10 Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful MLB Notes for June 18th
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, June 18, 2016.
1. Max Scherzer has allowed one home run while fanning at least 10 in four of his last seven starts. He is the active leader in MLB in games of 10+ strikeouts and 1+ home run with 22 such games. He’s got a long way to go before he catches the all-time leader, Randy Johnson, whose 102 such games is 41 more than second-place Nolan Ryan (61 games). Despite pedestrian performances from Tanner Roark and Joe Ross in the same matchup against the Padres, Scherzer feels like a lock to reach double-digit Ks, and San Diego (.135 ISO, ranked 28th in MLB) doesn’t pose much of a home run threat, especially in PetCo Park.
2. Jon Lester has struck out at least seven batters without issuing any walks in three consecutive starts. He’s the first Cubs pitcher since Jon Lieber in 1999 with three such games. Pittsburgh will undoubtedly load up on right-handed bats against the southpaw, but it might not matter – among left-handed starters, only Clayton Kershaw (.213 wOBA) has a lower weighted on-base average than Lester’s .242 mark in 2016.
3. Danny Salazar has allowed 47 hits over 12 starts in 2016. Nine different pitchers have allowed at least 47 earned runs this year, including two on Saturday’s slate in Dallas Keuchel (54 earned runs) and Michael Pineda (47). Salazar has also allowed just 18 earned runs (he leads the American League with a 2.19 ERA), just one more than the number of home runs allowed by Max Scherzer.
4. While the above is impressive, it’s hard to ignore the fact that Salazar is an obvious regression candidate. He has a Liriano-esque walk rate this year (12.4%) that is highest in MLB, yet (miraculously) all five of his home runs allowed have been solo shots. He’s managed to cut down his HR/FB% pretty significantly (11.2% for his career, 7.9% this year), but we know this number will rise over time. He’s got MLB’s second-best defense behind him (according to FanGraphs’ defensive rating metric), which partially explains the .251 BABIP (down from a .278 career mark), but even so, a pitcher who issues this many walks cannot sustain such a low ERA. Regression is coming, but it might not come on Saturday – he’s still a fine play against a White Sox team that ranks in the bottom-third of MLB in wOBA, ISO, and wRC+.
5. James Shields is one of two pitchers with active three-game streaks of 5+ earned runs and 2+ walks. The other is San Diego’s Erik Johnson, the player he was traded for.
6. The Atlanta Braves’ struggles against left-handed pitching this year have been well-documented. But the Braves are also bad against groundball pitchers – this year, they rank 27th or worse in MLB in batting average (.219), on-base percentage (.291), and slugging percentage (.339) against them. Against left-handed pitchers the Braves have a 50.3% groundball rate, the second-highest in MLB, which puts Steven Matz (a left-handed pitcher with a ground ball lean) in a perfect position to rebound after a few rough starts.
7. After going 2-for-4 (including hitting his 12th home run of 2016) last night, Daniel Murphy is batting .361, which paces Major League Baseball. With 90 hits in 249 at-bats this year, Murphy would need to go hitless in his next 58 at-bats to fall to his career batting average of .293. The multi-hit game last night was Murphy’s 29th of the season, which is tied for second most such games this season, behind only Xander Bogaerts (30 multi-hit games). (Perhaps the most interesting thing about this note: the player Murphy is tied with is Ian Desmond, whose .233 batting average in 2015 ranked 130th of 141 qualified hitters)
8. Last night, Michael Saunders joined Edwin Encarnacion as the second Blue Jay (and 46th player overall since 1913) to record three home runs and eight RBI in a single game (Encarnacion did it on August 29, 2015). This could be the signature game that gains Saunders recognition he deserves alongside the Toronto triumvirate of Bautista, Donaldson, and Encarnacion. It’s worth noting, though, that even before his three-homer barrage, Saunders led all those players in 2016 in batting average (.307), slugging (.569), OPS (.953), wOBA (.404), and wRC+ (156). Against right-hander Yovani Gallardo, Saunders is worth playing in cash games. In GPPs, though, he’s worth consideration as a fade, given that his ownership could skyrocket after his Friday performance.
9. Like Saunders, Justin Turner is coming off a big game and should see a boost in ownership on Saturday. His two-homer performance on Friday was the third of his career, and it served as evidence of the importance of following hard-hit data. In the month of June, only Salvador Perez has a higher hard-contact rate than Turner’s 54.2%, and his performance was being dragged down by a .233 BABIP. As long as Turner was hitting the ball that hard, a game like this was going to come sooner or later. With a .361 wOBA and 132 wRC+ against righties since 2015, Turner is in another great spot in Saturday, as he takes on Chase Anderson, a reverse splits pitcher with a .394 wOBA against righties this year (second-highest on the slate).
10. Kris Bryant looks to return to the Cubs lineup after a day off on Friday due to a stomach flu, and he couldn’t have picked a better spot, as he takes on Jon Niese, a groundball lefty. Since 2015, Kris Bryant is tied for third with a .335 batting average against ground ball pitchers. And in his brief MLB career, he’s crushed left-handed pitching, ranking 10th during that span with a 40.2% hard-contact rate. For context, he’s sandwiched between David Ortiz (40.5 Hard%) and Bryce Harper (40.1%) on that list.