Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner: May 22–28

Welcome back to the SP Drip— *record scratch* Wait, that headline doesn’t say “Drip.” After gathering feedback from across the Ottoneu universe, I’ve heard loud and clear that streaming recommendations — even in their adjusted form I presented in this biweekly column — just weren’t providing enough value for owners. Instead, they’re looking for sit/start recommendations further up the SP chain. Personally, I found that the same handful of pitchers ended up being recommended over and over again in the Drip — it turns out that the deep rosters of the format mean there are very few viable starters who are owned in less than half the leagues across Ottoneu. I’m still not sure what Tuesday’s article will look like moving forward, but on Fridays, you’ll get the full picture of the week ahead. Introducing the Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner!

What I’ve done below is organize every starter on all 30 teams based on the Roster Resource Probables Grid and sorted them into four categories: start, maybe, risky, and sit. The first and last category are pretty self-explanatory. Starters who fall into the “maybe” category are guys you could start if you need to keep up with the innings pitched pace in points leagues or need to hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues; they’re good bets to turn in a decent start, but you shouldn’t automatically insert them into your lineup. If you’ve fallen behind on the innings pitched pace or you’re really starving for starts in a head-to-head matchup, you could turn to a “risky” starter or two.

I’ve also calculated a “Matchup Score” for each series using a straight combination of opponent’s home/away wOBA, opponent wOBA over the last 14 days, and the park factor for the ballpark the teams are playing in. It’s indexed so that 100 is average and anything above that is a favorable matchup and anything below is unfavorable. That matchup rating informs some of the sit/start recommendations I’m making, though the quality of the pitcher definitely takes precedence. As this is the first run of this new format, please let me know if there’s any feedback or questions.

A few general schedule notes first:

• The Red Sox have a couple of tough matchups on the West Coast in Los Angeles and Arizona. Angel Stadium is a home run heaven and the Angels are always dangerous with Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani swinging big sticks, and the Diamondbacks have been one of the hottest teams in baseball recently.
• The Marlins also get to visit Angel Stadium but they have a date in Coors Field first. That means there are a bunch of solid Miami starters who have really poor recommendations this week and it’s a rough stretch for the rookie Eury Pérez.
• The White Sox will face the two worst offenses in baseball next week which means guys like Mike Clevinger and Michael Kopech are viable starters.
• The Rangers also have a pair of favorable matchups next week in Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Dane Dunning has been brilliant since joining the rotation and he gets a pair of starts in some cavernous ballparks.

Despite their fantastic record recently, the Dodgers offense has been particularly bad on the road this year and hasn’t been hitting all that well over the last two weeks either. That makes the matchup against the Rays next weekend particularly enticing for Tampa Bay starters. Tyler Glasnow is scheduled to come off the Injured List during that series and I want to rank him higher with the nice matchup to cushion his activation, but it’s so hard to predict what we’ll see from him after his spring injury.

The Mets travel to Coors Field next weekend and Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander are lined up to start two of those games. Neither one has been an automatic start this year anyway — both have dealt with injuries and Scherzer has been inconsistent when he’s been healthy. It’s tough to sit the pitchers you’ve invested a ton of your salary cap into, but I wouldn’t trust either of them in the thin air in Denver.

Notable two-start pitchers:

• Eduardo Rodriguez (@KCR, vCHW)
• Gerrit Cole (vBAL, vSDP)
• Dylan Cease (@CLE, @DET)
• Spencer Strider (vLAD, vPHI)
• Cristian Javier (@MIL, @OAK)
• Alex Cobb (@MIN, @MIL)
• Corbin Burnes (vHOU, vSFG)
• Luis Castillo (vOAK, vPIT)
• Dane Dunning (@PIT, @BAL)
• MacKenzie Gore (vSDP, @KCR)
• Brady Singer (vDET, vWSN)