The blue bar represents the START of a new tier.

I generally don’t include IL’d guys. It’s especially precarious this late when guys could just be shutdown if they are on bad teams.

I view these as 2-3 week rankings given the volatility of pitching so I will include at least 1 and probably 2 more updates on the site before season’s end, but I am updating them regularly on our Patreon.

FYI: instead of updating the rankings in September, I started the Daily SP Chart.

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Sometimes conclusions to tough questions just don’t sit right, especially when the answer is “We don’t really know.”. How pitchers control batted balls has never had a simple definitive answer. I’m going to give it another shot.

I have some ideas of what might be a cause, but I want to start with a blank slate. What’s got me diving back in is the following table from a recent article of mine.

While a few percentage points of difference may not seem like much, I expected a lot more regression to the mean with my limited sample size. With just the above information, I felt I needed to re-investigate the subject. I know that some of the regression amounts have previously existed, but I wanted to dive in with some fresh eyes and new batted ball data. Read the rest of this entry »

Cleveland has become something of a starting pitcher factory. It really started with the emergence of Corey Kluber and reclamation of Carlos Carrasco in 2014 and has continued through this year despite a bevy of injuries. Their best starters – Shane Bieber and Aaron Civale – have spent months on the IL and derailed Cleveland’s season, but there has been plenty of opportunity for the likes of Triston McKenzie, Cal Quantrill, and Eli Morgan, showing that Cleveland is likely to remain a pitching force for years to come. I want to focus on McKenzie today.

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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.

We’ll look at the current pool I’m using — the chalk and pivots — and then, cover some questionable plays I’m avoiding for the most part at this time. Right now, this is what I’m looking at:

TIER ONE: ACES — Burnes and Flaherty

Jack Flaherty sticks out like a sore thumb because he’s a legitimate ace and is facing a terrible Tigers team that strikes out a ton. They strike out more often than any other pitcher’s matchup on this slate. He’s also pitched six-plus innings in nine of his 13 starts, so he’s staying in if he’s rolling — and he should roll through Detroit tonight for a quality start, a win, and a shot at nine-plus strikeouts.

THE BAT has Flaherty projected for the most raw points and lower ownership on FD, but pretty high ownership on DK. Sucking the air out of the room is the 500-pound gorilla looming over this slate with another idiom that slips my mind.

Corbin Burnes is the best pitcher on this slate and it isn’t close at all. This season, he’s fine-tuned his control and been a friggin’ serial killer:

2.57 SIERA
12.40 K/9
1.63 BB/9
35.1% K-BB rate
0.35 HR/9
2.7% barrel rate

These are the only Cy Young digits on the slate. That said, we’re paying for it.

Burnes is $1,200 more than Flaherty on FD and $1,000 more on DK. Instead of facing the bum-assed Tigers in a pitchers’ park like St. Louis, Burnes has to face a strong Reds lineup in a hitters’ park like Milwaukee. So, there is added risk.

I don’t — personally — think this risk is enough to sway me from the best pitcher on the slate. Flaherty is a really good pitcher. But it would take a great pitcher or maybe 150% of Flaherty’s ownership to take me away from Burnes on either site in single-entry.

In MME play, there’s a decision to be made. I expect the field to spread ownership around to a lot of good pitching that we have on this slate, I’m taking a strong stance by going overweight on both guys. The field wants to have enough lineups to spread exposure. I want to counter that by being potentially overexposed to the two cleat-cut aces.

TIER TWO: THE DK SP2 — Márquez

Germán Márquez isn’t cheap in a vacuum, but he’s way too cheap for the skillset and situation. This is a Coors Field pitcher with only 0.83 HR/9 on a 4.7% barrel rate and near 9.00 K/9. This is a really good pitcher. Add that he’s facing the Cubs and their high strikeout rate against right-handed pitching and I DGAF how the wind is blowing; he’s the best SP2 play on DK.

That said, everyone is seeing this terrible Cubs dynamic and will jam him in, which forces us to call back to savings on Flaherty from Burnes. More importantly, it raises the necessity for us to not play Flahety-Márquez or Burnes-Márquez lineups too freely, as those will be the two chalk combinations. We can play them; we just need to stack off the board when we do.

And we don’t have to play those pairings. There is a wealth of pivots on this slate.

TIER THREE: PIVOTS — Morton, Megill, Berrios, Morgan

Charlie Morton is still a really good pitcher. Where he ranks on this slate among qualified pitchers:

3rd in SIERA
4th in K/9
4th in K-BB%
2nd in HR/9
5th in barrel rate

Morton faces a tough power matchup in the Yankees, but he neutralizes power. The key to this play is that the Yankees have a few guys who strike out a bunch and Morton has baked-in strikeouts. No one’s gonna play him.

Tylor Megill is more than just a background Game of Thrones character. He’s a pretty good pitcher with baked-in strikeouts, decent control, and strong power prevention, who can go six innings, if he’s rolling. The Giants are a really tough matchup, but Citi Field is a great pitchers’ park. There aren’t any good SP plays under $7,000, so we have to consider sprinkling him around.

José Berríos is probably the pitcher after Morton in a bad matchup that I’m considering most. The White Sox are about as bad a matchup as the Yankees, but they strike out more often. This is a guy who can go seven innings against anyone any given night. Remember that more innings equals more strikeout opportunities and, hell, we get fantasy point for innings, too.

Last and certainly least, we have to discuss Eli Morgan. He isn’t any damn good. He walks too many guys and is a launching pad when contact is made. But this is a great run prevention situation. The Rangers are worse than the Tigers and Cubs and we’re considering passing over Burnes for Flaherty and Márquez. We can save a lot of money in some lineups and get the nut matchup. Sure, it can blow up in our faces, but this is baseball.

Baseball is a risky game on which to make wagers of any sort. The temptation on a slate where there is really good pitching is to eliminate all of the high-risk situations as unnecessary. This is incorrect.

Tournaments are won by calculating when to embrace variance. Doing so at SP2 with a guy who struggles to prevent power because he can strike out a man per inning is totally fine. Especially on a slate where the cheapest guy we want to play is $8,200.

Stats cited are since 2020 unless otherwise noted. Park factors via EV Analytics.

We are only a month into the “second half” but we are already seeing some pitchers turn their season around. I put it in quotes because it’s obviously not a pure 81/81 game split, but rather the halves are determined by the All-Star break. I’m sure some players use the time off to dig into their numbers and come up with a gameplan to improve while others likely just relax and enjoy the breather. These three arms have been markedly better since July and I wanted to investigate what changed to bring about these turnarounds.

Marco Gonzales, SEA

1H: 5.88 ERA/1.46 WHIP in 56.7 IP | 2H: 1.67 ERA/0.90 WHIP in 32.3 IP

While few fully believed Gonzales’s 2020 (3.10 ERA/0.95 WHIP) since it was just two months, he was still drafted for useful ratios over a good number of innings. At no point in the first half was his ERA below 5.00 and his 2.4 HR/9 was seeing him hit more waiver wires with each passing week. He opened the second half with a trip to Colorado which was sure to be a disaster given how his season was going to that point… so of course he put up a 5 IP/2 ER outing, notching his second win of the year.

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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.

Tonight, we have a full slate with a lot of options and at 6:00 a.m., I’m in favor of a robust pitching pool and a condensed pool of diversified stacks for hitters. Because, well, we can’t play everyone, and I rarely favor balance over taking a stand. Currently, this is my pitcher pool. We’ll go through the three tiers of these pitchers and briefly sum up why I eliminated others in the end.

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For the second week in a row, I had to voice my amazement that JT Brubaker was cut in the NFBC Main Event. While Brubaker’s results have not been great (4.95 ERA), there are several signs that point to him being closer to a 4.00 ERA pitcher. The stat that sticks out is his 1.9 HR/9. The home runs have him with a 4.98 FIP while his xFIP is a full run lower at 3.98. I wanted to see if I should blindly assume that his home run rate will drop. With the expected drop, will his FIP and ERA regress downward to his xFIP? Also, are there any measurable traits that make a pitcher more home run prone? I ended up with a “maybe” and a solid “no”.

Brubaker isn’t the only pitcher who fits this mold. Bailey Ober has a 2.2 HR/9. His 4.99 ERA is almost identical to his 5.18 while his xFIP is down at 4.12. Another is Yusei Kikuchi (1.6 HR/9, 4.37 FIP, 3.47 xFIP). Adbert Alzolay (2.0 HR/9, 5.03 FIP, 3.89 xFIP). The season is over halfway over and fantasy managers are losing patience. Read the rest of this entry »

We are entering the dog days of the season and this season is of course particularly unique because we’re coming off the pandemic year. The dog days could hit harder than normal and have teams pushing hard for reinforcements to ensure their major league arms can get to the finish line of the regular season and beyond if they are contenders. Here are five guys who be called up (or back up) to make a late-season impact.

Joe Ryan | MIN – 35% K, 5% BB, 3.63 ERA, 0.79 WHIP in 57 IP

Ryan was in the Nelson Cruz deal and though the Twins are toast for the year, they should still consider giving the 25-year-old righty a look soon. Brilliant command of his fastball has fueled elite K%-BB% all the way up the minor league ladder along with being a bit old for each level, too. He fared pretty well for Team USA in the Olympics, too, with 10 K and 1 BB in 4.7 IP. It’s time to see if this heater is going to find MLB success and if they turn him loose, he could be a nice SP pickup in a lot of formats.

Aaron Ashby | MIL – 36% K, 12% BB, 4.48 ERA, 1.38 WHIP in 62.3 IP

Ashby made his debut earlier this year and it didn’t go well, allowing seven runs (four earned) on four hits and three walks while getting just two outs. He struggled in his first two outings back in Triple-A after the debut, but then settled down with a 2.08 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, 38 K, and 6 BB in 21.7 IP. He is actually back today (Tuesday, August 10th) for the doubleheader against the Cubs and could be a key piece to helping Milwaukee rest the three aces down the stretch. This is a volatile profile, but the huge strikeout ability gives him some real upside.

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Following a 2020 season in which only 40 starting pitchers reached at least 60 IP, the general worries that starters would be limited this year, have yet to be actualized. Granted, they still have two months to do so but my concerns have at least been tamped down on veterans with track records of high usage. However, pitchers with previously middling maxs are still worrying, particularly as more teams drop out of contention, and young starters still carry the same concerns as they do in the second half of any season.

However, whether looking at veterans or rookies, fantasy managers must try to set expectations for their pitching staff as we head into the fantasy dog days. Even if trusting what management says tends to be an exercise in futility. But you need to at least try to have a handle on who you can depend on the rest of the way, if only to curse their names when they do the opposite.

One if by shutdown, two if by bullpen…The limits are coming! The limits are coming! Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Tonight is a short slate, so not a lot of great options, so I thought we’d zero in on DraftKings, where we have to play two pitchers. On DK, we have to know when to play about half of the pool and when to condense the pool. With so much bad pitching, it’s a slate to attack that bad pitching with a diversity of hitter stacks and have a condensed player pool.

And even this condensed pool isn’t super pretty, so you can imagine how much fat we’ve cut:

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