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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Last week, I discussed the Triple-A hitter wOBA and HR/FB rate leaders and their chances of a recall to the Majors over the near term. Already, several of them have graduated only days after publishing my articles. Now let’s turn to starting pitchers, or those who have amassed the majority of their innings in such a role. For minor league pitchers, all I really care about is strikeout rate. Obviously, I don’t want to see a 15% walk rate, but the strikeouts are my primary concern. So let’s review the starting pitcher strikeout rate leaders in American League organizations first. On the hitter side, I included who the MLB incumbent(s) is/are because they could create a real roadblock to near-term fantasy value. I’m not going to do that for pitchers as the path to a rotation spot or even a spot start is much easier and could come at any time due to injury. Finally, any names currently in the Majors will be excluded from these lists.

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Today’s article has been a couple of weeks in the making. I know it came up when one of my co-managers, Fred Zinkie, asked how much a pitcher’s performance changes if they immediately reface the same team. I don’t remember the pitcher or team involved but I didn’t know the answer so I’d find it out. The obvious answer is sure, a pitcher will be worse. It makes sense that the team that just faced him will have some familiarity. Two questions do come up though. First, how much does the pitcher’s performance degrade in the second matchup? Next, if there is a familiarity factor, how long does it take to go away? After examining the data, a small factor exists and quickly disappears.

Simply, this is one of the noisiest, possibly biased studies I’ve ever worked on. First, a starter usually doesn’t see a team right away since schedules have quite a bit of variation in them. This limits the sample size. Second, the data is clumped at five-day multiples because the starters need rest. I begged for a possible solution on Twitter but no solution was found. Even with the limitations, I forged ahead with some workable results. Read the rest of this entry »

Having officially gotten more regular-season baseball than we got in 2020, let’s check in on some team offensive trends. At least those trending poorly. Because while it’s still less than three months of baseball, it’s enough to start getting a handle on which teams you should exploit for streaming gains, and who you should avoid.

Matchups are obviously king in streaming but not all bad teams are the same. At least, not in terms of how they fare against each hand, both in general performance and strikeout tendencies. The Baltimore Orioles have the worst record in baseball, as well as the worst run value (per 100 pitches) against right-handed pitchers. However, you play a dangerous game when streaming a leftie against the Orioles, as their 1.29 RV/100 and .353 wOBA vs LHP are the highest in baseball, while their 20.4% K% is beaten only by the 16.8% K% of Houston.

Using Run Value (per 100 pitches), wOBA, xwOBA, and K%, we’ll see which teams currently look like the juiciest targets when considering a stream and then take a look at some of their matchups with starters who are currently rostered less than 50% in Yahoo leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

Our MLB DFS lineups don’t start and end with pitching. I’m not saying to punt pitcher every night or even every now and then. I’m just stressing that each and every slate does not rest upon our pitching. That said, the pitcher position is so vital because it’s the slot where we can get the most accurate projection in an extremely volatile wing of DFS.

Our pitching 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 have the fullest of full slates tonight, as every team is playing and there are quite a few aces on this slate. And we can’t play everybody. But there’s also only so much everyone else can play, leaving us great spots for leverage. Today, we’ll look at the aces to which we want the most exposure, the aces on whom we have to be overweight for leverage, and the best cheap play on DK — where we have to play two pitchers.

Here are the pitchers we’ll discuss today:

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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 »

Today’s mini-study is brought to you by Austin Gomber and Tarik Skubal. Both struggled to start the season with April ERA’s over 6.00, but I noticed both have righted the ship with May ERA’s near 3.00. Excessive walks caused their early struggles but both got them under control.

With the regression always looming, I wondered how much of the May gains should be given back in June. After looking through the data, not as much as I expected. Read the rest of this entry »

Our MLB DFS lineups don’t start and end with pitching. I’m not saying to punt pitcher every night or even every now and then. I’m just stressing that each and every slate does not rest upon our pitching. That said, the pitcher position is so vital because it’s the slot where we can get the most accurate projection in an extremely volatile wing of DFS.

Our pitching 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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I discussed seven starting pitchers whose SIERA marks improved the most in May versus April. Those improvements were driven by underlying skills surges — some sort of combination of a higher strikeout rate, lower walk rate, and/or more optimal batted ball distribution. Let’s now flip to the pitchers whose skills declined the most, leading to the largest increases in SIERA from April to May.

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The Miami Marlins have become a starting pitcher haven as their three studs – Pablo López, Sandy Alcantara, and Sixto Sánchez – were heavily targeted during draft season while Trevor Rogers was a popular sleeper pick. Sanchez has been derailed by a shoulder injury, but Rogers has greatly exceeded expectations and ensured a trio of beasts atop their rotation.

And now, a new challenger has emerged!

Cody Poteet is making a case to be included with the others as all-formats studs, though we definitely need to take a closer look before anointing him to the level of Lopez-Alcantara-Rogers or even Sanchez (but he was shutdown for discomfort after a 20-pitch bullpen on May 28th). Even with a rough start last time out (4.3 IP/5 ER), Poteet still has a 2.95 ERA in 21.3 IP which tells you how insane he was in the first three starts – 1.06 ERA in 17 IP.

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