but a 21.1 K-BB% still sticks out in four to six inning chunks. He has allowed hard contact at a 53.7% pace, which doesn’t hurt as much when striking out nearly a quarter of your batters with just two walks. Junks 4.18 xERA is still a run above any of his other estimators, but pitch modeling agrees with the results (2.60 ERA, 2.77 xFIP, 2.73 Bot ERA, 112 Pitching+). How about the slider (46.3%, 67 PitchingBot, 123 Pitching+)?

Hayden Birdsong’s 15.5 K-BB% through six starts is actually slightly better than his multi-inning relief work, though, like Junk, he has a bit of an issue with hard contact (45.5%), which Oracle Park generally hides pretty well. Conversely, Birdsong has pretty terrible pitch modeling with only his changeup grading above average among the four pitches he frequently uses. Non-pitch modeling estimators range from a 3.59 xERA to a 4.39 dERA.

Are you buying Junk bonds? I think I am on Thursday. The Giants don’t have much of an offensive edge and likely loose Bailey’s defense in a day game after a night game. Both teams have exactly the same bullpen estimators over the last 30 days and the Marlins may have the slightly better defense.

Below, these last two graphics are my new pitch matchup ratings, explained here. It uses pitch frequencies and run values both for the pitcher and the opposing offense and then attempts to add in pitch modeling, which sometimes differs from actual results. 

Braves @ Mets

Grant Holmes followed up striking out 15 Rockies with walking five Marlins with as many strikeouts. He’s struck out exactly nine in three of his other 15 starts, but no more than seven in any other. In fact, he’s struck out fewer than five in 40% of his starts. If that’s not chaotic enough, his 3.71 ERA sits between estimators ranging from a 2.94 xFIP to a 4.42 FIP with his Bot ERA (4.27) and xERA (4.10) slightly exceeding four as well.

Griffin Canning has allowed 22 runs (19 earned) over his last 26.1 innings with a 2.5 K-BB% and 12.5% Brarels/BBE. It’s amazing that span includes six shutout innings on three hits in Dodgers Stadium in which Canning struck out seven with a single walk and barrel. His 3.91 ERA is closing in on estimators which are all above four and run as high as a 4.77 Bot ERA, except for a 3.14 dERA.