Archive for Reynaldo Lopez

Those who know me understand that I enjoy watching pitchers experiment and dive into it when it happens. Often they are irrelevant, failing to prevent the tires from spinning in the mud. There are exceptions, as always, and I find it interesting to point out possible exceptions before they are illuminated to the masses.

So today I want to talk about a pitcher that I wouldn’t actually suggest chasing in 12-teamer. Reynaldo Lopez’s 4.51 ERA and 1.36 WHIP with a 17.3% K rate are enough to turn anyone away while his FIP and SIERA are even worse, each with marks over 5.00. Even cherry picking his last six games returns a 4.28 ERA. Things aren’t great for Reynaldo Lopez.

Something peculiar did happen in his last start, though. It was a strong 7.0 IP, 1 ER, 6 Ks effort against the Yankees and it may have been a result of some tweaking in Lopez’s repertoire. I want to tell you about it.

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Here in the final week of April, sample sizes are starting to build up, but there is still a lot of statistical weirdness out there. Just in the walk rate leaderboard alone there are some confounding data for fantasy owners to ponder. Jose Quintana and Michael Wacha with double digit rates? Vince Velasquez among the lowest one-fourth? It’s like I hardly know these guys.
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Each week through the season, I’ll be looking at the collection of starting pitchers owned in under 15% of leagues (consensus Yahoo/ESPN ownership from Fantasy pros) and pointing out the options to consider if you need an extra arm or two at the end of your staff.

It’s a weird first week of Fantasy Baseball, and there are already plenty of intriguing choices on your wire. Let’s highlight my ten favorites.

Kyle Gibson (Minnesota Twins) – It still feels a little weird endorsing Gibson, but after a solid eight-game stretch to close out the 2017 season, Gibson continued his fantastic swing-and-miss ways, earning 16 whiffs in his start weekend start against the Orioles. While we should note the free-swinging the Baltimore lineup, inducing not a single hit paired with missing bats should dictate a pickup in the short term.

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It’s the opening weekend of Fantasy Baseball, but that doesn’t mean your waiver wire isn’t already a source of help.

Each week through the season, I’ll be looking at the collection of starting pitchers owned in under 15% of leagues (consensus Yahoo/ESPN ownership from Fantasy pros) and pointing out the options to consider if you need an extra arm or two at the end of your staff.

Jake Junis (Kansas City Royals) – Junis was an intriguing option last season, armed with one of the better sliders you’ll see from a player many barely know. His biggest weakness was lack of depth in his repertoire, though reports from spring training are a new knuckle-curve that he’s trusting as he enters the season. If it can be a consistent strike offering, this addition to his arsenal mixed with his fastball and slider should set the stage for a strong arm at the end of your rotation.

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It can be a struggle in deep leagues to fill out the final arms in your staff. Instead of talking about popular targets to chase in the middle rounds, I’m going to highlight ten starters to consider when searching for the final arms of your 15-teamer staff.

I originally set the ADP threshold at past the 300 mark, but I elected to dive a little deeper, setting the bar at 350 instead. That means guys I’d recommend targetting like Mike Minor, Dan Straily, German Marquez, Mike Leake, and Matt Shoemaker are off the list. This is legit deep, not that weak stuff.
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We’ve been waiting all year for Reynaldo Lopez to show up in Chicago and he came out with guns blazing in his 2017 debut, fanning five in his first six outs en route to allowing just two earned runs in six frames. Plenty are buying into the hype Lopez has garnered after his first start, but is he for real? Is Lopez someone you can count on down the stretch in your fantasy league? Let’s walkthrough the entirety of Lopez’s 2017 MLB debut with plenty of GIFs to help us out.

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