10 Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful MLB Notes For 5-2-2016

Every day while doing MLB DFS research, I inevitably end up in a statistical wormhole, where I’ll stumble across some unexpected bits of information that are possibly helpful, but at the very least, are interesting in one way or another. Here are 10 notes for Monday, May 2, 2016.

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1. On Sunday, DFS players had an embarrassment of riches to choose from at SP with Kershaw, Bumgarner, Scherzer, Thor, Sale, Salazar, and Price all taking the mound. Monday…well, it ain’t Sunday. The closest thing to an ace Monday offers might be Johnny Cueto, who visits Great American Ballpark to take on his old team, the Cincinnati Reds. Cueto is coming off a career start against San Diego in which he tossed a complete game shutout while fanning 11 against just one walk. If you’re thinking, “Well sure – that’s because the Padres are terrible,” you’d be right. But his matchup on Monday isn’t bad, either. The Reds rank 28th in MLB in wOBA against RHP, and their 64 wRC+ is actually three points below the Padres’ 2016 mark. Cueto should be able to limit the free passes, as the Reds walk at just a 6.0% clip against RHP (aided by Brandon Phillips and Zack Cozart, neither of whom had drawn a walk in two weeks prior to both drawing one last night), ranking dead last in MLB. With a 22.2 K%, they’re in the bottom-third of MLB in that metric, as well. It’ll be difficult for the stars to align as they did in Cueto’s last start, but even so, he’s a solid SP1 on a weak slate for pitchers.

2. Gerrit Cole has a 7.8 SwStr% this year. That’s lower than the 8.1% mark held by Bartolo Colon, and Colon throws an 88 mph fastball 82.3 percent of the time.

3. If you’re looking for a reason to play Cole against the Cubs on Monday, however, there’s a case to be made. Cole has absolutely owned the Cubs throughout his career. He’s 7-1 in nine career starts with a 2.88 ERA. He’s only allowed a HR in one of those nine starts (Javier Baez and Arismendy Alcantara both went yard against him on September 12, 2014). And in all four starts against the Cubs last year, he had exactly eight strikeouts.

4. One final SP1 option for Monday’s slate is Dallas Keuchel, whose Astros host the Minnesota Twins. Since the start of 2015, Keuchel is 16-0 at Minute Maid Park with a minuscule .211 wOBA allowed to opposing hitters. He’s only allowed HRs in two of his 19 games started, one of which came on September 6, 2015, when he allowed three home runs to…the Minnesota Twins. In that game, Brian Dozier, Eduardo Escobar, and Aaron Hicks all hit solo shots, and Keuchel still managed to go eight strong, striking out 12 along the way and earning the win.

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5. Jonathan Gray owns a career 30.1 K% when he’s not pitching at home at Coors Field. I can already hear the chorus of small sample size counters to that point, but if, as FanGraphs claims, that it takes roughly 70 batters faced for a pitcher’s K% to stabilize, then Gray’s ridiculous K-rate may be somewhat believable. When pitching in Coors, Gray (who relies heavily on a slider that probably doesn’t slide quite as much at Coors) owns a far more pedestrian 18.5 K%. To put that in perspective: on the road, Gray is Chris Sale (30.9 K% since start of 2015), while at home, he’s Marco Estrada (18.4 K%). Of course, that’s an obvious hyperbole, but it’s in service of a larger point, which is that, in a plus matchup on the road, Gray can be dominant, and possibly dominant at a Coors-deflated price tag. A plus matchup like, say, in pitcher-friendly PetCo against a Padres team that ranks in the bottom-five of MLB in wRC+, wOBA, ISO, BB%, K%, AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS…literally, if you string together any combination capital letters, the Padres will be terrible at it.

6. Here’s one more for good measure: the Padres have reached double-digits in strikeouts in 14 of their 25 games played this year. That’s tied with the Astros for the most 10+ strikeout games in MLB.

6. Trevor Story has struck out at least one time in every game since April 9th. That’s 19 straight games, the longest streak by a player this season (although Jarrod Saltalamacchia is right on his tail with 18 straight games with at least one K). He’s also tied with Miguel Sano and Mike Napoli as the only players so far in 2016 with 12 multi-strikeout games.

7. James Shields has been the most homer-prone pitcher in MLB since the start of 2015, allowing a league-leading 37 home runs during that stretch. He could be in trouble against the Rockies’ trio of Carlos Gonzalez, Nolan Arenado, and Charlie Blackmon, who are a combined 27-for-73 (.370 average), including 11 home runs.

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8. Michael Conforto leads the majors with a 57.1% hard contact rate against right-handed pitchers, and it isn’t close. The roughly six percentage points he has over second-place Byung-ho Park (51.2 Hard%) is slightly more than the distance that separates Park from the 9th-ranked player on that list, Jason Kipnis (46.0 Hard%). Conforto seems to do most of his damage versus the sinker, rather than the four-seam fastball thrown by his opponent, Atlanta’s Mike Foltynewicz (per Brooks Baseball, Conforto has a .256 average and .209 ISO against the four-seamer, compared to an insane .425 average and .425 ISO against the sinker). Still, Conforto

9. Dexter Fowler has started 22 games in 2016. He’s reached base at least once in 21 of those 22 games.

10. A.J. Griffin has a career fly ball rate of 47.8% against right-handed batters. For a point of reference, the highest fly ball rate by any pitcher since the start of 2015 is Dan Haren’s 49.2% mark. Griffin faces a Blue Jays team led by reigning American League MVP Josh Donaldson, who, since the start of 2015, has posted a .381 ISO against fly ball pitchers, the fifth-highest in MLB during that span.

About the Author

mewhitenoise
Josh Cole (mewhitenoise)

Josh Cole (mewhitenoise) is a high school English teacher and contributor at RotoGrinders. You can find him on Twitter @joshuabcole.