10 Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful MLB Notes for Tuesday, April 9th
Welcome to 10 Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful Notes! In this column, 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 Notes for Tuesday, April 9th.
1. Dating back to his final start of 2018, Jacob deGrom has notched 10 strikeouts while issuing one or fewer walk and zero earned runs in three straight starts. It’s a feat only achieved by one other player ever: Clayton Kershaw in 2015. He’s virtually abandoned his sinker this year in favor of more four-seamers and sliders, which has been a boon for his already robust strikeout numbers. Even better, he’s at home, where he’s got a career 2.14 ERA and 30.5% strikeout rate. Just for the visual, let’s look at his DraftKings point totals in each of his last eight games at CitiField:
40.80
27.65
26.70
34.50
27.80
29.80
28.40
28.40
So, all of that adds up to: Jacob deGrom is a really good pitcher, and you should include him on your team today.
2. Joey Lucchesi’s “churve” (a curveball where he uses a changeup grip, or, a changeup that moves more like a curveball, or…it’s confusing), which he’s throwing 38.5 percent of the time, is getting 21.5 percent swings and misses; that’s the sixth-best of ANY pitch this year. It’s a pitch that has allowed him to wreak havoc on opposing lefties in his career, allowing just a .283 wOBA and rack up 31.5 percent strikeouts. That matters in this start because he’s facing a Giants offense that can get very left-handed. Lucchesi is a tough ask his DraftKings salary of $9,200. But he’s more reasonable at FanDuel ($8,600), and at Yahoo ($35), where he’s $5 less expensive than Marco Gonzalez and just a buck more than Mike Minor, Lucchesi makes a nice pairing with deGrom.
3. Since 2018, only three pitches in baseball (min. 600 pitches) have a 19 percent chase rate or better: Patrick Corbin’s slider, Blake Snell’s curveball, and … Kyle Gibson’s slider. Gibson was solid in his last start until two outs in the 5th inning, when he got Royaled (the new phrase I’m coining for whenever the Royals “manufacture” runs in ways that are super annoying for opposing pitchers). The chicanery included his issuing a walk to Billy Hamilton, a rare (in 2019) Alex Gordon three-run homer, and a throwing error by Jorge Polanco. So, not exactly a total meltdown. Gibson is still a solid pitcher that Derek Carty’s THE BAT projects for a sub-4.00 ERA and a strikeout rate that, if you squint, looks like league average (21.3%; league average so far this year is 22.9%). The Mets can stack up lefies (McNeil, Conforto, Cano, Nimmo is a dangerous foursome at the top of the order, not to mention rookie masher Pete Alonso). But this is a price play; Gibson is way too cheap at DraftKings at just $6,300, making him an ideal SP2 option.
4. Here are some things we know about MLB DFS at DraftKings in 2019:
— There is still a salary cap.
— That salary cap is still incredibly tight.
— We will have to roster pitchers we are, let’s say, less than confident in.
And so I bring you the case for Derek Holland. It’s really all about a change in pitch mix. Beginning last August, Holland jumped aboard the slider bandwagon, and the results have been shockingly good for a guy who, just a few years back, was legitimately one of the worst starting pitchers in baseball. Check out how much he’s increased his usage of the pitch in recent years:
He’s up to 36 percent, eighth-most in MLB. Though it’s obviously too early to tell if it will continue, he’s struck out 30 percent of the guys he’s faced this year. This is a guy who was once unusable in DFS because of low strikeouts, but he’s made discernible changes to his pitch mix as well as moving to the other side of the mound. Since June, when he made the switch, he’s pitched to a 3.02 ERA with 25.6 percent strikeouts; that’s something only nine other pitchers have done over that span. Here they are:
I think I’m in on Derek Holland. Okay, I’m in on Derek Holland. I’m in…on Derek Holland. DFS makes you say weird things.
5. Nolan Arenado has a career wOBA of .488 against lefties at Coors Field; that mark would rank third all time…behind Babe Ruth and Ted Williams. (If you read the season preview of the Rockies, you’ve seen this stat already; it’s one of my favorite stats, so I thought it was worth repeating). Braves left-hander Max Fried is a talented pitcher, but he’s no match for Babe Ruth, or Ted Williams, or even Nolan Arenado. Fitting Arenado (and perhaps his fellow lefty-mashing teammate Trevor Story) is a top priority on Tuesday.
6. Cody Bellinger has a .618 wOBA in his first 10 games of 2019; it’s the highest of any 10-game stretch of his career. Check it out:
We’ve been down this road with Bellinger before, when he became just the third player in MLB history (joining Mark McGwire and Rudy York) to bash 39 homers in his first 132 games. Back then, everyone waited, and waited, and waited for Bellinger to slow down, and he just didn’t. While regression is certainly coming, Bellinger should see lower-than-usual ownership on a slate with Coors Field, and that has me very interested in tournaments.
7. The Mariners have been so good, and so fun, that I can’t limit myself to one Mariners note. So here are three:
— As a team, the Mariners have knocked out 32 homers, which is an all-time record for a team in its first 12 games of a season. It’s also more than 10 times as many as the Tigers, who have recorded an MLB-low 3 home runs.
— Daniel Vogelbach has homered in four consecutive games, and during that four-game streak, he’s hit five out (he hit two homers against the White Sox on Sunday). That puts him on a short list of Mariners to record five or more homers over a four-game homer streak. Vogelbach is joined by Nelson Cruz (2015), Jay Buhner (1995, 1996), and Ken Griffey, Jr. (1993).
— Only two players in MLB have posted 14+ DraftKings points in seven different games this year. One is Cody Bellinger. The other is not Mike Trout, or Christian Yelich, or Khris Davis (or Chris Davis); it’s Domingo Santana. Sure, he and the rest of the Mariners have a two-game head start on most of MLB, but it’s nonetheless impressive how quickly Santana has acclimated to his new team.
The Mariners are going to be a fun team to stack all year, and on Tuesday, they get a fly ball pitcher who has shown a home run issue in the past in Jakob Junis. Since the start of 2018, Jakob Junis 1.57 HR/9 is second-highest in MLB, behind only Dylan Bundy. Somebody on the M’s is going to hit it out on Tuesday; it’s just a matter of landing on the right group of players.
8. Whit Merrifield is one of only seven players in the past 10 years to post a .300 average and 45 steals in a season (Mike Trout, Starling Marte, Alex Gordon, Jose Altuve, Carl Craword, Jacoby Ellsbury). He’s looked excellent this year, striking out a paltry 8.3 percent of the time. The usual small sample size caveats apply, but even if that number rises, Merrifield has developed into an elite contact hitter. He’s going to put the ball in play a few times against Marco Gonzales, whose tolerably low 21.1 percent K rate from 2018 has eroded into a 13.4 percent. Of course, I’m burying the lede: Merrifield is riding a 29-game hit streak, by far the longest in Royals franchise history (if he hits again tonight, it’ll double the 15-game streak of second-place Scott Podsednik).
9. Speaking of Royals with sneaky bat-to-ball skills, Adalberto Mondesi has increased his contact in the zone from 79.5% to 94.3%, which ranks in the 90th percentile among qualified hitters. That’s a drastic improvement from one year to the next. He still strikes out a fair amount, and it’d be nice to see him take a walk (which he literally has not done once this season) to utilize his speed more often. Even so, he’s proving he’s worth the hype that made him one of the most polarizing players in season-long fantasy baseball entering the year (sorry for the mention of season-long…I’ll see myself out). He’s $4,800 at DraftKings, which is not a bargain, but when with the masses likely (and justifiably) flocking to roster Trevor Story, it may be fun to get a little contrarian with Mondesi in GPPs.
10. This one was genuinely shocking to me: since the start of 2018, Trey Mancini ranks 15th in MLB in barrels. He’s got more than Matt Olson, Bryce Harper, Freddie Freeman, Rhys Hoskins, and Cody Bellinger, to name a few. Mancini homered last night, and while the matchup isn’t ideal, he remains underpriced across the industry. Brett Anderson has a deserved reputation as a ground ball specialist, but it is worth noting that he allows right-handed hitters to lift the ball far more than lefties (60% ground balls and 16.5% fly balls to lefties since 2016; 50.0% ground balls and 26.1% fly balls to righties). In other words, don’t roster Chris Davis (not even for $500 at FanDuel); do roster Trey Mancini.
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Thanks for reading! Stats from this article were pulled from RotoGrinders’ PlateIQ tool, FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus, Baseball Savant, Brooks Baseball, and Baseball Reference.
Check back for more “10 Notes” MLB articles every Tuesday and Friday throughout the year, and feel free to leave a question or comment down below!