Daily Starters – Monday, September 17th

by
September 17, 2018

For today’s limited game slate, I pushed my normal Fantrax’s ownership rate to 23% to snag a few more arms.

Ryan Borucki at Baltimore (23%)

The 24-year-old lefty is not a bad option considering he’s facing the Orioles with Andrew Cashner on the mound. Borucki isn’t going to provide a ton of strikeouts (5.9 K/9) but his low HR/9 (0.6) has kept his ERA reasonable (4.26).

Trevor Richards vs Nationals (22%)

Richards is the day’s best strikeout option (8.9 K/9) but he’s ratio killer (1.46 WHIP and 4.85 ERA). He gets a small boost since he’s a flyball pitcher (35% GB%) throwing at home where he HR/9 is 0.9 while 1.3 on the road. There are worse options like ….

Andrew Cashner vs Blue Jays (21%)

No way. The only possible desired outcome will be a Win since he is going against Ryan Borucki. Of the pitchers with at least 150 IP, his K%-BB% is the league’s lowest at 5%. Just stay away.

Erick Fedde (21%) at Marlins

While Fedde’s matchup and profile aren’t great, he’s the day’s best option. In just over 40 IP, he has a strikeout rate over 8.0. The Miami matchup provides a chance for a Win. Finally, he may also be in line for some ERA regression with a 5.12 ERA with his ERA estimators under 4.00. Stream away.

Bryan Mitchell vs Giants (8%)

No way. How about a little math?

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4.1 K/9 + 6.1 BB + 1.5 HR/9 = 6.07 ERA + 1.84 WHIP

Kohl Stewart at Tigers (4%)

Why are teams having to roll out the dregs? Another pitcher with more walks (15) than strikeouts (14). At least he’s not giving up the home runs (0.4 HR/9, 59% GB%) like Mitchell.

Adrian Sampson vs Rays (1%)

After examining his current profile, he at least doesn’t walk many hitters. Never has. This trait is better than some other pitchers throwing today. He doesn’t strike anyone out and has been home run prone. Even though he’s better than a few of the other arms throwing today, that doesn’t make him startable.

Final Rankings

  1. Erick Fedde
  2. Ryan Borucki
  3. Trevor Richards (K’s only)
  4. Adrian Sampson
  5. Andrew Cashner
  6. Kohl Stewart
  7. Bryan Mitchell





 

Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.

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Jackie T.
7 years ago

What’s wrong with Fedde’s matchup? The Marlins have scored the fewest runs in baseball this season – and the fewest runs at home of any team.

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