Daily Pitcher Breakdown: Saturday, August 27th

by Doug Thorburn (DougThorburn) Last Updated 2016-08-28 02:15:14

Welcome to the Daily Pitcher Breakdown, where we study the blueprints for each day’s matchups and dive into the details of each pitcher’s unique profile. We’ll lay all the cards on the table and let the strength of each hand determine whether we want to commit our chips. For each player, we consider opponents, splits, stuff, mechanics, and recent performance.

Editor’s Note: Albert Suarez is starting in place of Jake Peavy on Saturday.

LEGEND

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

View descriptions of stats below and Legend FAQ

Daily Pitcher Chart

Pitcher	TM	OPP	IP	ERA	SIERA	WHIP	GEM%	K%	BB%	HR/9	G/F
Foltynewicz	ATL	SFG	175.2	5.07	4.31	1.47		19.7%	7.3%	1.59	0.93
Peavy	SFG	ATL	227.1	4.59	4.36	1.28	42.1%	18.7%	6.2%	1.19	0.82
Bundy	BAL	NYY	75	3.36	3.94	1.29		22.2%	7.0%	1.32	0.84
Green	NYY	BAL	33.1	4.05	3.09	1.26		28.8%	7.2%	2.16	1.87
De La Rosa	COL	WAS	251	4.63	4.50	1.45	40.0%	19.1%	10.4%	1.15	1.67
J. Cole	WAS	COL
Santana	MIN	TOR	241.2	3.69	4.42	1.25	38.9%	18.0%	6.9%	0.97	1.12
Stroman	TOR	MIN	180.2	4.18	3.54	1.24	66.7%	19.3%	5.9%	1.00	2.93
Urias	LAD	CHC	51	4.41	4.05	1.59		24.4%	10.0%	0.88	1.48
Chacin	LAA	DET	130	5.40	4.59	1.49	18.2%	17.5%	9.2%	1.11	1.62
Fulmer	DET	LAA	125.2	2.58	3.95	1.06		20.7%	6.6%	0.86	1.73
Duffy	KCR	BOS	268.2	3.42	3.97	1.19	57.1%	22.2%	7.2%	1.00	0.90
Price	BOS	KCR	390	3.21	3.40	1.16	52.4%	24.7%	5.3%	0.88	1.25
Hellickson	PHI	NYM	296	4.10	4.08	1.23		19.9%	6.1%	1.31	1.13
Syndergaard	NYM	PHI	290	3.01	2.91	1.12		28.6%	5.2%	0.87	1.61
Taillon	PIT	MIL	66	3.00	3.49	1.09		19.8%	3.4%	0.95	2.26
Nelson	MIL	PIT	319.1	4.20	4.45	1.38		18.7%	9.5%	1.04	1.68
Richard	SDP	MIA	68.2	4.06	3.76	1.44		13.2%	7.2%	0.66	3.92
Urena	MIA	SDP	104	5.88	5.10	1.59		12.4%	9.2%	0.87	1.49
Miranda	SEA	CWS	14	5.79	4.70	1.57		19.4%	8.1%	1.29	0.59
Quintana	CWS	SEA	364	3.14	3.81	1.20	50.0%	21.0%	5.4%	0.77	1.29
Snell	TBR	HOU	61.2	3.06	4.56	1.54		24.0%	12.7%	0.44	1.19
Keuchel	HOU	TBR	385	3.39	3.22	1.13	50.0%	22.5%	6.2%	0.82	2.81
Neal	OAK	STL	34.2	5.19	4.45	1.18		8.5%	1.4%	1.56	1.83
Reyes	STL	OAK
Carrasco	CLE	TEX	299.2	3.51	3.07	1.08		27.7%	6.1%	1.08	1.60
Griffin	TEX	CLE	90.1	4.68	4.62	1.32		20.2%	8.4%	1.89	0.67
Desclafani	CIN	ARI	263	3.76	4.05	1.31	20.0%	19.9%	6.6%	0.89	1.26
Godley	ARI	CIN	88.2	4.16	4.18	1.29		19.5%	8.6%	1.02	1.69

ALL-IN:

The aces that are worth pushing all of the chips into the middle of the table.

Noah Syndergaard NYM (vs. PHI) – Thor has some of the best overall numbers in the majors and is facing one of the two weakest offenses in baseball, and those two facts alone should be good enough to vault him into All-In territory. Syndergaard leads the majors with a 5.53 K/BB this season and has a 2.29 FIP that’s even lower than his 2.61 ERA. He has thrown nearly the same number of innings as last season (148 to 150), having made an identical 24 starts in each campaign, and Synder has improved his already-great marks in ERA and K/9 (from 10.0 to 10.8 K/9), cut his homer rate in half and maintained the same sub-2.0 BB/9 as he did in his rookie year. He’s coming off an excellent start against the Giants, with eight scoreless innings with just two hits and two walks allowed, including six strikeouts on the day. He hasn’t enjoyed the big-strikeout games in recent starts that he had in the first few months of the season, but he has consistently posted a half-dozen or more strikeouts in nearly every start for the past two months.

RAISE:

The value plays, next-tier players that can compete with the aces on any given gameday but who probably won’t cost an arm and a glove.

Carlos Carrasco CLE (at TEX) – Carrasco has been piling on the strikeouts and runs by the truck load recently, though the runs truck never left the warehouse in his last outing, with eight scoreless frames against Oakland that included nine strikeouts and zero walks. He actually hasn’t walked a batter in any of his last three starts, spanning 21.2 innings, but he has racked up 28 strikeouts over that same stretch. Prior to the game against the A;s, Carrasco had allowed three or more earned runs in his past five consecutive starts, but the Ks that have come along for the ride have balanced out the extra tallies. In fact, the blend has worked out to strong fantasy scores that topped 22 points in each of his last four turns and has cracked 10 or more points in 14 of his last 15 starts.

David Price BOS (vs. KC) – Price silenced his old mates in his last start, blanking the Rays over eight innings with just two hits and two walks allowed, tacking on eight strikeouts in the victory, It was the third consecutive win for Price, who over the past three starts has floated a 1.64 ERA.and a K:BB of 20:3 over 22 innings of work. Prior to the three-game set he had a prolonged bout with too many hits allowed and too many runners crossing the plate, so his last two starts have been particularly refreshing, with just six hits (one home run) allowed in 14 innings. Price spiked several high-strikeout games in the first half of the season, but he hasn’t whiffed more than eight batters in a game since before the All-Star break.

Jameson Taillon PIT (at MIL) – Prior to his last start against Houston, I mentioned that Taillon is setting the stage to set a new season/career-high in strikeouts for a single game due to a combination of his improved play and the Astros’ free-swinging ways, and Taillon obliged with an eight-K total that beat his season-best by one. The setup is even better this time around, as the Brewers strikeout factory is the windiest show on earth and regularly gives away season-high strikeout totals to opposing pitchers. Don’t be surprised if the ups the ante to set a new career-high in strikeouts for the second turn in a row.

Jose Quintana CHW (vs. SEA) – This is Quintana’s fifth season pitching in the major leagues, each involving at least 136 innings pitched, and the highest full-season ERA of his career is the 3.76 of his rookie year, followed by the 3.51 mark of his sophomore season. Over the past three seasons combined, Quintana has a composite ERA of 3.20 in 571 innings, and 2016 has been his best season yet with a 2.84 ERA to date. That ERA has been tumbling since the All-Star Break, with a 1.91 mark over seven starts and 47 innings since the Midsummer Vacation. He has been pitching deep into games, going 6.2 or more innings in five of his last six starts, and he has walked just 10 batters in those seven second-half ballgames. The strikeouts are modest, so he needs to get enough outs to make up the difference.

Pitcher Advanced Stats and Stats Against

Pitcher	wOBA vs L	ERA vs L	wOBA vs R	ERA vs R	AVG	OPS	BABIP	FIP	AVG-A	Pit/G	Strk%
Foltynewicz	0.380	5.63	0.336	4.62	0.264	0.739	0.322	4.82	0.282	0.00	19.7%
Peavy	0.332	4.60	0.321	4.59	0.252	0.683	0.293	4.11	0.258	77.56	18.7%
Bundy	0.307	3.16	0.329	3.62	0.249	0.731	0.306	4.23	0.259	44.59	22.2%
Green	0.431	5.40	0.244	2.95	0.262	0.775	0.296	4.77	0.248	66.22	28.8%
De La Rosa	0.316	5.03	0.346	4.67	0.262	0.772	0.299	4.59	0.258	89.79	19.1%
J. Cole					0.271	0.782
Santana	0.308	3.97	0.302	3.39	0.257	0.777	0.286	3.96	0.25	97.51	18.0%
Stroman	0.318	4.91	0.295	3.44	0.248	0.715	0.299	3.80	0.258	96.11	19.3%
Hammel	0.310	3.32	0.283	3.29	0.251	0.743	0.266	3.86	0.225	88.65	22.9%
Urias	0.291	3.95	0.356	4.58	0.252	0.751	0.363	3.58	0.28	80.50	24.4%
Chacin	0.364	6.39	0.316	4.46	0.267	0.743	0.311	4.53	0.272	0.00	17.5%
Fulmer	0.260	2.20	0.289	2.98	0.255	0.717	0.254	3.67	0.216	0.01	20.7%
Duffy	0.238	2.04	0.317	3.76	0.276	0.774	0.286	3.84	0.238	66.81	22.2%
Price	0.298	2.88	0.288	3.32	0.274	0.741	0.307	3.10	0.244	104.79	24.7%
Hellickson	0.337	4.18	0.307	4.05	0.241	0.708	0.283	4.23	0.249	92.04	19.9%
Syndergaard	0.306	3.51	0.264	2.62	0.243	0.689	0.315	2.75	0.237	0.01	28.6%
Taillon	0.307	2.63	0.263	3.49	0.251	0.711	0.289	3.41	0.249	0.02	19.8%
Nelson	0.361	5.21	0.295	3.39	0.259	0.725	0.291	4.53	0.251	93.40	18.7%
Richard	0.280	2.05	0.342	5.31	0.273	0.740	0.308	4.01	0.276	20.38	13.2%
Urena	0.375	7.40	0.333	4.73	0.238	0.684	0.319	4.72	0.291	0.00	12.4%
Miranda					0.248	0.680	0.349	4.36	0.298	0.00	19.4%
Quintana	0.274	3.28	0.308	3.10	0.259	0.740	0.308	3.29	0.254	0.00	21.0%
Snell	0.289	2.30	0.311	3.33	0.248	0.756	0.333	3.34	0.25	0.02	24.0%
Keuchel	0.230	2.74	0.294	3.57	0.256	0.748	0.284	3.30	0.233	104.51	22.5%
Neal	0.376	8.50	0.277	1.62	0.261	0.760	0.275	4.97	0.283	0.00	8.5%
Reyes					0.250	0.706
Carrasco	0.296	3.15	0.282	3.83	0.260	0.745	0.288	3.30	0.226	92.61	27.7%
Griffin	0.392	5.52	0.294	3.88	0.257	0.745	0.273	5.41	0.252	91.47	20.2%
Desclafani	0.348	4.62	0.285	2.82	0.263	0.737	0.316	3.69	0.265	95.64	19.9%
Godley	0.286	3.86	0.330	4.44	0.250	0.711	0.285	4.25	0.244	58.65	19.5%

CALL:

Long-shot plays that could hit it big but carry considerable risk of blow-up.

Michael Fulmer DET (vs. LAA) – Rostering Fulmer is great when he’s playing the Angels because you don’t have to wonder whether or not he’s going to spike a big K-count – you already know it’s going to be unimpressive. The strikeouts have been all over the place against regular teams, and one need look no further than his last two starts to see the disparity. The Red Sox tagged Fulmer for six and 10 hits in 5.2 innings of his last start, a game in which the rookie struck out just one batter, but in his previous outing Fulmer had tossed a four-hit shutout against the Rangers that included nine strikeouts. I won’t be surprised if he pulls off another shutout in tonight’s game, but I’ll be downright shocked if he strikes out as many as nine batters against the Angels.

Jeremy Hellickson PHI (at NYM) – A relatively safe option, Hellickson has gone 6.0 or more innings deep in 15 of his last 18 starts, yet despite the extended stays, he hasn’t walked more than two batters in a game since mid-June, including a meager 10 walks over the past 11 starts and 69.1 innings. The strikeouts are right in tune with his career numbers – which is to say, they’re low for DFS at 7.6 K/9 – while the walks represent a career-low, but Helix is still prone to the dep fly, an issue that has followed the right-hander throughout his career.

Blake Snell TB (at HOU) – Snell offers the opposite value package as Hellickson, with a potent K rate, too many walks and a glaring tendency toward very short outings. Snell hasn’t finished the sixth inning of a start in over a month and has registered an out in the seventh inning of just two of his 13 starts this season. Facing the Astros ups the ante of his strikeout expectancy, but Houston has a hit-or-miss lineup that can bludgeon opponents when the bats are clicking. He’ll need to stockpile the strikeouts early and often to make up for the probability that Snell will be out before the end of the sixth.

Danny Duffy KC (at BOS)

Dallas Keuchel HOU (vs. TB)

Anthony DeSclafani CIN (at ARI)

Alex Reyes STL (vs. OAK) – As much as I’m looking forward to watching Reyes in the starter role, there’s a strong likelihood of a quick hook in this one. Reyes has been pitching out of the bullpen for the past couple weeks, though he was exclusively a starter in the minors, but the Cardinals will probably have him on a strict count in this one. Reyes wasn’t that effective in the minors, beyond the strikeouts that is. He’ll have to pile on a ton of strikeouts in quick fashion in order to carry much weight in DFS,

Jimmy Nelson MIL (vs. PIT)

Mike Foltynewicz ATL (at SF)

Jake Peavy SF (vs. ATL)

A.J. Griffin TEX (vs. CLE)

Clayton Richard SD (at MIA)

Jose Urena MIA (vs. SD)

Ariel Miranda SEA (at CHW)