The season has begun and we are back with Throwing Heat! For those who didn’t read these articles last season, this is a weekly article that focuses on pitchers who are pitching well. When we are further into the season it will be based on a pitcher’s previous three starts but for now, it will just be their most recent starts.

The beauty of this article is how it highlights all types of pitchers from the best in the league to pitchers who are barely rostered. If someone is on a hot streak they will be in this article. I will also tell you if the hot streak is legit or if it appears to be a facade. I hope you enjoy it!

Andrew Heaney, LAD

Last two starts: 10.1 innings pitched, 0.00 ERA, and a 13.94 K/9

To dive a little deeper into these first two starts Heaney has a 1.16 FIP, 32.5 K-BB%, and a 20.5 SwStr%. Small samples are fun! Heaney was touted by many this offseason for his underlying potential. Something many have thought for years now. So is it finally coming to fruition?

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Our pitching in MLB DFS isn’t just a source of fantasy points. The price tags on pitchers make it so they shape they dictate the freedoms and restrictions of building our lineups. Before reading this article, it’s highly suggested that you read my article, “DFS Pitching Primer,” so the concepts discussed here make more sense.

That we’re not selecting the best players. We’re constructing the lineups which carry the most leverage without sacrificing many projected fantasy points.

Speaking of lineups, we’re gonna approach this with Coors Field in mind, considering there’s a terribly high-contact pitcher on the mound for Colorado and an erratic pitcher on the mound for Philadelphia. We have to remember that we can’t play chalk pitching with Coors stacks. When stacking Coors teams, we have to find leverage elsewhere.

THE SP1s: Corbin Brunes, Robbie Ray, and Joe Musgrove

Walker Buehler and Framber Valez are strong pitchers, but both have bad matchups on top of weaker K/9, compared to the three we’ll discuss.

Corbin Burnes is at the top of the list. His SIERA is the only one on the slate under 3.00 with the only K/9 over 12.00 and the only HR/9 under 0.75 since 2021, with elite command. And the Pirates are atrocious. Burnes is probably underpriced on both sites.

Robbie Ray is about adequately priced. He’s shown some command issues thus far this season, but we shouldn’t put too much into a couple of outings. We should believe in the bust out we saw last season, where he dramatically lowered his BB/9 and HR/9, while still carrying a high K/9. He draws an unspectacular Rangers team, whose active roster has a 24.2% strikeout rate against left-handed pitching since 2021.

Joe Musgrove has seen his strikeouts, walks, and power prevention swing in the wrong direction since the late-June enhanced enforcement of banned substances. But his numbers since June 30 are still fine: 9.41 K/9, 2.89 BB/9, 1.16 HR/9 on a 3.94 SIERA. Add that the Reds are a no-hitter waiting to happen and fine is, well, fine.

Musgrove’s dramatically more expensive at FD, but the ownership is dramatically lower there. If we can jam in the Coors bats with his hefty price tag at FD, that’s our move. If Otherwise, he’s not really playable with Coors. Sure, the cheap price tag makes it easier to play him with Coors at DK, but everyone sees that same dynamic. Early ownership projections are showing that everyone is seeing Burnes and Ray as much stronger options than Buehler and Valdez, leading me the conclusion that we play Musgrove, Buehler, or Valdez at FD or Buehler and/or Valdez at DK with Coors.

Where we fade Coors, we should be playing Burnes, Ray, or Musgrove. The second we pull that trigger of not playing Coors is the second where we kinda’ don’t have to give a crap about ownership.

THE CHEAP SP2s: Cole Irvin and Chris Archer

Cole Irvin is projected better than Buehler and Valdez, according to THE BAT. The ballpark in Oakland is sexy for run prevention. It’s bad for strikeouts, but Irvin is so cheap that the strikeouts are cherries, not the sundae. Not to mention, the Orioles’ active roster has a 24.9% strikeout rate against left-handers since 2020.

Irvin’s 2.04 BB/9 displays great command and his 1.28 HR/9 is good enough power prevention facing an average bunch of hitters who strike out a ton.

With the field looking for paths toward jamming in two of Burnes, Ray, and Musgrove, Irvin is projecting to gather almost no ownership. But the day is early. He’s projecting so well in terms of performance that the ownership should follow. But, hey, there’s nothing sexy about playing Cole Irvin.

On one hand, there’s nothing on the Fangraphs page of Chris Archer that tells us to play him. But he is free and projected by THE BAT to throw in the 80-pitch range, along with the terrible Royals as his opponent. His 95-96-mph fastball now sits in the 93-94 range and he did go four innings without walking anyone in his first start. The Royals don’t strike out much, on one hand; but they could also be quick outs that get Archer in the direction of six innings. Not putting six innings on the table here; just saying that we could get into the fifth against a high-contact bunch.

Historically, Archer was a fireballer until he got hurt and, then, he got ever more hurt even worse. We don’t really know what he is. But we’re presuming he isn’t and and that’s enough for this price tag against this opponent.

On a personal note: recent months have been overwhelmingly trying for my family and I want to express my deepest gratitude for all of the well wishes and support.

If a lifetime of watching baseball has taught me anything, it’s that you only need about a week to predict how the rest of the season will go. It’s science. Read the rest of this entry »

Using my Pitch Leaderboard, I identified every “new” pitch* thrown during MLB’s glorious first weekend. Then, using my Pitch Comps tool, which uses pitch specs (like velocity, spin rate, movement, and release points) to compare pitches to one another, I wanted to see if I could make any quantifiable declarations about the quality of these pitches in small samples. I can’t write about everyone, so I’ll select the most interesting ones (in my humble opinion).

(*Including existing pitches from rookies for whom we now finally have MLB statcast data as well as existing pitches thrown by players who missed all of 2021 due to injury. It will be interesting to see if the latter group looks measurably different post-injury than they did pre-injury.)

At the end of the season, I’ll revisit to find out these comps were actually indicative (i.e., “predictive,” in a sense) of quality, but it’s also strongly possible the comps will change as samples grow. This is very experimental, but it’s something I’ve wanted to try in the past but hadn’t found the motivation to do.

Why pitch comps? I know I am prone to bias watching a handful of pitches from a pitcher. I can’t scout because I can deceive myself into just about any conclusion (and I think the same can be said for most of us, whether we like it or not).

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Earlier this week, I shared and discussed starting pitcher velocity gainers on Monday and Tuesday, and then relievers yesterday. Now let’s flip to the fastball velocity decliners. My level of concern for the pitchers on this list, and for those who missed the cut but have also suffered declines, is lower than my excitement for the velocity gainers. Given the abbreviated spring training, it’s understandable if some pitchers are still building up their arm strength, and we’ll see their velocities gradually rise closer to what we expected. Surprisingly however, leaguewide velocity is actually up! During the same date range of Apr 7 – Apr 12, 2022 fastball (four-seam, two-seam, sinker) velocity is actually up from 93.4 MPH in 2021 to 93.6 MPH in 2022. So it’s hard to use the blanket short spring training as an explanation, but I’m sure every pitcher is affected differently. Bottom line is while this group is certainly worth monitoring and a trip to the IL with an injury shared could certainly be announced, I wouldn’t panic just yet.

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The season has begun and we are back with Throwing Heat! For those who didn’t read these articles last season, this is a weekly article that focuses on pitchers who are pitching well. When we are further into the season it will be based on a pitcher’s previous three starts but for now, it will just be their most recent starts.

The beauty of this article is how it highlights all types of pitchers from the best in the league to pitchers who are barely rostered. If someone is on a hot streak they will be in this article, we will then break down their recent starts and let you know if it is real or a facade.

Tylor Megill, NYM

Last two starts: 10.1 innings pitched, 0.00 ERA, 0.58 WHIP, and a 30.6 K%

Tylor Megill, you are a bad bad man! In his first two starts of the season, Megill has looked phenomenal as he cruised through both the Phillies and the Nationals’ offense. He has yet to surrender a walk, has a 30.6 K%, and a 16.0 SwStr%.

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Let’s continue reviewing the starting pitcher velocity surgers, as finding those breakouts will give you a huge leg up on your league winning journey. Yesterday, I shared and discussed six names, so let’s do another five today. As a reminder, these velocities are after just one start, and because the majority of starts have been abbreviated so far this season, the sample size of pitches is smaller than usual. While velocities stabilize rather quickly, they do fluctuate from start to start.

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There’s not a whole lot to analyze at the beginning of the season aside from playing time, but there is one metric that stabilizes rather quickly and gives us extremely useful information — pitch velocity. I always monitor velocities during spring training and then early in the season to potentially get a leg up and find breakouts before they occur. So let’s review six velocity surgers after one start. To make data comparisons easier for me, I used Baseball Savant’s search tool and lumped all three fastball types (four-seam, two-seam, sinker) together and compared the average velocities of all three pitches for each pitcher to last season. Note that these velocities differ from the two velocity tables we have on FanGraphs. The absolute velocity is far less important than the increase in velocity, so the fact that the velocities don’t match isn’t an issue.

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Yesterday, I published 15 starting pitcher blurbs, just because. It involved a long prologue behind the what, when, and why of the matter. In short, I spent much of the offseason secluding my digital self from outside noise (fantasy baseball articles, Twitter opinions, etc.), forcing myself to develop opinions on as many relevant players as possible. I isolated my brain from outside analysis and biases, leaving me with only my own. I wanted to document my thoughts, both to have a point of reference during drafts and to have a record of those thoughts for accountability’s sake. If nothing else, be accountable to yourself.

At the end of yesterday’s article, I solicited recommendations from readers for more pitchers to feature. That, my friends, was an enormous mistake. Although I alleged I would pick names at random, instead I combed through 85 comments (and counting) and tallied up the most combined recommendations and up-votes. Those are the ones I’ll present here.

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This offseason I set out on a personal journey. Sentences like that usually precede stories of enlightenment, and I suppose this story features some enlightenment of its own. We won’t know how much enlightenment until after the 2022 season concludes.

I’m not asked this question often, but I have been asked it often enough to have a stock answer for it. It’s some variation of, “What’s the best thing someone can do to improve as a fantasy baseball player?”, to which my answer is some variation of, “Develop an opinion about every player—well, not every player, but you know what I mean.”

This is something that, when I had more time on my hands, I used to do. But in 2020 I became a work-from-home/stay-at-home father navigating a pandemic, and I burned out. Although I managed sporadic success and positive returns on investment in the 2020 and 2021 seasons, I was lucky to escape unscathed—I was all but flying blind. I was, and still am, fortunate to have years and years of watching baseball and playing fantasy baseball to have built an encyclopedic knowledge about most players.

It’s easy, however, to miss the big changes—the breakouts, the fall-offs, the rookies. It’s easy to dismiss them, and easier yet to enter a draft room and ignore them all together. Indeed, you can build a winning team without deeply investigating these types of players, instead relying on existing knowledge about existing players. You can do it, but it’s difficult, and it’s foolish.

So, I dedicated myself to the task of developing opinions about nearly every player.

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