Daily Pitcher Breakdown: April 29th, 2013

by PSporer Last Updated 2013-04-29 22:15:23

Welcome to the revamped Daily Pitcher Breakdown. Going forward, I will focus on the top selections of the day and give you a breakdown on why they are set up for success against their given opponent. Sometimes there will be a best of the rest section featuring guys who are likely low-dollar options with some upside for those of you who prefer to load your lineup with hitting studs.

There will also be a contingent of the starters that you can ignore each day. They offer no discernible upside so they aren’t worth your time. Because it is baseball and a 162-game season, there are going to be times when guys from the ignore group go off, but we’re dealing with probabilities in the daily game so the goal is to give yourself the best odds for success, not find needle in the proverbial haystack that finally doesn’t poke you.

LEGEND
Stats Shown in Red Are BELOW AVERAGE
Stats Shown in White are AVERAGE
Stats Shown in Green Are ABOVE AVERAGE
Stats Shown in Blue Are ELITE

For a description of each stat below and the tiers used for them, check out this pop up window FAQ Page by clicking here

Performance and Talent Statistics: April 29th, 2013

PITCHER	TM	IP	ERA	SIERA	WHIP	GEM%	IMP%	K%	BB%	HR/9	G/F
PLAYER		PERFORMANCE						TALENT
Harrell	HOU	200	3.38	3.17	1.14	42.9%	10.7%	23.7%	5.3%	0.99	1.57
Pettitte	NYY	129	2.87	3.3	1.14	50.0%	17.0%	22.8%	6.9%	0.96	1.95

Pelfrey	MIN	19.7	2.29	3.63	1.42	67.0%	0.0%	15.3%	4.7%	0	2.69
Scherzer	DET	187.7	3.74	2.99	1.27	46.9%	15.6%	29.4%	7.6%	1.1	0.88

Harvey	NYM	59.3	2.73	3.42	1.15	60.0%	10.0%	28.6%	10.6%	0.76	1.02
Fernandez	MIA	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–

Strasburg	WAS	159.3	3.16	2.81	1.15	64.3%	10.7%	30.2%	7.4%	0.85	1.34
Teheran	ATL	6.3	5.68	3.74	0.95	0.0%	0.0%	20.8%	4.2%	0	0.5

Richard	SD	218.7	3.99	4.22	1.23	42.0%	18.0%	11.8%	4.6%	1.28	1.93
Samardzija	CHC	174.7	3.81	3.4	1.22	50.0%	21.4%	24.9%	7.8%	1.03	1.35

Jimenez	CLE	176.7	5.4	4.85	1.61	29.0%	23.0%	17.8%	11.8%	1.27	1
Davis	KC	70.3	2.43	2.79	1.09	Reliever in 2012	0.0%	30.6%	10.2%	0.64	0.97

Rodriguez	PIT	205.7	3.76	4.18	1.27	39.0%	9.0%	15.9%	6.4%	0.92	1.52
Gallardo	MIL	204	3.66	3.69	1.3	60.6%	15.2%	24.0%	9.4%	1.15	1.51

Latos	CIN	209.3	3.48	3.75	1.16	48.0%	18.0%	21.6%	7.5%	1.07	1.26
Wainwright	STL	198.7	3.94	3.33	1.25	56.3%	18.8%	22.1%	6.3%	0.68	1.93

Cain	SF	219.3	2.79	3.62	1.04	56.3%	15.6%	22.0%	5.8%	0.86	0.9
Kennedy	ARI	208.3	4.02	3.8	1.3	48.5%	24.2%	21.0%	6.0%	1.21	0.88

Hanson	LAA	174.7	4.48	4.1	1.45	22.6%	16.1%	21.2%	9.3%	1.39	1.01
Straily	OAK	39.3	3.89	4.72	1.32	42.9%	14.3%	18.6%	9.0%	2.52	0.55

Britton	BAL	60.3	5.07	4.11	1.54	45.5%	36.4%	20.0%	12.0%	0.9	2.62
Saunders	SEA	174.7	4.07	4.3	1.34	43.0%	18.0%	15.0%	5.2%	1.08	1.21

Chatwood	COL	64.7	5.43	4.63	1.65	8.3%	16.7%	14.0%	11.0%	1.25	2.5
Lilly	LAD	48.7	3.14	4.81	1.13	75.0%	12.5%	15.0%	9.0%	0.55	1.09

THE CREAM OF THE CROP:

matt harvey

Matt Harvey, NYM (facing the Marlins) – Harvey has been a revelation in the early part of the season dominating hitters with each one of his offerings yielding a combined .122/.190/.191 line with a filthy 31% strikeout rate. His devastating mid-to-high 90s fastball is likely to give a team like the Marlins even more fits than normal as they’re hitting a paltry .221/.296/.306 against all heaters. Putting him in a pitcher’s park where he can challenge a weak lineup just doesn’t seem fair.

Giancarlo Stanton had a huge weekend and seems to be catching fire, but someone like Harvey is going to have no reason to give anything useful in the zone. Stanton can turn around pure velocity so look for Harvey to rely on his breaking pitches and changeup against him. Speaking of his changeup, he’s yet to allow a hit off of it (.000/.045/.000 in 22 PA) so it’ll be interesting to see if the Marlins – who are 10th in baseball with a 691 OPS v. changeups – can do anything with it.

Andy Pettitte, NYY (facing the Astros) – The Astros have actually had some success against lefties with the 10th-best OPS (743), but that has been built on the crushing of three guys: Matt Harrison, Scott Kazmir, and Joe Saunders (the second time they faced him as he shut them out for 6.3 earlier in the season). Pettitte is easily the best southpaw to cross paths with the Stros this year and his filthy cutter is sure to marry well with their league-high 27% team strikeout rate.

He will be a very popular choice at most outlets as the Astros have been easy to pick on. The question becomes do you keep pace and pick the same guy most others will or do you try and go against the grain in hopes of out-performing your opponents with another performance? Pettitte is coming off of a 10-strikeout start against the Rays and could eclipse that total tonight. Add in a high probability for the win and perhaps picking your starter for tonight becomes an Occam’s razor situation.

Harvey checks in higher because the Marlins have been inept against anyone and the Astros have that modicum of success against southpaws, but Harvey is also likely to cost more and his team’s chances at a win are lower because they’re facing Jose Fernandez so it’s really a 1a/1b situation with these two.

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Max Scherzer, DET (facing the Twins) – The key for Scherzer against a weak Twins lineup will be getting strikes early with the fastball. Despite plus velocity (sits 93 MPH, maxes at 96), Scherzer’s heater has been hit around for seven extra-base hits (including five 2B) among the 13 hits in 41 at-bats (.317). It’s still capable of putting hitters away when he gets ahead as the pitch has yielded a meager .217 AVG in 23 plate appearances with 12 strikeouts. The slider is still the money pitch with a pathetic .167/.167/.167 line against and 44% strikeout rate.

The big advancement for Scherzer early on this year has been his changeup. He allowed a 756 OPS with it last year, 676 and 659 the two years before that. This year it’s at 587 including a career-best 37% strikeout rate with it against lefties. This is particularly important against the Twins who can run out five or six lefties on a given night including two of their very best hitters: Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau.

Adam Wainwright, STL (facing the Reds) – With names like Joey Votto, Shin-Soo Choo, Brandon Phillips, Jay Bruce, and Todd Frazier, the Reds feel like a fearsome lineup to avoid on most evenings especially as all except Bruce are off to strong starts this year, but as a team they have the 28th-best OPS against righties at 667 which only makes their assignment against Wainwright about 200x more difficult as he has dominated all comers this year. He opened the season with 34 walk-less innings before Bryce Harper drew the first and only against him in the six inning of his last outing. He isn’t filling the zone with an exorbitant amount of pitches, either. His 51.8% pitches in the zone is 28th in baseball out of 105 qualifying starters.

He’s succeeding by getting batters to chase out of the zone with a 32% chase rate which ranks 10th in baseball. This sets batters up to take hittable pitches for called strikes as evidenced by his 39% called strike rate, good for 7th in the league. Tonight will be a nice challenge for him as the Reds only chase 26% of the time (10th) and take called strikes at a 30% rate (3rd). Votto and Choo are two of the most disciplined hitters in the game so their matchups against Waino will be particularly interesting as he’s owned Votto and not yet faced Choo.

Jeff Samardzija, CHC (facing the San Diego Padres) – As if facing Samardzija weren’t daunting enough, the Padres have the added downside of being ranked 26th in OPS against righties (675). They are about league average in terms of strikeouts, but that could be challenged tonight as Samardzija is generating misses on 33% of the swings batters take against him, good for fourth in baseball and just second to Harvey in the National League.

His splitter and slider have combined to hold batters to a 463 OPS with 26 of his 39 strikeouts. Splitters aren’t terribly common, but current Padres have a combined .191 AVG against them with 65 strikeouts in 176 at-bats dating back to 2009. Chase Headley is just 6-for-33 against them with 16 punchouts. Worse yet, they have a 438 OPS against sliders this year which beats only divisional rival whose 389 OPS pulls up the rear.

Stephen Strasburg, WAS (facing the Braves) – It’s easy to overlook the whifftastic ways of the Braves when they are toting an NL East leading 15-9 record, but with a sweep at the hands of the Tigers – that included two national games – over the weekend during which they struck out 34 times, the team now leads the league in strikeout percentage (26.9%) the last two weeks overtaking the Astros. They are still two percent behind for the season, but their 25% rate is just what Strasburg needs to remedy his diminishing rate. He down to 21.4% after last year’s insane 30.2% and he could put up a huge K effort with his changeup specifically.

mat%20latos%20reds

His secondary stuff is still fooling batters including the change which has yielded a strikeout in 10 of the 20 plate appearances that have ended with the pitch and the Braves are fanning a league-worst 33% of the time against changeup which is to say that one-third of their plate appearances that end on a changeup are resulting in a slow walk back to the dugout.

Mat Latos, CIN (facing the Cardinals) – Latos would need a historically bad effort tonight to not end the month his best April ERA ever. He entered 2013 with a 5.73 ERA in 70.7 innings of work and now takes a 2.16 ERA in 33 innings into the game tonight. He’s already faced this team once holding them to four hits and one earned run in six innings of work. Some of “Shin-Soo Choo(player-profile)”:/players/Shin_Soo_Choo-10516’s lovely centerfield defense allowed three unearned to score, but Latos was in control throughout the game. He fanned five, all on off-speed stuff, too.

In fact, the off-speed stuff has been a challenge for the Cards all year and gives Latos an edge again tonight. The Cards have a 539 OPS against non-fastballs this year (26th in baseball) while striking out 28% of the time. Latos is yielding a .167/.200/.208 line with his off-speed including 19 strikeouts in 51 PAs (37.3% K rate).

Yovani Gallardo, MIL (facing the Pirates) – Gallardo has struggled this year, but gets a familiar foe that hasn’t been much of a challenge for him in the past so it’s a time to get right. His curveball, usually an unhittable strikeout pitch, hasn’t been generating the strikeouts at nearly the same rate this year. From 2009-2011, he had a 40% strikeout rate with the pitch. And that comes with heavy usage as he had 685 PAs end with the pitch, his second-most of any pitch. So far this year, he’s down to 16% in 25 PAs. The Pirates are hitting just .200 with a 490 OPS against curves including a 31.7% strikeout rate. That strikeout rate does need some context though as the league average is 32.4% so they’re actually better than league average, but still poor enough that Gallardo should benefit.

Ian Kennedy, ARI (facing the Giants) – Those waiting for 2011 Kennedy to return will likely be disappointed as he’s not the ace pitcher who steamrolled the league for 222 innings that year. He is a very good pitcher, but more of a great #3 or fringe #2 who is going to pile up a ton of quality innings, but have homer issues that will ruin a handful of starts. This is a strong matchup for him because his primary weakness – homers – is not a strength of the Giants. They have just 13 HRs against righties, tied for the sixth-fewest. Mistakes with the fastball will be the key as his secondary stuff is rarely taken out of the yard. Brandon Belt has the lone homer against Kennedy for the Giants.

matt%20cain

Matt Cain, SF (facing the Diamondbacks) – Conversely, homers have never been an issue for Cain until this year as his 1.9 HR/9 has been the primary culprit in his slow start (6.59 ERA). Nothing in his game is amiss except for the elevated HR/FB rate which is at 16.2% (career 6.9% rate) and that is a major reason why I think he will be just fine. His velocity is down a mere 0.5 MPH which is likely just April ramping up, his strikeout rate is down a percentage point which is nothing, and his walk rate is actually down a percentage point, too, so that’s a positive aspect.

Ten of his 21 runs allowed have come off the home run which is insane and he irons out that issue, his ERA will plummet. He allowed four homers on the slider in 2011-2012 combined, but has already allowed two on the pitch this year. The Diamondbacks are hitting just .147/.199/.190 off sliders – baseball’s worst performance – with one homer in 177 PAs. If Cain can’t effectively use his slider tonight, there may be reason for some concern, but until them I’m not the least bit worried.

Dan Straily, OAK (facing the Angels) – He is spot starting for Brett Anderson and he gets the Angels on another downslide. After looking like they were coming out of it with 18 runs in two days against the Tigers, they have gone back to scoring just 3.6 runs/game in their last eight. If Straily doesn’t get beat with this fastball early, the Angels are toast as his wicked slider has owned batters in his short big league career allowing a 383 OPS with 41% strikeouts. Compounding matters is that the Angels have a pathetic 304 OPS against the pitch while striking out in 49% of their 44 PAs against it.

Jose Fernandez, MIA (facing the Mets) – The young phenom is appealing for his future upside, but for our purposes he just doesn’t stack up as he has gone more than five innings just once in his four starts and has a 16.7% strikeout rate since his opener when he fanned eight Mets in five innings. New York’s league-worst 344 OPS against righty curveballs does work in his favor.

BEST THE REST:

Wade Davis, KC (facing the Indians) – Whether you classify it as a cutter or slider, Davis is dominating with it allowing a 377 OPS and notching seven strikeouts in 19 PAs (36.8%). Those numbers could improve tonight as the Indians have a league-worst 350 OPS against the pitch along with a 36% K rate which is second-worst.

Ted Lilly, LAD (facing the Rockies) – The Rockies have been held to two runs in 11 innings against lefty starts the last two days facing Arizona’s Wade Miley and Patrick Corbin. They did draw seven walks against Miley, though. Lilly gives them a third straight look at a southpaw.

Wandy Rodriguez, PIT (facing the Brewers) – The Brewers’ 748 OPS is third-best against southpaws in the NL, but they’re hitting just .125 against lefty curveballs which is Wandy’s calling card. Plus the Brewers don’t draw walks, so his 3.6% BB rate won’t be challenged.

YOU CAN SAFELY IGNORE:

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