We’re approaching the busiest part of the season as teams who have designs on competing are looking to make their moves to bolster their rosters ahead of the final stretch this fall. A few weeks ago, Chad Young wrote up his process of deciding who to keep and who to sell on one of his Ottoneu rosters. I’d like to go through the same effort for my roster in Ottoneu League 32 – Fantasy Field of Dreams. If you’ve been following along with this series, I’ve covered my process of rebuilding this team, from the initial decision to rebuild, to the draft, to the ups and downs of the regular season.

I’ve already made three moves with an eye towards the future:

1. My $3 Kyle Manzardo for $9 Jazz Chisholm Jr.
2. My $6 Michael Conforto and $3 Luis Garcia (2B) for $12 Ryan Mountcastle
3. My $43 Bryce Harper and $21 Teoscar Hernández for $48 Corey Seager and $3 Taylor Ward (I previously wrote up my thought process for this trade)

Seager has been absolutely phenomenal this year and is looking like he’ll be well worth his $50 price tag next year, assuming he doesn’t get hit with arbitration dollars. Ward has also been hitting well recently, giving me hope that his early season slump was just a bump in the road and that he’ll be a solid keeper at $5 next year. Unfortunately, Chisholm has been sidelined with a toe injury and Mountcastle has continued to struggle despite some promising peripherals.

The first step is deciding who is going to make up the core of next year’s team. No one is untouchable but there are certainly players who are more available than others. Going through the process of identifying and sorting your roster with an eye towards next year is an important exercise for any team, even if you’re towards the top of the standings. Here’s how I view my roster shaking out right now:

These nine guys should form the core of my next competitive roster. It would be ideal if Franco was a little cheaper, but his breakout this season and sky high ceiling justify his salary. I didn’t expect to have two catchers listed in this group, but Murphy and Heim are both slugging the ball and both look like they’ve taken a significant step forward this year. I’ve got a solid little group of pitchers here too headlined by Kirby.

I’m a little worried that I don’t have any outfielders in the group above. It’s become increasingly difficult to fill five slots with solid contributors and that was a concern of mine when I moved Harper for Seager. Steer is on track to gain OF eligibility for this year and next but I’d rather use him as a super utility guy rather than locking him into a spot in my outfield.

I’d have to be blown away by the offer to move any of these guys right now.

These five I expect to be keepers but there’s a bit of risk they might not pan out the way I expect. Keeping a $9 Torkelson is probably a bit crazy, but he’s been hitting much better recently and still has his prospect pedigree working in his favor. If he finishes the season strong, he could be a nice fit on my roster. Kelenic’s breakout has slowed down a bit after a very hot start; I think the adjustments he’s made are for real but there’s always a chance he falls back into his bad habits. I thought Ward was a great buy low target at his salary; he should be a keeper if he continues to hit like he has this month.

This group is filled with guys who are fairly priced and I could see myself keeping a handful of them. I’d also be open to moving any of them if the right deal materialized. I’ve already gotten a number of inquiries about Seager but I acquired him for Harper. If I was going to flip him, I’d want to get commensurate value in return which isn’t what other owners seem like they’re interested in giving up. I expect to enter 2024 with Seager and Franco locking down two of my infield positions.

I’ve got a large group of pitchers here who all seem like pretty good values for their salaries. Detmers and Rogers still have something to prove and they’re the most expensive of the bunch. I almost put Gonsolin and Suárez in the top tier of automatic keepers but I think there are enough question marks surrounding them that I left them here.

Here’s where most of my outfielders appear too. Keeping Gurriel at $16 would be pretty tough even though he’s posting career highs in hard-hit and contact rates. De La Cruz and McCarthy have both been up and down during their short careers; if they can finish this year strong, they both become interesting keepers.

If I keep all 26 players in these three tiers, I’d head into next season with $307 in committed salary plus an unknown amount of arbitration that could be as high as $33 or as low as $11. Let’s assume the final total falls somewhere closer to the high end. With 14 roster spots to fill and around $60-$70 of free cap space, I need to move some of these high priced players on the bubble to get my roster in the right shape for next year.

Here’s the list of guys I’d be happy to move or am planning on cutting at the end of the year. Muncy is probably the most valuable player above and I have a standing offer involving him that I’ve been sitting on. I’ve also had a surprising number of inquiries about Baz. At his salary, he wouldn’t be hard to keep, but the injury history is a huge red flag and I think I’d be able to get more value from him in a deal than from keeping him.

Abreu could potentially have some value to a team if his midseason hot streak continues and he’s able to start producing around his career norms over the second half of the season. All of my relievers are listed here too since Romano is really the only one with enough value to realistically keep.

Going through the effort of organizing my roster like this has helped me see that I’ve got too many players on the keep/sell bubble and they’re all a little too expensive to hold onto all of them. I’ll need to find some creative deals to reduce the amount of salary I’m planning on keeping next year to give me more room in the draft to add to my roster. I’ll update my trade block with these guys and hope to move some of them for cheaper pieces.

The 2023 version of Ottoneu Hot Right Now will include three different sections:

1. Current Auctions: A closer look at players being auctioned at a high rate.
2. Roster Adds: Analysis of players with high add% changes.
3. Hot Performers: Players with a high P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.

The FanGraphs Ottoneu team plans to run this feature weekly, updating fantasy managers on the biggest movers in Ottoneu leagues with an analysis of how these players could or could not help your roster.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re nearing the half-way point of the season and teams are aggressively buying and selling to set themselves up for titles (whether those titles are this year or in future years). Identifying trade targets is generally a league-by-league kind of thing, as buyers can only buy players sellers are selling, but you can find targets by looking at broader trends across leagues, as well.

Plus, as a buyer, you can’t always wait for someone to decide to sell – sometimes you need to be proactive and reach out and see if a team is ready to move a bat you need. Today, I am looking to identify hitter trade targets for buyers, by comparing players’ median salary to their 2023 points per game. Read the rest of this entry »

Much like Hot Right Now, Cold Right Now will be a weekly Ottoneu feature with a focus on players who are being dropped or who maybe should be dropped in Ottoneu leagues. Hot Right Now will focus on players up for auction, players recently added, and players generally performing well. Cold Right Now will have parallel two of those three sections:

1. Injuries: Players who are being cut because of IL stints.
2. Roster Cuts: Analysis of players with high cut% changes.
3. Cold Performers: Players with a low P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.

There won’t be a corresponding section to Current Auctions because, well, there is nothing in cuts that correspond to current auctions.

Injuries

Mitch Haniger – fractured right forearm (RotoWire)

Lance McCullers Jr. – Transferred from the 15-day injured list to the 60-day injured list by the Astros on Saturday (forearm) (RotoWire).

Yoán Moncada – Placed on the injured list Thursday due to his nagging back injury (RotoWire).

Roster Cuts

Matt Strahm, Add% (-) Change (7 days) – 12.50%

The Phillies lefty has given up four home runs in his last four appearances with a total of six earned runs. He only has one save and two holds on the year, and in the last 14 days, he has accumulated -22 points. He is a setup man among setup men in the Phillies pen and does not have the hot hand among José Alvarado, Gregory Soto, and Craig Kimbrel.

Max Kepler, Add% (-) Change (7 days) – 10.26%

Kepler has four hits in his last 30 plate appearances. With Alex Kirilloff getting more and more reps in right field and switch-hitter Willi Castro able to play the outfield as well, Kepler is getting crowded out of playing time. He’s only hitting .100 against lefties and .203 against righties and his power hasn’t made up for those low averages just yet. You might think Kepler has to break out of this slump sooner or later, but his SLG and wOBA marks have been slowly declining and he is in his age 30 season:

Zach McKinstry, Add% (-) Change (7 days) – 8.98%

Once “Hot Right Now” McKinstry ends up being written about in the opposite “Cold Right Now” as some may have predicted. Here’s what I wrote at the end of May:

.318/.478/.439 in the month of May. Compare that with a career .232/.311/.401 and you could hypothesize that regression will come. His season .351 BABIP supports that hypothesis.

His slash line currently stands at .246/.336/.372 and his wOBA has fallen off a cliff:

After staying hot through the first week of June, McKinstry went 0-16 but he has three hits in his last three games. His decreased O-Swing% is what caught my eye when he was having success and that has started to go up:

Caleb Ferguson, Add% (-) Change (7 days) – 8.33%

In his last few appearances in May and his first few in June, Ferguson went through a really rough stretch as he gave up eight earned runs in less than five innings (4.2). It seems like he has corrected somewhat as his last three appearances have given up no hits, no walks, and no runs. His 2023 K/9 (10.38) is right in line with his career mark (10.77) and RosterResource’s “Closer Depth Chart” still lists him as part of a closer committee. Hopefully, the rough patch was just that and Ferguson will start making Ottoneu managers happy again. I wouldn’t be cutting based on this little hiccup, but I would be paying close attention to his next few appearances.

Paul DeJong, Add% (-) Change (7 days) – 7.37%

DeJong’s home run on Sunday (June 18th) fell into the realm of Murphy’s Law for managers who cut him before that game. I understand why, DeJong is either hitting a home run or not hitting at all. Though he does have a four-game hit streak rolling right now, his batting average sits at .228. RosterResource doesn’t have him listed as a platoon hitter, but he is seeing more success against lefties (.263) than he is against righties (.218). I don’t think anyone should be surprised as DeJong’s current slash line of .228/.298/.444 is very similar to his career line of .232/.305/.429. If you’re willing to wait for a few home runs every once in a while and pay close attention to matchups, DeJong is a fine player to roster in Ottoneu formats.

Cold Performers

To measure cold performers this week, I’m looking for players with low P/G or P/IP in the last 14 days.

Rowdy Tellez, -0.36 P/G:

FanGraphs writer Chris Gilligan wrote earlier in the month about Tellez’s plate discipline and his taking of strikes. He has 12 home runs on the season but he hasn’t put one out of the yard since May 22nd. He’s still been getting his hits but they aren’t coming that often. He’s five for his last 21 plate appearances. Tellez is the type of hitter who can suddenly hit six bombs just like that, so stay patient and plug him back into your lineup if you see his xwOBA on the rise.

Byron Buxton, -3.25 P/G:

Buxton returned from injury on the 15th of June and hasn’t had a hit or a walk in his first 13 plate appearances. Let’s give him some time to settle in and get his timing down before we start making any big claims. You just have to hope that the rib injury that had him on the IL isn’t the culprit.

Max Scherzer, 0.11 P/IP:

Here’s a quote from Max Scherzer that I pulled from an SB Nation’s Amazin’ Avenue article:

“This is simple: I struggled with my slider. Every time I was throwing my slider, it was hanging. I wasn’t executing it the way I needed to. I can’t believe I was hanging that many sliders in all those situations.”

Mad Max struck out only two, gave up two home runs and six earned runs in his last appearance against the Yankees. All of Scherzer’s breaking pitches (slider, curveball, changeup) have accumulated negative pVals this season. The veteran clearly knows what the issue is and you can bet he is working on it.

Spencer Strider, -2.33 P/IP:

I’ll come right out with it, Strider has a home run issue. He’s given up 10 home runs in his last six appearances. That’s not good in points leagues. Sure, he also has 48 strikeouts in that time, but hitters are starting to do damage on his fastball. Take a look at his pVal accumulation between his first eight starts of the season to the last six:

Welcome back to the Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner. Based on the Roster Resource Probables Grid, I’ve organized every starter slated to start next week into four categories: start, maybe, risky, and sit. The first and last category are pretty self-explanatory. Starters who fall into the “maybe” category are guys you could start if you need to keep up with the innings pitched pace in points leagues or need to hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues; they’re good bets to turn in a decent start, but you shouldn’t automatically insert them into your lineup. If you’ve fallen behind on the innings pitched pace or you’re really starving for starts in a head-to-head matchup, you could turn to a “risky” starter or two.

I’ve also calculated a “Matchup Score” for each series using a straight combination of opponent’s home/away wOBA, opponent wOBA over the last 14 days, and the park factor for the ballpark the teams are playing in. It’s indexed so that 100 is average and anything above that is a favorable matchup and anything below is unfavorable. That matchup rating informs some of the sit/start recommendations I’m making, though the quality of the pitcher definitely takes precedence.

A few general schedule notes first:

• The Cubs and Cardinals play in the MLB London Series next weekend which means they’re both off on Friday for travel. The last time teams played in England, the Yankees and Red Sox combined for 50 total runs across two games. The dimensions of London Stadium are particularly small — it would be the shortest center field fence in the majors — so avoiding the four pitchers scheduled to start this series would be prudent.
• They aren’t the only team with a weird travel schedule next week. The Nationals and Diamondbacks are scheduled to play a make-up game on Thursday. That means Arizona will play in Milwaukee to start the week, head to Washington for a single game, and then fly all the way across the country to San Francisco for their weekend series.
• Teams with more traditionally tough schedules include the Angels, Braves, and Dodgers. Shohei Ohtani manages to avoid pitching in Coors Field but he still has to face the Dodgers offense in his start next week. Based on his struggles recently, you’re probably better off sitting Spencer Strider in both of his starts next week. Atlanta plays in a couple of hitter friendly venues against teams who are playing particularly well recently.
• I’ve only been calculating these matchup scores for a few weeks now, but the Reds somehow managed to pull a zero in their series against the Braves. That’s pretty incredible. Just for reference, that means they’re facing the best road offense and the best offense over the last two weeks in the worst venue for home runs in the majors.
• Teams with easier schedules include the Pirates, Tigers, and Twins. All of Minnesota’s rotation has been a must-start for practically the entire season, but they’ve all got pretty cushy matchups next week. Detroit’s and Pittsburgh’s rotations are a little hit-or-miss, but there are some key contributors who should be easy starts next week.

Notable two-start pitchers:

• Tyler Glasnow
• Gerrit Cole
• Pablo López
• George Kirby
• José Berríos
• Garrett Whitlock
• Merrill Kelly
• Michael Wacha
• Alex Cobb
• Framber Valdez
• Max Scherzer
• Corbin Burnes
• Clayton Kershaw
• Bailey Ober
• Johan Oviedo
• Ranger Suárez
• Aaron Civale
• Michael Lorenzen

This article was inspired by Ezequiel Tovar. I was excited about Tovar before the season started. I wasn’t alone in that. But he started cold, his value tanks, and now I can’t get anything useful for him off my trade block in Ottoneu League 1.

But Tovar has quietly put up a strong first half. I am getting excited again! But if no one wants to acquire him from me, maybe his value is low and I should be buying. Which got me wondering if there were others like him – players whose overall lines look pretty bad, but have actually been quite good for most of the year. So I set out to find out.

Read the rest of this entry »

The 2023 version of Ottoneu Hot Right Now will include three different sections:

1. Current Auctions: A closer look at players being auctioned at a high rate.
2. Roster Adds: Analysis of players with high add% changes.
3. Hot Performers: Players with a high P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.

The FanGraphs Ottoneu team plans to run this feature weekly, updating fantasy managers on the biggest movers in Ottoneu leagues with an analysis of how these players could or could not help your roster.

Read the rest of this entry »

Keeping track of the machinations of 30 major league bullpens is pretty tricky. In standard leagues, it’s hard enough trying to discern which relievers are earning save opportunities, especially since more and more teams are using a committee approach in the ninth inning. In Ottoneu, with both saves and holds earning points, that search for high leverage relievers becomes even more of a challenge. There are plenty of resources out there — the Roster Resource Closer Depth Chart is one of my favorites — but even the most vigilant fantasy player can’t keep track of everything going on across the majors.

Here are a few relievers who have been seeing high leverage usage over the last two weeks, who are also rostered in less than 60% of all Ottoneu leagues:

Chris Martin is currently the primary setup guy ahead of Kenley Jansen in the Red Sox ‘pen. His strikeout rate isn’t as high as it was last year with the Cubs and Dodgers but his walk rate is still a tidy 2.6%. Nothing has really changed in his profile; his swinging strike rate is right in line with where it was last year and his CSW% is up to a career high 30.7%. I’d expect his strikeout rate to bounce back towards where it was, giving him a bit more ceiling than his surface-level stats would indicate.

I wrote up Josh Sborz the last time I looked at under-rostered relievers and his roster rate barely ticked up from 0.3% to 1.9%! He’s definitely taken hold of the eighth inning duties in the Rangers bullpen ahead of closer Will Smith and his FIP is currently the lowest among this group. He currently has a career-high strikeout rate at 36.8% and his walk rate has come down two points from his career norm. More importantly, he’s only allowed a single home run this year, something that had plagued him in the past. Grant Anderson was called up by the Rangers at the end of May and has already inserted himself into the late inning picture. He dazzled in his debut, throwing 2.2 innings and striking out seven.

Justin Lawrence has taken over closing duties for the Rockies. He’s using his big sweeping slider to earn swings and misses, though his overall strikeout rate is held back by a sinker that’s used to get weak contact on the ground. Still, that’s a benefit for a reliever pitching in Coors Field and he’s only allowed a single home run this year and a 95th percentile barrel rate.

Sam Hentges missed more than a month of the season with a spring shoulder injury but has come back strong and has converted a number of high leverage opportunities for the excellent Guardians bullpen. He’s collected seven holds and has been used for multiple innings a handful of times as well. His command has been uncharacteristically off, though that might just be him still shaking off the rust after his injury. He’s throwing in the zone as often as he was last year, but his chase rate has fallen by nearly eight points.

Lucas Sims missed most of last year and some of this year with a back injury, but he returned in late-April and has taken his place as the primary setup guy in Cincinnati. He really struggled with his command after being activated off the IL, though he’s only walked two batters over his last six outings. Back in 2020, it looked like he had taken a big step forward as a lockdown reliever and the slider that drove that success is still intact. Opposing batters are whiffing 45.7% of the time they offer at his breaking ball, right in line with the whiff rates he ran in 2020 and ‘21.

After bouncing around three different organizations over the last three years, it looks like Chris Devenski has finally rediscovered the changeup that made him one of the best relievers in baseball all the way back in his debut season in 2016. His FIP across the last six seasons has been an ugly 4.27 with a decent 3.71 strikeout-to-walk ratio. This year, he’s throwing his changeup more often than ever, it’s returning a whiff rate close to 40%, and he only walked the first two batters of his season yesterday. He’s taken hold of the eighth inning role in the Angels bullpen.

With Ben Joyce sidelined with an elbow injury, another young relief arm for the Angels has stepped into high leverage opportunities in his place. José Soriano was called up in early-June and has picked up holds in three of his first four appearances in the big leagues. The flamethrowing righty had been a starting prospect in the past but command issues forced him into the bullpen for Los Angeles. He’s currently unrostered in Ottoneu.

Much like Hot Right Now, Cold Right Now will be a weekly Ottoneu feature with a focus on players who are being dropped or who maybe should be dropped in Ottoneu leagues. Hot Right Now will focus on players up for auction, players recently added, and players generally performing well. Cold Right Now will have parallel two of those three sections:

1. Roster Cuts: Analysis of players with high cut% changes.
2. Cold Performers: Players with a low P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.

There won’t be a corresponding section to Current Auctions because, well, there is nothing in cuts that correspond to current auctions.

Roster Cuts

Roansy Contreras, Add% (-) Change (7 days) – 19.23%

Yet to appear after being moved to the bullpen, some managers are not willing to wait around to see if Contreras can work his way back into the rotation. In 11 starts in 2023, his 6.87 K/9 is below all his projected marks, and his BB/9 is above his projected marks. His velocity continues to trend down slightly since his MLB debut and the batting average against his fastball in 2023 is an astounding .415. On the flip side, his slider has performed impressively well, being hit for an average of only .194. Contreras has a good curveball to go along with the slider, it currently holds a 41.9% whiff rate, but good secondaries are difficult to rely on without a solid fastball and that’s what Contreras will need to work on out of the pen. If I had been rostering Contreras for a good price, I would still be holding, not dropping. He’s only 23 and still has a lot of potential.

Graham Ashcraft, Add% (-) Change (7 days) – 15.71%

After taking a come-backer off the calf, Ashcraft will spend some time on the IL. His 2023 game logs are not pretty. In four of his last seven starts, he has given up seven or more runs. In all of his last seven starts, he has given up at least three runs. Amongst pitchers with at least 60 innings this season, Ashcraft has the third-worst ERA, the eighth-worst FIP, and the fourth-worst K-BB%. While there is a lot to like about Ashcraft from a “Stuff” perspective as was pointed out earlier in the year by our own Nicklaus Gaut, his stuff is getting hit. Some research on pitchers with great stuff who get hit would help give some understanding as to what is going on.

Nick Senzel, Add% (-) Change (7 days) – 13.15%

With a slash line of .258/.332/.380 and more time spent on the IL, it’s not surprising to see Senzel’s drop rate increase. The now 27-year-old has played in over 100 games only twice in his career and has never hit above .260. His 2023 OBP (.332) is above league average (.319), but he is not stealing bases. He has never had a wRC+ over 100 and his slugging percentage has been far from the league average in his last three seasons. With the arrival of Elly De La Cruz and the success of Spencer Steer, Senzel will almost certainly have to find playing time in the outfield this season and his defensive marks on the year don’t lead you to believe he is a shoo-in at any one defensive position the rest of the season.

Chris Sale, Add% (-) Change (7 days) – 11.85%

It is simply sad to see Sale back on the IL with a “stress reaction in his left scapula”, but such is life. It’s difficult to hold on to Sale at this point as his estimated return is sometime in August. He showed a real return to form after a shaky start to the season, going eight innings in mid-May against the Cardinals while striking out nine and only walking one. If you have the IL spot available, it can’t hurt to hold on to Sale, but otherwise, he should be dropped.

Brandon Lowe, Add% (-) Change (7 days) – 10.90%

Rotowire expects that Lowe will return from a herniated disc injury in mid-July, but back injuries are so nagging and difficult to fully return from. Either way, Lowe finds himself on the 10-day IL after hitting nine home runs and slugging .398 in 2023. His batting average sits at a worrisome .205 and he continues to struggle against left-handed pitchers. But, his average against right-handed pitchers is not that much better. Lowe has power, no doubt, but the sacrifice you make to your OBP/AVG categories when you roster him is out of balance with the power he supplies. Before his injury, his 31.3% K% was a near career-high and though his BB% (11.9%) was career-high, it was not enough to get his OBP above .300.

Jeremiah Estrada, Add% (-) Change (7 days) – 10.89%

An imminent big leaguer in Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin’s mid-May Cubs assessment, Estrada has appeared in 12 games and lasted 10.2 innings as a right-handed middle reliever. In that time he has put up an impressive 10.97 K/9, but a scary 10.13 BB/9. His ERA sits at 6.75 and his FIP at 9.08. These are not good numbers. Let our prospect experts, Longenhagen and Taruskin, tell you what you need to know:

His stuff isn’t so nasty that you can comfortably project him in a middle-inning role; instead, he’s forecast here as an optionable depth piece.

Cold Performers

To measure cold performers this week, I’m looking for players with low P/G or P/IP in the last 14 days.

Anthony Rizzo, -2.25 P/G:

It seems obvious that Rizzo’s Hard% decline is related to his HR/FB rate and wOBA decline. But, his K% has gone up due to an increased O-Swing% (~+5%), decreased O-Contact% (~-6%) and an increased CSW% (~+4%) when compared to his career marks:

He is probably still working through neck and back issues that had him out earlier in the year and swinging hard when you have those types of injuries is very difficult. Keep an eye on his playing status as more off days could be telling of a more serious issue. But, Rizzo is a tough hitter and a good hitter and he should soon get back to his average marks if he can start to feel a little better physically.

Cal Raleigh, -1.22 P/G:

Raleigh only hit one home run in the second half of May and he has not yet hit a home run in the month of June. He is really struggling against right-handed pitchers, batting only .204 and slugging .395. What is interesting however is that Raleigh’s plate discipline metrics are trending, mostly, in the right direction. He is making more contact, swinging outside of the zone less often, and swinging and missing overall less often.

His troubles can be pinpointed to when he does make contact as he’s not hitting the ball as hard as he used to on a consistent basis and that’s where Raleigh has done damage in the past:

Luis Severino, -4.67 P/IP:

Severino’s fastball velocity dipped back down to 95.6 MPH after reaching 98.0 MPH in a start at the end of May. He has only had four starts so far this year and in his last two starts, he has given up three home runs. His fastballs (cutter and four-seamer) are getting hit with batting averages above .300. His slider has been his best pitch so far this year from a swing-and-miss measurement, but he is throwing it slightly less often. It may take another couple of starts to work through a better gameplan/pitch-mix, so keep an eye on Severino in hopes that his velo will go back up and he will start limiting hard contact once again.

Bryce Miller, -4.86 P/IP:

After an excellent start to the season, Miller’s last two appearances were rough. He gave up eight earned runs and two home runs on May 29th and he gave up seven earned runs and one home run on June 4th. He still only has 5 walks in 38.1 innings, but hitters are catching on to the fact that he puts the ball in the zone with regularity and have begun hitting the ball hard:

Miller will have to find a balance between being a pitcher with an impressive 18.4% K-BB%, compared to the league average among starters of 13.8%, and a pitcher who gives up hard contact. While his fastballs are performing well from a pVal standpoint, all being positive, his secondary pitches, the slider, and the curveball are collecting negative values. His changeup is a good offering, but he doesn’t seem to be fooling anyone with the slider and curveball as each has a below-average SwStr%. This is the kind of up-and-down performance we should see from a pitcher who is only 24 years old.

Welcome back to the Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner. Based on the Roster Resource Probables Grid, I’ve organized every starter slated to start next week into four categories: start, maybe, risky, and sit. The first and last category are pretty self-explanatory. Starters who fall into the “maybe” category are guys you could start if you need to keep up with the innings pitched pace in points leagues or need to hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues; they’re good bets to turn in a decent start, but you shouldn’t automatically insert them into your lineup. If you’ve fallen behind on the innings pitched pace or you’re really starving for starts in a head-to-head matchup, you could turn to a “risky” starter or two.

I’ve also calculated a “Matchup Score” for each series using a straight combination of opponent’s home/away wOBA, opponent wOBA over the last 14 days, and the park factor for the ballpark the teams are playing in. It’s indexed so that 100 is average and anything above that is a favorable matchup and anything below is unfavorable. That matchup rating informs some of the sit/start recommendations I’m making, though the quality of the pitcher definitely takes precedence.

A few general schedule notes first:

• After working through a tough schedule this week, the Twins have a couple of easier matchups next week at home; the Brewers are much weaker on the road and have been really struggling recently and the Tigers have one of the worst offenses in the league no matter where they’re playing. The Braves also have a pretty nice schedule next week, with three in Detroit and then four games at home against the Rockies.
• The Astros and Rangers both have a pretty tough pair of home series next week. Houston will host the Nationals and Reds, both of which might seem like easy matchups, but both teams have been hitting pretty well recently. Texas hosts the high powered Angels and Blue Jays offenses and trying to avoid matchups against those two teams seems more justifiable. Still, with the way they’ve been pitching recently, you’re probably not going to sit Nathan Eovaldi or Jon Gray right now.
• The Rockies head out on the road next week but they’ve got two really bad matchups lined up which means you’re probably sitting their starters if you happen to be rostering any of them.
• Good luck trying to figure out which starters to start in that Dodgers-Giants series next weekend. Both teams have extremely low matchup ratings, a confluence of the home run friendly ballpark, the strength of San Francisco’s lineup on the road, and the always dangerous Los Angeles offense.

Notable two-start pitchers:

• Pablo López
• Zack Wheeler
• Zach Eflin
• Logan Gilbert
• Charlie Morton
• Jesús Luzardo
• James Paxton
• Tanner Bibee
• Jon Gray
• Hunter Brown
• Chris Bassitt
• Joe Musgrove
• Tony Gonsolin
• Logan Webb