The Daily Grind: Wacha, Whitley, Buchholz

Agenda

1. Wacha Worries
2. Daily DFS – Whitley, Chen(s), Hughes
3. GB / FB Splits
4. Tomorrow’s Targets – Buchholz, Vargas Young, Krush, Aybar
5. Factor Grid

1. Wacha Worries

Many thanks to The Honorable Brad Johnson for trusting me (perhaps erroneously) to man the Daily Grind for a day.

Consider shopping Michael Wacha if you own him. He struck out only one hitter last night and has K’d more than four batters only once this season. His swinging strike and contact rates are by far the worst of his career, and he’s outperforming his xFIP by more than two runs. His name value and current ratios could net you a comparable but more reliable talent.

2. Daily DFS – Whitley, Chen(s), Hughes

Yesterday’s Grind

Early: It’s only 12 innings, but Chase Whitley has made them count. The Dallas Keuchel of New York, Whitley’s inducing tons of ground balls and limiting hard contact but with more strikeouts and fewer walks. Whitley faces Baltimore, an all-or-nothing offense that ranks fourth in isolated power (ISO) but 26th in plate discipline (BB/K). He’s a gamble at Yankee Stadium, but he’s also the cheapest home-park pitcher not named Bruce Chen.

Late: Call it a reverse-platoon split if you want. Phil Hughes has resumed his post at NASA, sending baseballs into orbit. Indians are a perfect lefty-heavy lineup to stack… Back to the BAL-NYY game: Wei-Yin Chen steps into the lion’s cage. Yankee hitters have recorded MLB’s second-best wOBA versus lefties… Pick and choose Twins righties against the timeless Bruce Chen in his first 2015 start…

Stack Targets: Hughes, Chen(s), Jeremy Guthrie, Jorge de la Rosa

3. GB / FB Splits

The following hitters are recommended based on the works of Shane Tourtellotte and Dan Farnsworth. They show ground ball hitters perform better against fly ball pitchers and vice versa. Using three-year values for hitter OPS and pitcher GB%, here are today’s top recommendations.

Jeff Zimmerman presented 40 names today. Below are some of my favorites.

Carlos Santana vs. Phil Hughes
Alex Rodriguez vs. Wei-Yin Chen
Jose Bautista vs. Joe Kelly
Oswaldo Arcia vs. Bruce Chen
Denard Span vs. Julio Teheran

4. Tomorrow’s Targets – Buchholz, Vargas Young, Krush, Aybar

Pitchers to Start: A fairly unremarkable bunch of relatively unowned pitchers. Regardless of how much hard contact Clay Buchholz is allowing — but if we do regard it, it’s nothing extraordinary — regardless, his BABIP is ridiculous. With his strikeout and walk rates, he has considerable upside, even on the road.

Also consider: Trevor May, Jeff Locke, or nobody because yikes

Pitchers to Exploit: Jason Vargas has a Hollywood-scripted 5.26 ERA, 5.25 FIP and 5.25 xFIP. Chris Young assumes Jason Vargas‘ Sunday start with the latter hitting the DL. He is what he is, and what he is is an extreme fly ball pitcher headed into Detroit to face a stacked Tigers lineup that ranks third in OPS versus lefties sixth in OPS versus righties.

Also consider: Bud Norris, Scott Feldman, John Danks, Chad Billingsley

Hitters (power): Khris Davis hasn’t quite lived up to expectations, but he put on a show yesterday, going 4-for-5 with his second home run of the season. The power is lurking in his bat, and a favorable matchup plus generous weather conditions could coax it out for a second time in 24 hours.

Also consider: Lonnie Chisenhall, Justin Smoak, Adam Lind

Hitters (speed): Like Davis, Erick Aybar has disappointed thus far, but that should adequately suppress his price. Feldman is, definitively, among the worst of the worst at preventing stolen bases. The matchup couldn’t be more fertile.

Also consider: Didi Gregorius, Coco Crisp, Rajai Davis, Dilson Herrera

5. The Factor Grid

I’m taking liberties today. I’ll keep the red-light, green-light system for noting how conducive a matchup may be to home run. I’ve transcribed the weather specifics instead of providing 1-10 ratings. Weather data graciously borrowed from here.

Not a lot of rain tomorrow except for the one place it matters. Coors Field is the gamble of all gambles, with a strong headwind plus precipitation. Cleveland also stands to see rain, albeit not as much, but the tailwind to right-center still makes the possibility of a lefty stack rather enticing.

The Link. Your favorite righty Blue Jays sluggers (assuming they’re still Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion) could make Joe Kelly pay for his mistakes. Yankees headwind not a big enough deal to scamper from a juicy and exploitable matchup. Otherwise, most ballparks today have slight cause for concern.

I am not Brad Johnson, but I’m still proud to present to you a DFS ad-free environment.