10 Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful MLB Notes for July 23rd
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 Saturday, July 23rd, 2016.
1. There are 18 pitchers in Marlins franchise history with at least as many as Jose Fernandez’ 65 career starts. He ranks first in with 18 games of 10+ strikeouts, including his last start, in which he fanned 14 Phillies. Incidentally, another pitcher on Saturday’s slate ranks second on that list – it’s Ricky Nolasco, who, in 197 career starts for the Marlins (most in franchise history), had double-digit strikeouts in 13 games.
2. Over the last four starts, Jacob deGrom has a 100% left-on-base rate. He’s allowed just three home runs, and each of them have been solo shots (one by Kris Bryant on July 1st, two by Giancarlo Stanton on July 6th). In four career starts at Marlins Park, deGrom has a 1.89 ERA.
3. One more interesting deGrom note: he’s been in excellent form recently, culminating in a complete game, one-hit shutout over the Phillies. It was deGrom’s first ever complete game, which is sort of odd given how good he’s been since entering the league in 2014. The really odd thing about the one-hitter is who the one hit came from – it was Zach Eflin, the pitcher. The last time a pitcher threw a one-hitter with the only hit going to the opposing pitcher was on April 13, 2012, when Matt Cain would’ve had a no-no if not for the single given up to Pirates starter James McDonald.
4. I’ve written in this column that the Padres are an elite team against ground ball pitchers this year (unfortunately I didn’t take my own advice last night and I used Tanner Roark everywhere – hey, at least I got to go to bed early). Well, they’re equally as bad against fly ball pitchers, ranking in the bottom five in MLB in ISO (.144, ranks 28th), average (.231, ranks 26th), OBP (.286, ranks 29th), slugging (.375), and OPS (.662, ranks 29th). In most of those categories, they’re only slightly worse than the Braves, and they’re actually worse than the Braves in OBP. This, coupled with the Padres’ well-documented strikeout tendencies against righties (24.6% K-rate, second-worst in MLB), make Max Scherzer as appealing an option as Fernandez on Saturday. A note for BvP truthers: Matt Kemp is 1-for-27 against Scherzer in his career. Yikes.
5. Kevin Gausman is one of six MLB pitchers (min. 90 IP) with a 22.0+ K%, a walk rate below 5.0%, and a swinging strike rate at 10.9% or above – the others are Clayton Kershaw, Noah Syndergaard, Matt Shoemaker, David Price, and Corey Kluber. Gausman’s .273 wOBA against lefties (ranked 14th in MLB) makes him a sneaky play should the Indians roll out a lefty-heavy lineup.
6. With 13 home runs allowed at the US Cellular Center, Chris Sale has the fourth-most home runs allowed at home in MLB this season. Last week, I wrote about Sale’s tendency to give up homers to righties, saying that it was somewhat misleading since Sale faces more righties than almost any other pitcher in MLB. Well, Sale’s 1.97 HR/9 (sixth-highest in MLB) says that he legitimately does have trouble keeping the ball in the yard at home. Another note for the BvP truthers out there (I know you’re lurking): Victor Martinez has killed Sale in his career, going 18-for-36 with four home runs against him.
7. Last night, Billy Hamilton notched three steals for the 10th time in his career, tying the Reds franchise record set by Joe Morgan. When Morgan reached his 10th such game, he’d played 1,106 games as a Red. Hamilton was playing in his 360th game. Hamilton is in play any time he’s batting at the top of the order, which he should be against an average lefty in Robbie Ray on Saturday.
8. Ben Zobrist has an OPS of .496 in July. Forty-two players have a slugging alone that is higher than .496 over the full 2016 season. Is there anything to be worried about? Probably not. He’s sporting a 32.6 Hard% this month (up from his career 29.5% mark) and is being dragged down by a .050 BABIP. It’s tough to continue to roll him out, but a small consolation is that he’s still walking at a 10.0% clip, which is around two percentage points higher than league average.
9. Tyler Naquin is averaging 1 home run every 15 at-bats in 2016…the same number as reigning American League MVP Josh Donaldson.
10. In the month of July, David Ortiz has a 1.9% soft contact rate. That is roughly one tenth of this year’s league average (18.8 Soft%). Oh, and he’s walked three times as often as he’s struck out over the past 30 days. No revelation here – he’s good, and you should play him.
Thanks for reading! Stats from this article were pulled from StatMuse, FanGraphs, and Baseball Reference.
Shoutout to @RotoRaff for correctly answering Albert Pujols in Monday’s trivia question, just in the nick of time!
Be sure to check back on Sundays, Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays throughout this MLB season for more “10 Notes” articles!