Friday 9/19 MLB Thoughts & Analysis

Cubs @ Reds

Exactly three runs in four straight starts for Shota Imanaga, all quality starts except his last one, in which he struck out nine Rays without a walk. The Cubs seem to be locked into the top wild card spot, so I’m be careful with their intentions for players, specifically pitchers over the next week.

This will be only Nick Lodolo’s third home start since the end of June. Seven of his last nine have been on the road, which could be a blessing with this park. Still, seven of his nine barrels (6.8%) have turned into home runs during this span. Five of those on just four barrels in the first start of this stretch in Philadelphia plus his most recent start in Sacramento. Four of the nine barrels came in a start at Citi Field, where he allowed a single home run.

Athletics @ Pirates

Facing a predominantly right-handed lineup on the road should be a good spot for Luis Severino. He has held RHBs on the road to just a .212 wOBA this year, but with an 11.8 K-BB% that’s 0.6 points below his mark against RHBs at home.

Mitch Keller has a 23.6 K-BB% over his last four starts, even though he’s struck out just four in each of his last two starts. He’s the only pitcher I don’t expect the Pirates to game over this last week. Oh, what’s that? Just 62 pitches last time out. Never mind.

Braves @ Tigers

A 26.1 inning run with just five runs allowed (four earned) for Bryce Elder was smashed last time out when the Astros put up six. He did strikeout seven and has a 20 K-BB% over his last three, but also allowed a 62.5 HardHit% against the Astros, despite a single barrel.

Charlie Morton has lasted just 10.2 innings with 11 runs allowed and a -3.7 K-BB% (yes, that’s a negative number) over his last three starts. But REVENGE game! Revenge for what? The Braves paid him a lot of money and then he chose to leave.

Yankees @ Orioles

Will Warren has a 9.4 K-BB% with 12.9% Barrels/BBE allowed over his last 14 starts. He really struggles against LHBs (.348 wOBA, .361 xwOBA), which the Orioles have an abundance of if nothing else.

Trevor Rogers hasn’t allowed more than two runs in a start since his second of the season (in Tampa). Of course, his 1.43 ERA is exactly a run below his FIP with all additional estimators above three. Still, his 17.8 K-BB% is easily his best mark since his 2021 rookie campaign.

Trevor Rogers is actually ranked my 4A pitcher overall, but only as a marginal value, more so on FanDuel, where he’s $1.6K more expensive. He’s fine, but not my first (or second) choice among the upper level arms on Friday.

Nationals @ Mets

Twenty-six year-old Andrew Alvarez appears to be filler with most projections in the mid to upper fours and without much ink spilled about him on Fangraphs. He has an 8.1 K-BB% through three starts and just 11.7% at AAA this year.

Brandon Sproat struck out seven of 23 Reds in his debut, but walked four and allowed three runs on just three hits over six innings. He struck out just three Rangers to follow up, but with no walks or runs in his second straight quality start to begin his career. Sproat posted a 21.6 K-BB% over his final nine AAA starts.

Sproat is showing a small split with LHBs about average against him through two starts and Washington can load a lineup up with them. It’s funny, five of the projected batters are above a 24.5 K% vs RHP this year, but the other four are below 16%. A thing I’ve noticed about the three rookie Met starters is that they seem to generate more called strikes than swings and misses and Sproat has been no different through two (22 CStr%, 6.3 SwStr%) and is already garnering an upper half of the board price tag.

Red Sox @ Rays

C’mon, of course Garrett Crochet is my top pitcher and also my top FanDuel value. The only pitcher I’m showing a better point per dollar value on is a punt arm on DraftKings. You want more? He has a 28.7 K-BB% over his last 19 starts and three double digit strikeout efforts in his last five, including two in a row.

I guess it’s good news that Drew Rasmussen has thrown at least 80 pitches in four of his last five starts and even eclipsed 90 in one. His 15.7 K-BB% just doesn’t present enough upside in tougher spots with those workload limitations attached.

Blue Jays @ Royals

The good news is that Max Scherzer broke a string of exactly four runs allowed in three straight starts. The bad news is he’s allowed 13% Barrels/BBE over his last 11 starts and has just a 10.6 K-BB% over his last seven.

Conversely, Michael Lorenzon has a 19 K-BB% over his last eight starts that nobody saw coming. He’s allowed 11 barrels (9.1%), but only a 32.2 HardHit% during this stretch as well. He’s increased his slider usage, but neither is really much of a quality pitch via pitch modeling.

Neither of these offenses strike out enough to make either of these pitchers daily fantasy viable. In fact, the Kansas City offense adds no value in any way to the DFS game. They stink, but they make contact. The Blue Jays make much better contact and also don’t strike out, but Lorenzon’s recent run nearly make him an interesting SP2 for just $6.7K on DraftKings.

Padres @ White Sox

REVENGE game #2! But again, for what? The Whtie Sox traded him to a team that generally makes the post-season. He must hate the White Sox for that. Here’s a fun one. Dylan Cease has the same 20 K-BB% as Nick Pivetta. He’s allowed 8.9% Barrels/BBE with a 38.1 HardHit%, while Pivetta’s allowed 10.2% with a 44.7 HardHIt%. Cease’s xERA is a quarter run better, yet the latter is likely to receive some Cy Young votes according to some TV voices. One has seen 55.6% of his barrels leave the park with a .318 BABIP and 68.3 LOB%. The other has seen 46.8% of his barrels leave the park with a .234 BABIP and 79.5 LOB%. Both have a ground ball rate in the mid-30s. Let that all sink in.

What a shame. We’re all out of time for Davis Martin.

While there’s a decent gap between he and Crochet, Cease is my second ranked overall arm and a pretty darn decent value too in a nice matchup back in Chicago.

Marlins @ Rangers

Tremendous! This is one of the top matchups of the season. In name of course. It’s the Junk Mahle game! Though, surprisingly, Jansen wasn’t named such because he throws a lot of junk. He throws his 93.7 mph fastball 37.1% of the time, which his actually a career low, but then his slider 42.9% of the time with exemplary pitch modeling on the latter (62 PitchingBot, 122 Pitching+) and that’s more due to his command than anything else. Just only walks 3.2% of the batters he’s faced. The problems are his 16.8 K% and 49.1 HardHit%. His 4.48 ERA is within one-third of a run of all estimators with two exceptions. A 3.31 FIP (just eight home runs on 27 batters is counted by a 62.5 LOB%) and a 3.39 Bot ERA.

Tyler Mahle averaged estimators just a bit above four through 14 starts before hitting the IL. Regression was beginning to find him with 11 runs over his last 22 innings, though he still carried a 2.34 ERA with a .252 BABIP, 82.3 LOB% and less than a quarter of his barrels turning into home runs. He faced just 13 batters in his last rehab start and was already overvalued.

Junk is the second cheapest pitcher on DraftKings and despite the lack of upside, he’s the pitcher I noted was showing more point per dollar value that Crotchett over there. I think it’s fine him as a punt with Crochett and get better bats in if you realize your expectation is only around 10 points with a ceiling of around 15.

And also, for some of the reasons I just mentioned and also because the Marlins may have the better offense (102 wRC+ vs RHP vs 97 and 108 proj. LU avg wRC+ vs RHP vs 86) I’m siding with the road team here. In addition, the Rangers really don’t have the LHBs to make Junk pay for his wide split (more than 50 points of both wOBA and xwOBA in favor of LHBs). The Marlins have a strong, comparable defense to Texas and better base running. I’ll accept the bullpen deficit for the better full game price.

MIA +139 (DK) 0.5u

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Bullpen stats L30 days...

Angels @ Rockies

Only a 40 Future Value grade attached to his Fangraphs player page, Mitch Farris has someone impressively struck out 14 of his first 63 batters with an 11.6 SwStr%. He’s walked seven with a 27.5 GB%, but only allowed a 36.6 HardHit%. Odd for a non-prospect to skip AA and it’s not like he put up outrageous numbers there (17.2 K-BB%), but he’s been fine with a 90.4 mph fastball so far, mostly because of a plus slider (25.1%, 56 PB, 112 P+), though he has extremely poor pitch modeling overall.

Brandon Blalock may be the answer to an important question, which is: when may it not be advisable to roster a pitcher against the Angels? He’s struck out none of his last 36 batters with six walks. With a double digit barrel rate and hard hit rate above 40%, Blalock has allowed at least five runs in four straight starts and six of 10 overall. His best estimator is a 5.33 Bot ERA, which is nearly half a run below his next best estimator.

But the Angels strikeout sooooo much and he’s the cost of a reliever ($4.5K). Fine, stranger things have happened, but I still can’t sanction it. Farris has shown a little something and Blalock may be shown the door soon. The Angels have a 92 wRC+ vs RHP that’s 17 points higher than the Rockies, while their projected lineup has a higher average wRC+ too. While the Rockies have the worse bullpen too, I'm actually showing more F5 value because Blalock has been so bad. 

LAA -122 (F5) (FD) 0.61u

Mariners @ Astros

The may be the most meaningful series of the remaining regular season with a great pitching matchup to start it off, but I’m struggling with either guy.

Bryan Woo tied a season high with nine strikeouts for the fifth time two starts back. He just can’t reach that double digit putaway. Then the Angels came to town and he struck out 13 his last time out. But this is the Astros. A predominantly right-handed lineup, which is good, but we can’t ignore the splits. RHBs have just a .258 wOBA and .275 xwOBA against Woo, but that rises to a .298 wOBA on the road. Woo has a 24.9 K-BB% at home that drops to 19.1% one the road (7.3 point difference last year too). That’s still really  good and Woo is my 4B to Rogers’ 4A overall, but he’s also at least $10K and the second most expensive pitcher on either site.

Great job by Hunter Brown on a career best 20.4 K-BB%. I’m proud to say I had some Cy Young shares at +2500 on him this pre-season. However, it was a 23.4 K-BB% after his July 20^th start. Just 14.2% over his last nine. And guess what else is down since July 20^th? 96.9 mph vs 95.9 mph (95.4 mph last three starts). Who knows, maybe the adrenaline of this matchup will pump him up. 

Guardians @ Twins

Oh, hello Parker Messick. I see that 3.3 BB%, 50% ground ball rate and 31.9 HardHit% through five starts. I see that 50 Future Value grade on your Fangraphs page. I also see that 18.3 K%, but with a 29.1 K% and 13.2 SwStr% at AAA. I see the exceptional 62 BotCmd and 109 Location+, which leads to strong pitch modeling scores overall. He throws five pitches more than 10% of the time and only the curve grades below average by either pitch modeling system.

Pablo Lopez has struck out 10 of 48 Royals and Diamondbacks with a 9.9 K-BB% since returning from the IL. Not the easiest offenses to strike out. It’s fine, but he’s expensive and past platoon split issues have shown up again this year (LHBs .310 wOBA, .348 xwOBA). Maybe the injury was the reason and he’ll be better, but I don’t want to test this theory against the Guardians with eight LHBs in their lineup.

The Twins are throwing a lot of things at the wall these days, particularly near the bottom of the lineup. And those things often have high strikeout rates. I’m intrigued. In what should be a decent matchup, Messick jumps all the way to 3^rd in my rankings if I don’t regress for sample size. He’s not cheap, but he’ll likely have a strong defensive lineup behind him and has four quality starts with no more than one run already. I think he’s fine here.

Below, these last two graphics are 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. 

Brewers @ Cardinals

The Brewers allowed Jacob Misiorowski to throw a season high 108 pitches (previous high of 93 two starts prior) two starts back in a seven inning, three-hit, one run effort in Pittsburgh in which he struck out eight. He faced these Cardinals last time out and was pulled after 75 pitched and five innings with just four strikeouts and five runs allowed. His 23 K-BB% is better than I thought because I thought he was walking too many batters (and he is at 10.3%). The contact profile is average, which makes for a great pitcher, but the Brewers have things pretty much locked up with the bye. Maybe they want to fight the Phillies for the absolute top spot, but I don’t see them pushing the kid more than 80 pitches or so here.

In that same game, Sonny Gray also threw five innings, but allowed two runs with eight strikeouts.  Maybe more importantly just one walk after he had uncharacteristically walked 10 of his previous 80 batters. Gray has a stronger than most people realize 21.6 K-BB% this season, but with 9.5% Barrels/BBE. Still, even his 3.87 xERA (worst estimator) is more than half a run better than his 4.43 ERA. However, this is his second season in a row with a strand rate below 68%. In fact, it’s his fifth time below 70% since 2016 (71.1 LOB%).

Sonny Gray is just outside my top 5 and I think he may be slightly undervalued at $9K on Fanduel. I think there are better values on DraftKings. Misiorowski is cheaper, but I have him ranked a bit behind Gray due to workload concerns. However, I have Misiorowski rated slightly better on rate stats. The Milwaukee offense has been much better. The St Louis defense has taken a big hit with injuries (look at the difference in overall team OAA and projected lineup FRV way up top in the first chart). The Brewers also have the far better base running lineup. Why are they so cheap?

MIL -110 (F5) DK 1.1u

Phillies @ Diamondbacks

Taijuan Walker’s 4.17 ERA is at least one-third of a run below all estimators with some of the worst pitch modeling on the board, along with one of the worst pure run value matchups on the board. Batters from either side of the plate are between a .320 and .353 wOBA and xwOBA against him this season. He’s struck out nine of his last 96 batters with 17 runs over his last 20 innings.

Since a five start span with a 23.1 K-BB%, where it looked like Ryne Nelson was cranking it up again, similar to his second half run last year, he has just an 11.1% mark over his last four starts. The odd thing is that he started throwing more curveballs (17.7% vs 10.1% season), though he did drop down to 7.8% last start. He’s one of the few pitchers you just advise to throw their fastball. Why? High iVB. There’s a reason he throws it 62% of the time (63 PB, 114 P+). All of Nelson’s estimators are more than one-third of a run higher than his 3.34 ERA too, but only run as high as a 4.18 dERA.

In a hitter friendly park, I might have some light interest in Nelson for $7.2K on DraftKings, but that’s it. More interestingly, let’s keep that one-third of a run theme going because Walker’s best estimator is one-third of a run higher than Nelson’s worst. With a better defense, comparable offense and not much worse bullpen estimators L30 days (though I don’t particularly buy that), I think the Diamondbacks should be larger home favorites (they’re also one of the top base running teams in the league). I’m also projecting a lot of runs in a top five run environment.

ARI -120 (FD) 0.6u
Over 9.5 (+104) FD 1u

Giants @ Dodgers

Robbie Ray has allowed 28 runs (24 earned) over his last 35.2 innings (including five to the Dodgers with four walks over four innings last time out) with just a 10.7 K-BB%. Pitch modeling has been warning us all season and Ray has allowed 12% Barrels/BBE over this run too.

Congratulations to Clayton Kershaw on one of the truly great pitching careers and his impending induction into the HOF, but didn’t the Dodgers ruin his announcement by announcing what his announcement was going to be prior to it? Injuries and age have caught up. It is time. He has a career low 9.8 K-BB%. He’s still generating a 3.82 xERA with a 48.1 GB% and 4.2% Barrels/BBE, but also a career worst 42.5 HardHit%. Contact neutral estimators are a full run above his 3.53 ERA.

No interest at all in Robbie Ray here, but all of those mediocre things I mentioned about Kershaw’s season kind of go away when you look at San Francisco’s 79 wRC+ vs LHP (38 wRC+ as a team overall L7 days). The projected lineup has an 87 wRC+ against LHP this year that’s not much better. Not only that, but six batters in the projected SFG lineup have at least a 25 K% vs LHP this year. Kershaw is in play for probably the last time in his career.

I’m also going to make a commemorative F5 play in honor of Kershaw’s career. (No, really it’s because of the 30+ point gap in wRC+ vs LHP, similar starting pitcher estimators and the Dodgers better defense and base running).

LAD -150 (F5) FD 0.75u

Back with more daily fantasy notes in the afternoon.