Low-Ownership Starters for Tuesday (9/26)

Tuesday’s lowly owned starters are a sad lot. Some decent arms have their ownership up like Daniel Mengden and Tyler Anderson. It’s like “Aces and Duds” today.

Just eyeballing some names, I may hold off and use some the guys going Wednesday (e.g. Andriese, Ynoa, Leiter)

Rafael Montero (3% owned) vs Atlanta (R.A. Dickey)

Montero is a perfectly good option for a team needing just strikeouts and Wins and doesn’t care about their ERA and WHIP. The game against Atlanta is winnable and Montero is averaging 8.6 K/9 as a starter. His value gets destroyed by the 5.0 BB/9 and the problem it causes to WHIP and ERA.

Trevor Williams (6% owned) vs Baltimore (Kevin Gausman)

I will stand by last week’s stance, he’s a usable streamer. A 4.00 to 4.50 ERA with a ~7.0 K/9. And a chance for a Win.

Carson Fulmer (5% owned) vs Angels (Parker Bridwell)

Fulmer is a very weak strikeout play if he even pitches. In his last start, he only recorded one out and walked two batters before being lifted with a finger blister. While Fulmer may seem similar to Williams with an 8.4 K/9 and 4.42 ERA, his walk rate is at 5.4 BB/9 and he continues to give up home runs (2.0 HR in ’17, 1.5 HR/9 in ’16). The walks have pushed all his ERA estimators into the ~6.00 range. The rate stats will be bad, there may not be a chance he even pitches enough for the Win. I’d use about anyone else.

Deck McGuire (0% owned) at Brewers (Zach Davies)

After examining McGuire’s recent career, he may be the most talented pitcher I feature today. The 28-year-old righty pitched well this season with a near 3.00 ERA in AAA (with ERA estimators to match) and numbers all over the play in five relief innings. The former 1st round pick is a flyball pitcher (40% or less GB%) with some fastball speed (94 mph). I couldn’t find any recent scouting reports on him based on his advanced age. Here are his ZIPs and Steamer projections:

Projection: K/9, ERA
ZIPs: 7.2, 5.65
Steamer: 9.6, 4.12

Those are some huge differences but any production near to the Steamer projection is definitely in-play. He won’t be the top choice for three reasons. He’ll be pitching in Miller Park which gives up a decent number of home runs. He’ll be facing a Brewers team trying to make the playoffs. Finally, he’ll be going against Zach Davies who only wins. He’s an option, just not a good one.

Bartolo Colon (7% owned) vs Cleveland (Josh Tomlin)

Why not give the big old guy a start? Besides the whole, he sucks aspect. He’s pitching for a hungry team against a beatable pitcher. He’s win-only play who will give up a few runs.

Anibal Sanchez (3% owned) at Royals (Jason Vargas)

Sanchez is easily the best play if he can keep the ball in the stadium (2.5 HR/9) on the year. His 8.8 K/9 and 4.19 SIERA look good but the home runs have pushed his ERA near 7.00 (6.68). Kaufman Stadium suppresses home runs and the Royals don’t hit too many of them. The weather is supposed to cool down so flyballs will lose some distance. The home run care is real but lessened. Sadly, he probably has the highest upside of any one of these pitchers.

Jake Thompson (1% owned) vs Nationals (Gio Gonzalez)

Thompson’s 4.14 ERA looks nice. That’s about it. His ERA estimators are around 5.50. His strikeout rates at 6.5 K/9.

Ranking of today’s lowly owned guys.

Nobody
.
Sanchez
Williams
Montero
McGuire
Colon (Win-only)
.
Thompson
Fulmer