Pitching Breakdown

Tuesday, April 24th, 2018

In case you all didn’t know, my name is Matt, mdellagnese14 on twitter. I am currently a student at Springfield College with a love and passion for sports, mainly baseball.

I was brought to the DFS Army to write pitching articles for all members of the DFSArmy! If you are not a member, join the DFSArmy and use promo code “DFSMATT” to get 10% off your subscription!

I am mostly a Fanduel player, so the content in my articles will be for geared mainly towards Fanduel. However, I will include pricing from all three sites (Fanduel, Draftkings, FantasyDraft). Some plays may be better off for the two pitcher sites and I will mention that when needed about a pitcher.

Pitching is one of the most, if not the most important position in your MLB lineups and selecting the right one will help you tremendously. Go check out the MLB Pitching Strategy article to get my thought process on picking these pitchers each slate!

NOTE: most of the stats I used are from a 14-game sample to the handiness of pitchers. If I reference season numbers, I will mention that in the write-up!

ALWAYS PAY ATTENTION TO THE WEATHER FROM OUR VERY OWN @DFSWEATHER IN SLACK!!!

Any updates will be given in our VIP Slack Channel! <– click here to see our pricing to get the whole VIP experience!

Definitions of Stats used in articles via Fangraphs.com

K% (Strikeout Percentage): Frequency with which the pitcher has struck out a batter, calculated as strikeouts divided by total batters faced.

An average K% is 20%, anything above is considered great or elite

BB% (Walk Percentage): Frequency with which the pitcher has issued a walk, calculated as walks divided by total batters faced. Average BB% for pitchers is 7.7%, anything lower is considered great or elite

BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play): The rate at which the pitcher allows a hit when the ball is put in play. A BABIP at or near .300 is considered average. EXAMPLE: if a pitcher has a BABIP of .200 it means he could be getting lucky and balls in play are turned into outs if they have a BABIP of .400 he could be getting unlucky on balls in play and they are turning into hits.

xFIP (Expected Fielding Independent Pitching): An estimate of a pitcher’s ERA based on strikeouts, walks/HBP, and fly balls allowed, assuming league average results on balls in play and home run to fly ball ratio. The Lower the xFIP the better. 3.80 is around average.

SIERA (Skill-Interactive ERA): An ERA estimator that attempts to more accurately capture a pitcher’s performance based on strikeouts, walks/HBP, home runs, and batted ball data. The lower the better 3.90 is considered average, so anything below that is great to excellent. Anything about is poor.

Hard% (Hard Contact Percentage): Percentage of hard-hit batted balls. Anything below 30% is considered average or better. the lower Hard% the better, meaning pitchers are giving up more soft contact.

wRC+: A rate statistic that credits a hitter for the value of each outcome rather than treating them all equally. League average is 100, each point above or below that is one percentage point better or worse than league average. wRC+ is a better representation of offense value.

O-Swing% = Swings at pitches outside the zone/pitches outside the zone

Z-Swing%  = Swings at pitches inside the zone/pitches inside the zone

Swing% = Swings / Pitches

O-Contact% = Number of pitches on which contact was made on pitches outside the zone / Swings on pitches outside the zone

Z-Contact%  = Number of pitches on which contact was made on pitches inside the zone / Swings on pitches inside the zone

SwStr% = Swings and misses / Total Pitches

 

Yesterday’s Results: (here I will post fantasy points from previous day’s picks)

1. Gerrit Cole (43 FD) (24.15 DK)
2. Carlos Carrasco (49 FD) (26.95 DK)
3. Gio Gonzalez (18 FD) (9.05 DK)
4. Masahiro Tanaka (40 FD) (21.9 DK)
5. Chad Bettis (18 FD) (9.05 DK)
6. Walker Buehler (30 FD) (17.05 DK)
7. Jarlin Garcia (40 FD) (22.5 DK)

Main Slate

THERE ARE A LOT OF TROUBLE WEATHER SPOTS. KEEP AN EYE ON OUR #dfs-weather CHANNEL IN SLACK!

Robbie Ray (9.3k FD) (11k DK) (21.5k FD2) @ PHI: The first pitcher on the docket and there are weather concerns here. Mark (our weather guy) has this game as a 60% delay risk and 30% PPD risk right now, so we NEED to watch that here tonight. Ray has looked great so far this season and has a 33% K rate to start the season. Ray’s big struggles come with walks and hard contact, both of which are always fairly high. Ray has the upside any time he takes the mound, I just don’t think he is safe in cash tonight. With over a 30% K rate to both sides of the plate, he has the chance to go out and grab 10+ K’s every start. His biggest struggles come when it’s the 3^rd time through the order this year where his Hard% goes from 35% all the way to 60%. Als,o his K% drops from 36% down to 28%. The more teams see him, the better they have been hitting. Keep Ray in GPPs tonight, but if the weather gets worse he will be completely off the board for me.

Vince Velasquez (7.5k FD) (7k DK) (14.1k FD2) vs ARI: Velasquez has been amazing this year outside of his first start. He has posted 43, 42, and 34 fanduel points in his last 3 starts. He has 7 K’s in each of his last two starts and has a 26.1% K rate so far this year with just 4 walks all season. He’s also not getting hit very hard (25.4%) and he’s pitching to a very good 3.34 SIERA. A lot of people will shy away from him because of the weather (watch it), and the fact that he is playing against the Diamondbacks, but they do have a hefty 26% K rate against RHP in the L14. Yes, they have power, we all know that, but the fact that they are striking out at the 3^rd highest clip to righties should help out Velasquez tonight go grab a few extra K’s. I think he’s a wonderful GPP option tonight at very low ownership.

Rick Porcello (8.8k FD) (9.5k DK) (18.5k FD2) @ TOR: I actually love both sides of this game here tonight and think it will be lower owned. Porcello is a guy who gives up a ton of hard contact and flyballs, I do not think he’s a great cash play tonight, but I do like him for GPPs. He has a 23% K rate on the season and pitching to a great 3.13 SIERA early this year. Porcello has been fantastic this year, limiting hitters to a .215 wOBA and .206 average. He’s actually been a little better against lefties, where the Jays are projected to have 4 lefties/switch hitters who will hit lefty tonight. He has a 24.4% K rate to lefties and 22% to righties allowing less than a baserunner per inning. He doesn’t get hit hard at all and TOR has a 24% K rate against RHP in their L14. I think this game has the chance for a pitcher’s duel in Toronto.

J.A. Happ (8.7k FD) (8k DK) (15.4k FD2) vs BOS: Happ has been amazing to start this year and I don’t think many people saw it coming. He’s pitching with a 2.84 SIERA this year with a very high 32% K rate coming into this game. People will see Happ is facing the Red Sox and will not even look at him. Well, believe this, the Sox have the 3^rd lowest wRC+ against LHP in their L14 with a very high 26% K rate. Their projected lineup has 5 lefties and 4 righties in it right now and Happ has been much better to LHH so far, but still good to RHH too. He’s given up just a .161 wOBA with a 31% K rate to lefties and a 1.79 xFIP. To righties, he has a 32% K rate, but he has walked 9% and his xFIP goes up to 3.35, which still is not bad. So far this year he has struggled a bit at home, but he’s had success in his career against the Red Sox. As a team, their current roster has a .196 average and just .255 wOBA against Happ. Like I said, people will not look at Happ, but I think he has the chance to pitch a wonderful game tonight.

Shohei Ohtani (9k FD) (9.9k DK) @ HOU: Another person people will probably look over because he’s facing Houston. Although if he does blow up like he did against Boston, it could turn fast. Skaggs just did well against these Astros last night and Ohtani will look to keep it rolling and bounce back after his awful start against Boston. I can’t trust him in cash quite yet in this matchup because the lack of data we have on him. Houston still has power but if we look at their DFSA Grades, no one is above a 62. If we look at the TRENDS page in the RS, we see that they only have 4 people trending position in wOBA, 3 in ISO, 2 in Hard%. We get the picture, they are trending in the wrong direction right now and Ohtani wants to have a good start. I like him for GPPs tonight at a decent price.

Charlie Morton (9.9k FD) (11.2k DK) (21.5k FD2) vs LAA: The most expensive pitcher tonight and I do like him and how the Astros pitching has been doing of late. He has seen some success against the LAA hitters with them combining for a .236 average and .291 wOBA. Morton comes into this game with the lowest SIERA on the day at 2.37 and we saw Cole do pretty well against this Angels team. Now, the Angels are a great team and can explode at any point, but the way Morton is throwing it’s hard not to consider him. He’s got a 33.3% K rate with a very high 60% groundball rate and allowing just 26% hard contact. I like Morton tonight, but I cannot trust it that much in cash against these Angels. I like another guy better for cash tonight.

Kenta Maeda (9.1k FD) (9.3k DK) (18.1k FD2) vs MIA: Oh look, another starter against the Marlins. Maeda I think will be very chalky here tonight and rightfully so. He’s my top arm right now too. He has the 2^nd lowest SIERA on the slate at 2.51 and the highest K% at 34.8%. He gets to face the lowly Marlins who have a 23.7% K rate to RHP with a 73 wRC+ and virtually zero power against righties. Maeda has amazing strikeout upside tonight and he’s our top arm on the Research Station too. Maeda has been fantastic to both sides of the plate and racking up the strikeouts this year. He comes in as a massive favorite and will be very popular here tonight.

My Personal Rankings

1. Kenta Maeda (all formats)
2. Charlie Morton (all formats)
3. Rick Porcello (lean GPP)
4. Robbie Ray (GPP)
5. Shohei Ohtani (GPP)
6. A. Happ (GPP)
7. Vince Velasquez (GPP)