Ottoneu Starting Pitching Drip: April 3–6

Welcome back to the SP Drip. My goal for this bi-weekly column is to comb through the upcoming schedule each week to find a few under-owned pitchers (less than 50% ownership across Ottoneu) who could be used to help you hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues or to make sure you’re hitting your innings pitched cap in points leagues. Tuesday’s article will cover the weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and Friday’s article will cover the upcoming week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday). That way, you’ll have time to start your auctions in time to actually drip these pitchers into your lineup.

Let’s get into it.

Upcoming Schedule:

With the first weekend of baseball underway, here’s what the upcoming schedule looks like for next week. With the front end of each team’s rotation pitching over the weekend, this week sees the back end of those pitching staffs take the forefront.

Favorable schedules include the Astros, Angels, Blue Jays, Dodgers, Guardians, Marlins, Padres, Rays, Red Sox, and Twins.

Avoid the Diamondbacks, Pirates, Rockies, and Tigers. Despite facing tough opponents, you may be able to get away with playing starters from the Braves, Cardinals, or Royals since they’re playing in relatively safe environments.

Highlighted matchups:

The best recommendations I can make are the two Red Sox starters, Pivetta and Crawford, against the Pirates at home. They both have decent projections this year and Pivetta looked particularly strong this spring with some added velocity on his fastball and a new curveball. Crawford showed some promise during his first full season in the big leagues last year. Split between the bullpen and the rotation, he posted a pretty good 14.4% strikeout-minus-walk rate and a 4.33 xFIP in 77.1 innings. They’ll both have a pretty easy opponent to start the season with the Pirates.

It looked like Ryan Pepiot had won the fifth spot in the Dodgers rotation but he was placed on the Injured List with an oblique injury just prior to the season. In his place, Michael Grove got the call up and will face the Rockies at home on Monday. While he doesn’t have the big prospect reputation like Pepiot, Grove should be an effective spot starter for the Dodgers and has a nice matchup against the Rockies in his first start this year.

With the Guardians heading to Oakland for a three-game series next week, there are multiple starters on both teams who could serve you well. On Cleveland’s side, Plesac is scheduled to start on Monday. He’s really fallen off since his breakout season in 2020, but he still possesses useful skills, particularly against a weak opponent like the A’s. Hunter Gaddis is also scheduled to start for the Guardians in this series, but he’s much more of an unknown.

For the A’s, Kaprielan, Sears, and Muller are scheduled to start and I’d be most interested in the latter two. Muller, one of my recommendations for a start in Tuesday’s column, held the Angels to just a single run in five innings, striking out three. Sears has an even better projection than Muller and I think he should be on many more rosters than he is right now, especially if he has a solidified role in the rotation. With an extremely flat fastball and a pretty good slider, he could develop into a poor man’s Joe Ryan.

If you’re feeling really risky, you could start Kikuchi against the Royals in Kansas City. The raw stuff is obvious, but the question has always been his command of it. He had a phenomenal spring training, striking out 31 in 20.2 innings. The walks were still present so it’s not clear if he’s truly figured out where his pitches are going, but he gets a pretty nice opening opponent to ease him into the regular season.