10 Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful MLB Notes for April 3rd
This MLB season, I’ll work to uncover some interesting bits of information that might shed some light on players from that day’s slate of MLB games. This is not a picks column, nor is it a “fun facts” article – it’s something in between.
I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it helps you think about today’s MLB plays in a new way as you build your DFS lineups. Here are 10 MLB notes for Monday, April 3rd.
While I normally don’t include an intro in these articles, I wanted to take a moment to thank those of you guys who have been reading “10 Notes” throughout the NBA season. Now that I’m transitioning to baseball, I plan on doing these articles as often as I can, but I’d love to hear from you all about what days and how often you’d like me to post. My day job as an English teacher allows me to write a bit more over the summers, so hopefully these MLB articles will be a little more regular than the NBA ones. With that, let’s get started.
1. Last year, Clayton Kershaw had six games of double-digit strikeouts against zero walks. That’s tied with two other players (Randy Johnson in 2004, Curt Schilling in 2002) for most such games in a season. Both of those pitchers needed 32 starts before getting their sixth 10-K, 0-BB game; Kershaw got there in his first 13 starts. He also allowed just two total earned runs in his last seven at Dodger Stadium, a stretch of game that includes a complete game three-hit, 14-K, zero-walk effort on May 1st against his Opening Day opponent, the Padres. Last season against lefties, the Padres struck out 25.3 percent of the time, second-highest in MLB, and they compiled a .315 wOBA, which ranked in the bottom third of MLB. That’s not good, but they look even worse when you consider they were built, in part, on the strength of Matt Kemp .387 wOBA against lefties last season. Kemp is gone, and the Padres didn’t do anything in the offseason to get appreciably better offensively. Okay, that’s 169 words about Clayton Kershaw, which is about 169 too many. He’s the top overall pitcher on the slate, as he will be almost every time he takes the hill.
2. Sixteen pitchers in MLB had ground ball rates higher than 50 percent last year. Of those 16, Noah Syndergaard was the only pitcher with a strikeout rate higher than 24 percent; his strikeout rate was 29.3 percent. There’s usually a tradeoff involved with ground ball rates and strikeouts; you give a little in one area, you get a little in the other. Those rules apply to humans, though, and Noah Syndergaard may not be human. His combination of strikeout upside with a high ground ball rate gives him the safety/upside combo necessary to be just a step below Kershaw in terms of cash game viability on Opening Day.
3. Four qualified starters last season posted strikeout rates higher than 26 percent while allowing fewer than one home run per nine. Three of them – Corey Kluber, Noah Syndergaard, and Jose Fernandez – are obvious. The third on the list is a bit more surprising, if for no other reason than that he plays half his games at Coors Field. If you haven’t guessed, the fourth player on the list is Jon Gray, who posted a 26.0 percent K rate while allowing just 0.96 home runs per nine last season. That skill set makes him an interesting Opening Day play against a Brewers team that fanned at a 25.8 percent rate against righties last year, the most in MLB, and that plays in Miller Park, one of the more homer-friendly venues in baseball. Even better, Gray had a 25.3 percent hard contact rate against righties (compared to an unsightly 35.5 percent versus lefties), which is lowest on the slate. If he’s able to keep the ball in the yard, he should have a strong Opening Day showing, and he’ll come at a lower ownership than the Clayton Kershaws and Noah Syndergaards of the world.
4. This year, FanDuel has changed their starting pitching scoring, awarding four points for a quality start (six or more innings, three or fewer earned runs). So who led MLB in quality starts in 2016? Justin Verlander, who had 27. In fact, Verlander earned a quality start in 17 of his last 18 games to end the season. While the matchup against the South Siders is a positive one (the White Sox ranked in the bottom third of MLB in wOBA, ISO, and wRC+ against righties last year), it’s tough to justify him on a day when so many aces are taking the hill. Playing Verlander is sort of like stocking up on groceries, having the cupboards be full of amazing food, and choosing a granola bar; it’s fine, but there’s just so much else out there that going with the granola bar (and Justin Verlander) probably isn’t a +EV move.
5. There were 14 players in MLB with an ISO above .240 and a strikeout rate below 22 percent last year. Of those 14, here are the players who have a higher contact rate than Tommy Joseph’s 78.1 percent mark: Daniel Murphy, David Ortiz, Nolan Arenado, Anthony Rizzo, Miguel Cabrera, Brian Dozier, Yoenis Cespedes. That’s it. On Monday, Joseph is a cheap option (just $2,100 at FanDuel) who provides pop at the first base position, and that can be difficult to find. Joseph is better against lefties in essentially every way, but he shouldn’t have trouble squaring up Scott Feldman, who owns a low 17.9 percent strikeout rate against right-handed batters. If he does connect, he could do damage, as Great American Ball Park was the fourth-most homer friendly park in baseball last year.
6. Marco Estrada had Major League Baseball’s third-highest fly ball rate in 2016. On Monday, he faces the Baltimore Orioles, a team that features players who ranked first (Mark Trumbo, 25), tied for second (Manny Machado, 22), and tied for fourth (Chris Davis, 21) in home runs against fly ball pitchers last year. As always with fly ball pitchers, there’s a chance that Estrada can coax those hitters to pop the ball up. But there’s also a high likelihood that somebody on the Orioles goes deep.
7. Julio Teheran is generally thought of (at least by me) as a pitcher with relatively high strikeout upside. But upon closer inspection, he had just a 15.5 percent strikeout rate against lefties in 2016. Out of 101 qualified starters, that mark ranks 82nd, and he’s sandwiched between two players who are definitively not high-strikeout pitchers: Bartolo Colon and Josh Tomlin. This makes a few of the Mets’ boom-or-bust power bats (Jay Bruce, Lucas Duda) more interesting, as does Teheran’s 46.7 percent fly ball rate (seventh-highest among qualified starters) against opposite-handed hitters.
8. Daniel Murphy has developed into such a great all-around hitter. Last year, he posted a .249 ISO while striking out just 9.8 percent of the time. Since 2007, only two other players have matched those numbers over a full season: Edwin Encarnacion in 2013, and Albert Pujols in 2011, 2009, 2008, and 2007. When he’s at home with the platoon advantage (as he is on Monday against Marlins righty Edinson Volquez), Murphy is rarely a bad idea for cash games.
9. Nelson Cruz had 19 home runs against left-handed pitchers last season, five more than second-place Kris Bryant. The five homers that separates Cruz from Bryant is the same distance that separates Bryant from Carlos Beltran (and several others), who were tied for 23rd with nine home runs against southpaws. On Monday, he faces Dallas Keuchel, against whom he’s a career 9-for-22 with three long balls (1.435 OPS). Dallas Keuchel is an elite ground ball pitcher (56.7 GB%, third-best in MLB last year), which limits Cruz’s home run upside a bit. However, Cruz is no slouch against ground ball pitchers, as his .330 average and .995 OPS against ground ballers last year shows.
10. Last season, Brian Dozier had 28 runs after the All-Star break; prior to that, his career high in home runs over an entire season was…28 home runs, in 2015. Dozier has steadily increased his hard contact every season since 2012 (going from 21.9% in 2012 to 34.7% last year), and it’s culminated in his becoming one of the better power hitters in the game, at a position where power can be scarce. Against Danny Duffy, who despite his breakout season last year, allowed the fifth-most hard contact to righties (38.6 percent), Dozier represents an interesting tournament play on Monday.
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Thanks for reading! Stats from this article were pulled from “RotoGrinders’ Daily Research Console, FanGraphs, and Baseball Reference.
Check back for more “10 Notes” MLB articles throughout the year (days to be determined), and feel free to drop a comment below if you want to talk about Mondays’s slate of MLB games.