10 Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful MLB Notes for 5-5-2016
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 Thursday, May 5, 2016.
1. Jacob deGrom takes the hill on Thursday against a San Diego Padres team that has been shut out seven times in their first 28 games of 2016. You have to go all the way back to 1987, when the Kansas City Royals were held scoreless in eight of their first 28, to find a team that was shut out more frequently than this year’s Padres. The only remotely dangerous hitters in San Diego’s lineup hit from the right side of the plate (sorry, Brett Wallace and Jon Jay), which means it’s a cupcake matchup for deGrom because…
2. Since the start of 2015, Jacob deGrom has allowed just one home run for every 97.25 right-handed batters he’s faced. That’s a total of four home runs in 100.2 innings pitched, tied for the lowest in MLB (minimum 100 IP). This is one of the easiest plays of the young 2016 season – lock deGrom into your cash and tournament lineups, and don’t think twice about it.
3. Despite his reputation as being a strikeout-challenged ground ball specialist, Jaime Garcia has shown a bit of sneaky K upside. He’s fanned six or more batters in four of his five starts this year, and he’s inducing swinging strikes at or above a 10.9% clip in three of his starts, a feat he only achieved six times in all of 2015. Throw in the fact that the Phillies, with 29.6 K%, strike out at a higher rate than any other team against LHP this year, and Garcia becomes an intriguing (if unsexy) SP2 option to pair with deGrom on two-pitcher sites.
4. Joe Ross has been nothing short of elite against right-handed batters in his brief MLB career. Since entering the league last year, his .190 wOBA allowed to RHB is the best in MLB (minimum 50 IP). This year, he’s faced 39 RHB and not walked a single one of them. Bartolo Colon is the only starter to have faced more righties this year without issuing a walk (57 batters). And just for a bit of fun with small sample sizes – in Ross’s first four starts of 2016, he’s allowing a 3.3% hard contact right to righties, which is (obviously) lowest in MLB. The next-lowest Hard% against RHB belongs to Pittsburgh’s Juan Nicasio at 12.2%. It might be worth stashing all of that info for Ross’s next start, though – on Thursday, he faces the Cubs, a team that can get very left-handed, and a team that walks at a league-leading 13.3% rate.
5. Jose Altuve recorded three more hits last night, including a home run, his eighth of the year. On Thursday, he faces a lefty in Seattle’s Wade Miley. While Altuve is always an autoplay against a LHP (provided you can make the salary work), I wouldn’t expect to get much out of him in the steals department in this matchup. Miley has allowed exactly one stolen base in his past 225 innings dating back to the start of 2015. He’s only allowed 16 in his 864.1 inning career dating back to 2011. Among pitchers who have thrown 800+ innings during that stretch, only Mark Buehrle (13 SB allowed in 1012 innings), Johnny Cueto (15 in 931.2), and Doug Fister (15 in 883) have allowed fewer steals.
6. The Marlins’ recent decision to bat catcher J.T. Realmuto in the leadoff spot is puzzling not simply because of Realmuto’s position. It’s puzzling because Realmuto’s 1.2% walk rate is the lowest in Major League Baseball. Realmuto has drawn exactly one walk this season in 84 PAs. Just to illustrate what a misfit Realmuto is in his new lineup spot, consider: 24 different leadoff hitters this year have, at least one time, recorded more than the one walk in a single game. Realmuto’s done it once this season. Once. One time.
7. Speaking of leadoff hitters, last night, the Cardinals (in a move that makes infinitely more sense than the Marlins’ decision) opted to move rookie Aledmys Diaz to the first spot in the order. Diaz had a .501 wOBA in April, which led the majors, as did his 214 wRC+. His 30 hits in the month of April was the most by a rookie since Jose Abreu reached 31 in 2014, and his 1.186 April OPS surpassed another one-time Cardinal, Albert Pujols, for fourth-best on the all-time list among rookies.
8. Trevor Bauer has walked at least 2 batters in 23 of 31 starts dating back to the start of 2015.
9. Masahiro Tanaka is currently sporting a 59.6% ground ball rate, the second-highest in MLB. He’s also shown a tendency to allow home runs in bunches (six games of multiple home runs allowed in 2015). All of this puts Chris Davis squarely in play. Davis, for his part, owns a career .278 ISO against fly ball pitchers, and he’s hit 32 home runs in his home park since the beginning of last season, more than any other player.
10. Jose Abreu has been on a tear as of late, with six consecutive multi-hit games. He has the platoon advantage on Thursday against Boston southpaw Henry Owens, but Abreu has actually shown himself to be a reverse splits hitter, hitting for more average (.302 vs. RHP, .287 vs. LHP) and power (.237 ISO vs. RHP, .206 ISO vs. LHP) against same-handed pitchers. With so many elite first base options in great spots on Thursday, it might be tough to fit Abreu in, even despite his hot bat.