10 Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful MLB Notes for June 26th
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, June 26th.
1. Chris Sale has a .460 BABIP and 41.7% line drive rate with men in scoring position, both of which are highest among qualified starters in Major League Baseball. For the larger sample of the entire season, he owns a .290 BABIP (which is 42nd-highest among qualified starters) and a 22.0% line drive rate (which is 19th-highest). This explains why, despite the fact that he rarely disappoints in the strikeout department (he’s fanned 10+ in 10 of 15 games this year), Sale always seem to allow a few earned runs. Unless you think that pitchers can suddenly become better or worse with runners in scoring position (and if you do, I’ve got some head-to-heads you should take), it’s clear that Sale’s numbers with men in scoring should regress to the mean sooner rather than later. On Monday, he faces the Twins, a team that he’s historically had trouble with (see note #2), but against whom he’s already reached double-digit strikeouts once this season. Minnesota is a middle-of-the-road offense against lefties (ranked 17th in wRC+), and for a team with lefty killers Brian Dozier and Miguel Sano, they’ve shown surprisingly little power (.139 ISO, ranked 25th). Sale is the clear top option in cash games.
2. Sale has allowed at least four earned runs in seven of his last 10 contests against the Minnesota Twins. He has a 4.37 ERA in 17 career starts against them, which is his highest against any team that he’s played more than twice. In particular, Brian Dozier (.973 OPS and three homers in 41 career plate appearances against Sale) and Miguel Sano (1.321 OPS in 14 PA) have had success against Sale. In general, I don’t put much stock into numbers like these, and I’m certainly not recommending a Sale fade in cash games on a six-game slate. But given Sale’s likely huge ownership and these players’ reasonable prices, throwing either Sano or Dozier in non-Sale tournament lineups isn’t the craziest idea.
3. Carlos Carrasco is one of three pitchers in MLB with a strikeout rate of 27.7% or higher and a hard hit rate of 26.6% or lower against right-handed hitters; the others are Lance McCullers and Max Scherzer. Against Michael Pineda, the Rangers only threw out three lefties (Rougned Odor, Shin-Soo Choo, Drew Robinson). With Nomar Mazara and Joey Gallo both fighting mild injuries, it’s likely that the Rangers have to throw out a righty-heavy lineup again on Monday. Carrasco makes for an awesome tournament pivot off the high ownership of Sale, as Texas is an undisciplined team (31.5% chase rate, sixth-highest in MLB) that fans at a 23.5% clip against righties (also sixth-highest in MLB).
4. Last season, Jose Berrios’s ERA never dipped below 6.00; this year, it’s never risen above 3.00. Like Carrasco, Berrios is a pitcher who can rack up strikeouts in a hurry. However, the high-contact approach of the Red Sox (18.2% K rate, second-best in MLB) coupled with their high 4.83 implied run total makes Berrios a risky bet on Monday. He’s best reserved for tournaments.
5. In 64 games started in 2015 and 2016, Jeff Samardzija had nine games of 8+ strikeouts; in 15 games started in 2017, Jeff Samardzija has…nine games of 8+ strikeouts. Samardzija has unlocked some upside this year that wasn’t there before, and the boost in strikeouts coupled with his pitching in AT&T Park, the best pitcher’s park in baseball, makes him a viable play nearly every time he takes the hill. On Monday, he faces the Rockies, who own a .141 ISO on the road against righties, with only the Angels (.140) and Phillies (.134) having less power in that category. The Rockies have an implied run total of just 3.52 runs, which is the lowest on the slate. Samardzija is the ideal complement to Chris Sale as an SP2 in cash games at two-pitcher sites.
6. Cody Bellinger now has six multi-homer games in his first 57 games in the big leagues; that’s the same number of multi-homer games as Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton combined. It’s getting to the point where you just have to roster Bellinger every night, and Monday is no different, as he takes on Angels right-hander Ricky Nolasco. Nolasco has a high 44.0% fly ball rate to left-handed batters this year, and (as I’ve mentioned in this column before), Cody Bellinger feasts on fly ball pitchers. His .542 ISO against them ranks second in MLB (min. 50 PA), trailing only Eric Thames.
7. Aaron Judge has a 1.179 OPS in the month of June, which makes him one of three Yankees in history to post a 1.179 OPS or better in a single month during their first two years in MLB; the others are Gary Sanchez in August of 2016 and Joe DiMaggio in July of 1937. Judge is in an elite spot against White Sox lefty David Holmberg, and while he’ll certainly be popular, he’s in the Bellinger class of players that, if you’re building multiple lineups, you simply can’t fade.
8. Gary Sanchez has had more success against right-handed pitching in his brief MLB career (174 wRC+ vs. RHP, 116 wRC+ vs. LHP). But that’s more of a small sample issue than Sanchez having reverse splits as a hitter. Consider this: his .178 BABIP in 99 career plate appearances against lefties is the second-lowest in all of baseball among players with at least 90 PA since 2016, while his 47.2% hard hit rate is seventh-highest. Yes, he does hit a lot of fly balls, which will lower his BABIP, but even so, a .178 BABIP is not sustainable with a hard hit rate that high. Fire up Sanchez as a one-off or alongside Judge in your Yankees stacks.
9. Here are the top three in hard-hit rate against left-handed pitchers since 2016 (min. 100 PA): Miguel Cabrera at 57.6% (no surprise there), Paul Goldschmidt at 50.6% (again, no surprise), and…Avisail Garcia at 48.9%. Garcia is far less of a household name than Cabrera or Goldschmidt, which makes him always a low-owned player, but throughout his career, he’s smashed left-handed pitching. Against Yankees lefty Jordan Montgomery, Garcia is really interesting as a one-off in tournaments.
10. Against left-handed batters, Eddie Butler is one of two pitchers in baseball with a fly ball rate higher than 46.0%, a hard hit rate higher than 38.0%, and a HR/FB below 10.0% this year (the other is Dylan Bundy). In other words, with a minuscule 4.5% HR/FB rate, he’s been extremely lucky on the home run front. Regression is going to hit hard at some point. Butler is also the only qualified pitcher with a .400+ wOBA to lefties since entering the league in 2014. Bryce Harper and Daniel Murphy are two of the top overall plays of the day.
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Thanks for reading! Stats from this article were pulled from RotoGrinders’ Daily Research Console, FanGraphs, Baseball Savant, and Baseball Reference.
Check back for more “10 Notes” MLB articles throughout the year, and feel free to drop a comment below if you want to keep the discussion going!
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