Final week of the MLB Regular season and the playoff picture is starting to come into focus. We have some things still not decided yet, so let’s clear this up first.
American League:
The Yankees, Athletics, Rays, and Astros are all fighting for either seeding, or to get in. The Rays elimination number is 1 for the Wild Card, so if the Athletics win tonight, or the Rays lose, their season is over. The Rays have to win tonight to even give themselves a shot. The Athletics, are fighting for the Wild Card and have an outside shot at the division. So the Astros need to keep winning as well in order to make sure they wrap up the AL West. The Yankees have to worry about the Athletics taking over the first WC spot so they can keep the Wild Card Game in New York.
National League:
Let’s start in the NL Central, The Brewers and Cardinals begin a 3 game set tonight. They both still need to win. The Brewers would like to catch the Cubs for the division lead, along with holding off the Cardinals from taking the top Wild Card spot in the National League. The Cardinals would love to over take that spot, but are also needing to win in order to hold off the Dodgers and Rockies. The Cubs would like to win to hold off the Brewers from creeping up and having to play in a Wild Card Game.
The Dodgers lead the NL West currently, but are tied with the Cardinals. They also have one less game then the Rockies do remaining, so everything is coming down to the wire. The Dodgers can finish anywhere from winning the division, to out of the picture all together depending on what the field does. They literally are in the drivers seat. The Rockies have to win. No question about it they are in the worst position out of the 5 teams. They need to win and need help from the Diamondbacks, or the Brewers the next 3 days.
Pitchers
I’ve got 6 pitchers on my list tonight, I’m not playing anyone out of games that aren’t meaningful as well as far as pitching is concerned. If they aren’t playing for something then I don’t have a need for you anymore.
Jameson Taillon – Clint is going to throw his guy out there and play to win the game. He knows the Brewers have a chance for the division, even if it is slim, but it’s a chance none the less. Taillon has pitched at least 7 innings in 3 out of the last 4 starts, and has the ability to grab us 6-7 k’s tonight with the Cubs lineup. I think he goes 5 or 6 innings tonight before giving way to the bullpen.
Robbie Ray – I was a lot higher on Ray about 30 minutes ago. Now after seeing the lineup that Arizona just put out, he’s actually been downgraded to the bottom of this list. I usually have zero issue playing Ray against the Dodgers. He’s been extremely good against them over the years. However, it looks like the Diamondbacks are just going to concede tonight so that scares me. I hope I’m wrong.
Clayton Kershaw – So there is no Paul Goldschmidt in the lineup tonight for the Daimondbacks. He’s expensive, and it’s going to make you pass on Coors hitters a little bit, but like I said earlier, the Dodger have to win.
Dallas Keuchel – Keuchel actually has better overall advanced statcast numbers then Clayton Kershaw over the last 45 days. He’s just been getting extremely unlucky with the results. With Charlie Morton going down yesterday in the first inning, I think they are going to want Dallas to pitch a little deeper then they would have if they didn’t need to run their pen out all day yesterday. With that said, I’m very aware that he could go 5 and out tonight against Toronto.
Jack Flaherty – Division game, with a guy that has the best overall StatCast numbers outside of Derek Holland on the slate tonight? Yup, I’m good with that. Oh, wait….he’s freaking cheaper then Taillon, Strasburg, AND Kershaw? Hello Jack! A .271 xwOBA speaks for itself.
Jon Gray – I’m fully prepared to be called a homer. I know he hasn’t been good his last 3 starts, but there was a report that he was put on a stopwatch in his last pen session and got back to allowing his athletic ability take over rather then over thinking every pitch and not committing to it. We’ve seen how good he can be in Denver in his career and this year as well, but we also know that this could blow up in our faces.
Ok, so here is the information on the Phillies pitcher Zach Eflin tonight for Coors so we know where to attack.
And his pitch selection
As we see, he has the right pitch mix for being successful at Coors Field, however, the results aren’t there. Tonight is a great night to load up on Rockies.
STACKS
Putting a lot of attention into construction around teams that need to win. I rarely hedge with stacks against pitchers I plan on using in my lineups, but with the Brewers and Cardinals game along with the Phillies I’m going to be doing that tonight.
Rockies – It’s go time for Colorado.
Astros – They still have to win to keep the Athletics only thinking about the Wild Card and not the Division.
Pirates – I think they go after the Cubs with all they have this series. No, they don’t have anything to play for, but Clint Hurdle isn’t going to just let the Cubs roll over them either since nothing is clinched.
Brewers – We know the Brewers situation, and they have the ability to hit the ball out of the park.
Red Sox – Literally nothing to play for, and I feel like they could end up getting pulled after a couple at bats tonight, so I will have lower exposure here.
Phillies – Gray has the ability to blow up we know. I’m not hedging a ton, but one or two lineups will have a Phillies stack
Cardinals – It looks like it’s going to be a bullpen day for the Brewers, so be careful here.
I’ll post more about specifically who I like in my coaching channel closer to lock after we get all the lineups out.
GOOD LUCK!