CheeseIsGood's Million Dollar Musings: Tuesday, September 7th
Happy Tuesday!
I want to start today by getting back to something I briefly mentioned at the top of yesterday’s article. September baseball is filled with nonsense. Some of the nonsense is projectable, some is guessable, some is just random. For example, after yesterday’s Detroit game started, the announcers said that Skubal would only pitch three innings, and that’s what happened. I didn’t know that before the game, and I played him, along with everyone else. It was reasonable to think that we weren’t going to see more than 85-90 pitches from Skubal, but I would never project a drop to 3 innings unless I have that information ahead of time.
Similarly, but even wonkier to me was Sonny Gray pulled at 66 pitches after he had rounded into top form. Sure, he was pinch hit for, but 66 pitches and five innings after an 8-K day is rough. I am not going to start just randomly guessing which pitchers are going to be limited, but just know that it is going to happen. If I hear something, I’ll tell you, but a lot of times, we won’t know until it happens.
On the hitting side, it shouldn’t be quite as bad as it used to be when September rosters expanded to 40 players, but teams still have 2-3 hitters more than they’ve had all season, making it a little easier to pinch hit and swap guys around. Like with the pitch counts, I am not going to just randomly start guessing who might get pinch hit for. It will be the same analysis as always for me. If a player has been a pinch-hit risk all year, he’s a pinch-hit risk now. If he hasn’t been, I’m just playing as normal.
Tuesday Night Pitching
We’ve got a solid pitching slate, led by three high upside aces and then a sizeable mid-tier with some good matchups. This is how I have them sorted:
THREE ACES
Gerrit Cole vs Blue Jays – 35.4% K, 5.3% BB, 2.73 ERA, 2.72 SIERA
Aaron Nola at Brewers – 29.4% K, 5.5% BB, 4.54 ERA, 3.33 SIERA
Blake Snell vs Angels – 30.3% K, 12.8% BB, 4.31 ERA, 4.10 SIERA
MID-TIER UPSIDE IN SKILLS OR MATCHUPS
Max Fried vs Nationals – 24.3% K, 6.5% BB, 3.51 ERA, 3.78 SIERA
Zac Gallen vs Rangers – 26.7% K, 10.3% BB, 4.34 ERA, 4.16 SIERA
Eduardo Rodriguez vs Rays – 27.5%, 6.9% BB, 4.88 ERA, 3.63 SIERA
James Kaprielian vs White Sox – 24.4% K, 9.1% BB, 3.87 ERA, 4.37 SIERA
Wade Miley at Cubs – 18.3% K, 7.6% BB, 2.97 ERA, 4.52 SIERA
Jake Odorizzi vs Mariners – 21.8% K, 8.2% BB, 4.32 ERA, 4.51 SIERA
Logan Webb at Rockies – 27% K, 6.7% BB, 2.56 ERA, 3.18 SIERA
CHEAP NONSENSE
Jackson Kowar at Orioles
Jimmy Lambert at A’s
Three Aces
Gerrit Cole vs Blue Jays
Aaron Nola at Brewers
Blake Snell vs Angels