A starting pitcher going three times through the order has been one of those analytically driven game tactics that have had an effect on the game-by-game innings accumulation of starting pitchers. Fantasy managers playing in standard 5×5 roto-leagues know that the only way to decrease a ratio statistic like WHIP ((BB + H) / IP), is to add more numbers into the denominator (IP) while keeping the numerator (BB + H) the same. A pitcher who goes three times through the order is also likely to accumulate a lot of innings. The more quality innings accumulated, the better off your ratios will be. If a starting pitcher faces the lineup a third time and it’s only the fourth inning, chances are they are not going back out for the fifth. So, if we find pitchers who consistently face the order in its entirety a third time, we can generally assume it’s because they are pitching well.

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Pitching can be complex in DFS, but it’s simple on some slates.

Just play Jacob deGrom.

Salary, matchup, ownership, leverage. These are all reasons to not play deGrom 100% if we’re mass multi-entering. But his salary is a little too low, his matchup is less overwhelming than we may think, the ownership is high but the gap between him and Corbin Burnes is tight, so the leverage gained by going to that primary pivot is small relative to the gap in their projections.

Looking at deGrom’s violent stats since 2020, he’s clearly too cheap. There’s a great argument that he should be $13k on both sites. He has a:

2.23 SIERA
13.93 K/9
1.79 BB/9
0.62 HR/9
36.3% K-BB rate

As for his matchup, sure, there are big names on the Braves, but they’re just above-average since 2019 against right-handed pitching:

103 wRC+
22.9% strikeout rate
.328 wOBA

The strikeout matchup isn’t great for us, but deGrom can strike anyone out. The Braves’.191 ISO against right-handers is scary, but deGrom’s power prevention is elite.

deGrom will be the highest-owned pitcher on both slates, but RotoGrinders currently has his ownership identical with Burnes on FanDuel. On DraftKings, there’s a gap, but Burnes is still projected to be owned by over a third of the field.

Burnes is a great pitcher in a great spot, making him a great play, but is he close enough in projection to deGrom? I don’t think so. THE BAT has the two ceilings nearly 11 points apart in favor of deGrom on FD and about seven points on DK. This is a huge drop in projection for not much leverage in ownership, bringing us back to salary.

The argument for exposure to Burnes on DK is that he’s a ridiculous $9.2k — $2.3k less than deGrom. Despite deGrom being underpriced, the two might be comparable plays per-dollar because Burnes’ price is a clown show.

But, of course, DK is a two-pitcher site, so playing Burnes doesn’t carry the opportunity cost of not playing deGrom. We can just play both. On FD, that cost exists.

Personally, I’m playing about 100 lineups on FD with at least 75 deGrom. Because of deGrom and what the deGrom-Burnes pairing does, there aren’t many options among hitters there before we get to builds that are too chalky. If I find it too difficult to differentiate on DK, I might only play five lineups.

PIVOT: Ian Anderson

Ian Anderson is the primary SP2 pivot off of Burnes on DK. His $7.1k price tag is also insanely low. His 3.79 SIERA and 10.18 K/9 are both better than Luis Castillo, Tony Gonsolin, Adam Wainwright, and Patrick Corbin, who are all more expensive.

Everyone is seeing this, though, so his projected ownership is near 50%.

I like going overweight or massively underweight on high-owned plays and the former will make all of my lineups difficult to leverage upon if I go overweight on deGrom, Burnes, and Anderson, so Anderson is probably only getting one of five lineups. There’s an argument toward going Burnes-Anderson in 10-to-20% of lineups. The argument being that by not pairing the two with deGrom, we’ve already created leverage in the deGrom omission, coupled with the average salary leftover being $2.3k higher allowing us to have lesser constraints than the field.

LEVERAGE: Adam Wainwright

If Framber Valdez were lower-owned, he’d be analyzed more, but I’m not playing a ~35% Valdez on a slate with deGrom and Burnes. Frankly, it’s the Valdez red herring that’s making deGrom and Burnes palatable plays.

If I decide to put 20-plus lineups on DK, my departure from Burnes and Anderson probably begins with Adam Wainwright.

Wainwright is pitching in Coors, but has a price tag that will deter ownership. We don’t love to play a pitcher in Coors, but the field doesn’t have the stones to do so at all, and this can be exploited to a small degree — well under 10% — and gain leverage over the field.

Wainwright isn’t very good, but he isn’t bad and the Rockies are outright terrible. They have a 78 wRC+ against right-handed pitching since 2019 with a 25.0% strikeout rate. Sure, Coors is a launching pad, but Wainwright’s 6.5% barrel rate allowed since 2020 is right about at the threshold before we start getting scared. And Wainwright’s 8.94 K/9 this season is more than enough to exploit the Rockies’ contact woes.

Wainwright’s Achilles’ heel is left-handed power, but the Rockies don’t have any. Charlie Blackmon is a shell of himself with a 5.3% barrel rate since 2020, and he’s the best they’ve got.

Wainwright is probably a bad single-entry play because the other four pitchers we’ve discussed project better, but in MME, we should want some.

Baseball is happening! I decided for the entire season to run a weekly article on pitchers who have been “heating up.” I will dive into what it could mean for the pitcher and what you should do with them. This should be a captivating concept because it will be pitchers of all levels, anywhere from aces to pitchers you would have never drafted. That’s what it’s all about, catching players as they improve and acting on it before anyone else can realize. Welcome to “Throwing Heat!”

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A former Mets farmhand who amassed 68 innings in the Majors before pitching for a season in KBO (Korea) last season, Chris Flexen 플렉센 signed with the Mariners this past offseason as a real mystery man. Incredibly, he actually entered the 2021 season with more walks allowed than strikeouts during his short MLB career, but a 28% strikeout rate versus just a 6.4% walk rate in Korea suggested that maybe something had changed. So suddenly he was an interesting flyer in fantasy leagues with the possibility he learned something overseas that would translate back to the Majors. That certainly didn’t happen over his first eight starts, but things might be clicking now, as we’ll see over his last five starts.

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Today’s mini-study is inspired by Dane Dunning. He was a waiver-wire option for me in several leagues this past week. With no consideration to his talent (4.71 ERA, 3.38 xFIP), I was not interested because he was averaging just 4.6 innings per start and had only reached the five innings needed for a Win in half his starts. Those seemed too low for any chance for a Win. It got me wondering if a possible cliff exists somewhere with how far a pitcher goes into a start that just eliminates their Win chances. Instead, I found nothing.

First off, I know many factors are relevant for a pitcher to get a Win and most he has no control over. His surrounding cast must score more runs than the other team. Also, they have to field balls in play to get outs while limiting errors. Also, the bullpen must be decent enough to hold a lead. And then there is the opposing team’s starter, hitters, and bullpen. The deal is that none of the preceding factors matter if the starter doesn’t consistently throw five innings. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I reviewed the starting pitchers leading the league in SIERA over the last 30 days. Now let’s flip to the other end — those starting pitchers who have posted the worst SIERA marks in the league over the last 30 days. Is a decline in velocity to blame? Sudden control issues? Let’s find out.

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Pitchers can change rapidly. Whether it’s changing their mix pitch, gaining or losing velocity, adjusting their mechanics, or something else, a pitcher we see today isn’t necessarily the same version we were expected during draft season. So it’s important to always monitor their underlying skills to see if the results suggest a new pitcher has arrived, whether better or worse. With that in mind, let’s dive into the last 30 day SIERA leaders. Are there any surprises among the crowd?

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Huge slate for Tuesday night, so let’s get right into the pitchers that I’m currently considering in my pool:

We’re gonna divide these pitchers between the best projected, how we can pivot, and how we can maximize our leverage.

PROJECTION — Gerrit Cole, Lucas Giolito, Max Scherzer

There are five pitchers on FD between $10.2k and $11.0k and four between $10.0 and $11.0k on DK. Gerrit Cole leads the way in projection on both sites. He’s the most expensive on DK, by a hair, but $400 cheaper than Zack Wheeler on FD. He’s looking to be close to the highest-owned pitcher across the board. Lucas Giolito has the next-highest points projection, but the highest projected ownership because of his price. The point-per-dollar advantage allows us more flexibility with our lineups than Cole, but playing him carries huge ownership for a full slate.

Max Scherzer is a strong pivot off of the two, carrying about 75% of the ownership Cole and Giolito will at around 85-to-90% of the point projection. Scherzer has the worst matchup of the three in terms of run prevention and is in the worst ballpark for home runs, but has the only good matchup for strikeouts.

Cole and Giolito are both facing teams with horrible track records against right-handed pitching, but they don’t strike out. Cole has to pitch in home run-happy Yankee Stadium, but his Achilles’ heel is home runs against left-handed hitters, and we’re not scared off by Jarrod Dyson and Nicky Lopez. Giolito’s weakness is still shaky control and home runs, but PNC Park has an 85 home run factor — miles below the 116 of Giolito’s home ballpark.

This is all to say that all three are great plays in that: Cole is the best pitcher on the slate with a great matchup; Giolito is the best value; and Scherzer will be the lowest-owned of the three in the best strikeout matchup as a heavy strikeout pitcher. Cole and Giolito carry heavy ownership risks and the requirement that we find leverage over the field through contrarian hitter stacks; Scherzer carries the risk of getting mashed for two or three home runs, not to mention that he’s just coming off of injury. But the injury could lower his ownership as the day goes on, as it’s probably capped in the 20% range.

Play any one of these three. Just build the right lineup around them as to not have too much cumulative ownership.

In MME, we should have some exposure to all three in 50-or-more lineups. But building 20 or five or one, we don’t have to play any of them.

PIVOTS — Freddy Peralta, Charlie Morton

Freddy Peralta isn’t a top-two pitcher on his own team, but he competes to be a top pitcher on this stacked slate, as we can see by the numbers above. His control is shaky and this is a tough strikeout matchup, but: no one is gonna play him; the strikeouts are so heavily baked-in that I don’t care about the matchup; the matchup is great for run prevention; and none of the top-five pitchers on this slate have great strikeout matchups anyway.

We’re getting such a discount on Peralta that — when we factor in the ownership — I’m heavily considering him for my single-entry contests on both sites. His strikeout stuff is probably the best on the slate right now. His power prevention is stronger than the three we just discussed, who’ll carry more ownership. So, why not?

On DK, with five guys carrying SIERAs of 3.50 and lower, the popular build will be to spend $19k or more on two stud pitchers. This means that value hitting will be over-owned. We can pivot off of the entire field and play whatever hitters we want by rostering Charlie Morton as our SP2 at a fraction of the price. Morton’s SIERA falls short of the aces, but it’s still under 4.00 and his K/9 is a pubic hair from being double digits. His 3.18 BB/9 for this season is a bit concerning, but his 0.86 HR/9 on that 5.1% barrel rate more than makes up for it.

Morton isn’t a top-five pitcher on this slate, but he doesn’t have to be at that price. His point-per-dollar rating on DK is the highest of all palatable pitchers, so he will carry ownership, but it should closer to 30-to-35% instead of the projected low-20s at which we currently have him. So, if we devoted 40% to him, that’s 40% of our overall builds differentiating from around 75-to-80% of builds. He will require that we find leverage in our hitters, but we’ll have more options to do so than the vast majority of the field playing the same two or three value stacks.

MAXIMUM LEVERAGE — Zack Wheeler, Clayton Kershaw

Zack Wheeler and Clayton Kershaw coming in at single digits is a massive mistake on behalf of the field that we should exploit.

Wheeler is a guy whose newfound strikeouts aren’t a flash in the fan. They’ve been a long time coming, as his lower strikeouts of the past were coming with consistent 95-to-96 mph heat. Now, he up to averaging 97.5 mph this season and the K/9 is up to 11.02 with continued elite control and power prevention. He probably has the best control and power prevention on the slate. Combine the Ks with that and I seldom care about salary or opponent when the ownership only requires that I go 10% to be overweight on the field. The matchup isn’t great, but it isn’t tough. Wheeler’s power prevention and velocity can make almost any team look like cats trying to bite their own ears.

Kershaw is just in a crappy spot. The Padres are a buzzsaw. But we’re talking sub-5% ownership, so we can play him at ~8% and be overweight. In recent years, his K/9 trailed off to the 9.00 range and he was getting blasted for bombs here and three. This season, his K/9 is way up to 10.60, his control is still elite, and his HR/9 is way down to 0.92. Kershaw isn’t matchup-proof anymore, but he can be just fine against anyone and put up the fantasy points for us to cash in on the slight possibility of a dominant performance. We don’t need him to dominate 35% of the time here at low exposure and ownership.

OMISSIONS

Marcus Stroman has a 4.28 xERA and only an 11% soft contact rate. I don’t trust that he’s as great as his results have shown and this matchup sucks. Playing him on this stacked slate is gibberish.

Andrew Heaney gets slapped in the face with bags of dongs way too often. And Angel Stadium is a sneaky-great home run ballpark.

Blake Snell has a bad matchup. But his control and power prevention are so terrible that I just can’t consider him when he needs strikeouts against a team that’s hard to strike out. And if he pitches great, how many innings do we get? Do we even get six? Strong pitcher that I normally love to play because he doesn’t need six innings to get ten strikeouts, but this is the wrong slate.

Zac Gallen is the one I feel I can most regret leaving out of the pool. He’s the guy we didn’t discuss who I’m most likely to play. We gotta love 10.39 K/9 against the Brewers’ strikeout-heavy lineup in Arizona with the roof closed. We gotta love his price. I might only play five lineups on DK and double-stud only one, so he could find his way into my pool then.

Stats cited are since 2020 unless otherwise noted. Projections via THE BAT; ownership projections via Rotoginders at 11:30 a.m. CST; park factors via EV Analytics through June 22, 2021.

Baseball is happening! I decided for the entire season to run a weekly article on pitchers who have been “heating up.” I will dive into what it could mean for the pitcher and what you should do with them. This should be a captivating concept because it will be pitchers of all levels, anywhere from aces to pitchers you would have never drafted. That’s what it’s all about, catching players as they improve and acting on it before anyone else can realize. Welcome to “Throwing Heat!”

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I perused the Triple-A SwStk% leaderboard and listed and discussed the AL starting pitchers who were at the top. Now let’s flip over to the NL, which unfortunately is a far less exciting group.

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