CheeseIsGood's Million Dollar Musings: Monday, August 16th
Happy Monday! We open the week with a 10-game slate that features the return of Gerrit Cole, and Fernando Tatis and friends partying at Coors Field. While the Padres will be the obvious target here, there are at least a half dozen other teams with projected totals above five runs and there are no shortage of high-quality pivots. Let’s jump in and see what we find.
Monday Night Pitching
There is not a lot that qualifies as top tier pitching tonight, and the mid-tier is nothing to write home about either. This is how I have things sorted to begin with.
Top Two or Maybe Three or Four
Gerrit Cole vs Angels
Kevin Gausman vs Mets
Frankie Montas at White Sox
Touki Toussaint at Marlins
Uninspiring Mid-Tier
Wade Miley vs Cubs
Jake Odorizzi at Royals
Josh Fleming vs Orioles
Braxton Garrett vs Braves
Dallas Keuchel vs A’s
Griffin Jax vs Indians
Cal Quantrill at Twins
Rich Hill at Giants
Cheap Nonsense
Justin Steele at Reds
LA Dodgers ??
What To Do With Cole?
Using long term data and matchup, this is a complete no-brainer. However, there is more to it than that, both with Cole’s recent inconsistency and the two weeks he’s missed with covid. The first thing I’ll say is that I have zero concern about the inconsistency. It would be fair to look at his last start as a bad sign, giving up seven runs, but to me the 10 strikeouts and just one homer far outweighs the hits and runs. We’re now looking at 41 strikeouts and 8 walks in his last four start and I see him as the same ace as ever. I have not seen anything official about a pitch count here, and my expectation is that he is not limited enough to matter. I wouldn’t expect to see 120 pitches or anything crazy like that, but since he had no injury, I am not looking for anything too far short of 90-100. It’s enough that he is still my clear SP1 on DK tonight, but much less of a necessity with his FD salary.