10 Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful MLB Notes for June 6th
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 Monday, June 6, 2016.
1. Last night, just two days after homering three times against the Braves, Corey Seager smacked two more home runs, becoming the first player in Dodgers history to have three games of 2+ homers in his first career 84 games in the majors. Seager’s matchup on Monday, though, is surprisingly tough. He’ll take on Rockies’ righty Tyler Chatwood, who, when facing lefties this year, has been able to keep the ball on the ground (61.1% ground ball rate, the sixth-best rate in MLB) and limit hard contact (24.1 Hard% is 12th-lowest in MLB). Chatwood has allowed just a .252 wOBA to lefties in 2016, which is tied for the 15th-best mark in all of baseball. The player he’s tied with is another righty – it’s Jake Arrieta.
2. In his last start, Jon Lester spun a complete game, 10-strikeout gem. It was just the second such game of his career, the first occurring on June 6, 2009, when, as a member of the Red Sox, Lester went the distance against the Rangers, fanning 11 in the process. On a weak slate for pitching, Lester is an absolute must in cash games on Monday as he takes on a Phillies team with just seven home runs against left-handed pitchers this year, the fewest in MLB.
3. Matt Shoemaker is currently riding a streak of three consecutive games of 8+ strikeouts and zero walks. Over the years, several other players have had three such games in a row (Clayton Kershaw this year; Bumgarner, Kershaw (again), Archer, deGrom, and Quintana in 2015; Cliff Lee in 2013; and Fergie Jenkins in 1976). But on Monday, in Yankee Stadium, Shoemaker will attempt to become the first player in MLB history with four straight eight-strikeout, zero-walk games.
4. Shoemaker’s stuff has improved dramatically in 2016. His career-high 13.8% swinging-strike rate this year ranks sixth in MLB – he’s behind only Kershaw (15.1%), Jose Fernandez (15.1%), Max Scherzer (15.0%), Noah Syndergaard (14.6%), and Michael Pineda (14.1%). He may have trouble finding swings and misses on Monday, though, as the Yankees’ 8.1 SwStr% is tied for the lowest mark in MLB.
5. Masahiro Tanaka is near elite in the run prevention department, holding opponents to two or fewer earned runs in nine of his 11 starts this year – only Clayton Kershaw (11 such starts) and Madison Bumgarner (10) have been better in that regard. But his lack of strikeouts makes him a better real-life than fantasy pitcher – in his last three starts, he’s fanned just 4, 4, and 2 batters, and this despite two of those games being against Tampa Bay (25.5 K% vs. RHB this year, second-highest in MLB) and Toronto (22.8 K%, tenth-highest). Could he be held below four strikeouts for a fourth-straight game? It’s possible. The Angels, as a team, have struck out fewer than four times on 17 occasions this year, most in MLB.
6. Only three pitchers in MLB have a strikeout rate above 24.0% and a ground ball rate above 55.0% – Jake Arrieta, Noah Syndergaard, and Steven Matz. Matz faces the Pirates on Monday, and the matchup is far from perfect – against left-handed pitching this year, the Pirates rank sixth in wOBA (.340), sixth in ISO (.178), and fifth in wRC+ (116), and against ground ball pitchers, the Pirates’ .285 average is fifth-best in MLB.
7. This isn’t the start to 2016 that Chris Archer hoped for, and if you need proof, look no further than his 4.75 ERA, which is just a tick better than the 4.76 mark held by everyone’s favorite DFS stacking target, Mike Pelfrey. Archer has allowed 12 home runs this year already, but much of this can be attributed to the 20.0 HR/FB% he’s carrying, a number that will almost certainly regress in the coming months. Since FanGraphs started tracking batted all data in 2002, the closest any pitcher has come to sustaining a 20.0 HR/FB% for an entire season was when Odalis Perez of the Dodgers ended 2003 with a 19.7% mark.
8. In 48 PAs hitting from the right side of the plate in 2016, Neil Walker has five home runs. In 758 career PAs as a righty prior to this season, he had six home runs. On Monday, Walker travels to Pittsburgh to play his former team, and his first test is left-hander Jon Niese, the player he was traded for last offseason. Walker used to be a switch-hitter by name only (58 wRC+ as a RHB in 2015, 119 as a LHB), but in 2016, he’s got a .464 wOBA against lefties. We’re still in small sample land, but Walker may have changed his approach, and if this continues, he’s no longer off limits against lefties like he was in the past.
9. Over the past 30 days, the MLB leader in hard-hit rate is Jung Ho Kang, with a 51.6 Hard%.
10. It’s a Colby vs. Colby showdown in Texas on Monday night, as Colby Rasmus and the Astros travel to Texas to take on Colby Lewis and the Rangers at Globe Life Park. Rasmus loves Globe Life Park; in 18 career games there, he’s hit eight home runs (the most he’s hit in any ballpark that wasn’t his home park) and is slashing .314/.415/.743. Given the other Colby’s tendency to allow long balls to lefties (slate-high 18 homers allowed to LHB since 2015), Rasmus is a high-upside GPP play on Monday who might be low-owned given his recent struggles.