Daily Pitcher Breakdown: Saturday, July 25th
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.
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 the needle in the proverbial haystack that finally doesn’t poke you.
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
Daily Pitcher Chart
| Pitcher | TM | OPP | IP | ERA | SIERA | WHIP | GEM% | K% | BB% | HR/9 | G/F |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hamels | PHI | CHC | 324.1 | 3.00 | 3.29 | 1.19 | 58.8% | 24.10% | 7.2% | 0.72 | 1.54 |
| Arrieta | CHC | PHI | 285.1 | 2.52 | 2.80 | 0.98 | 50.0% | 27.00% | 6.2% | 0.41 | 1.82 |
| Simon | DET | BOS | 301.1 | 3.85 | 4.25 | 1.30 | 63.2% | 16.00% | 7.3% | 0.99 | 1.42 |
| Wright | BOS | DET | 69.1 | 4.15 | 3.98 | 1.27 | 0.0% | 16.70% | 6.8% | 1.43 | 1.30 |
| Bassitt | OAK | SFG | 57.1 | 3.45 | 4.78 | 1.40 | 0.0% | 14.90% | 9.4% | 0.16 | 0.91 |
| Bumgarner | SFG | OAK | 341.1 | 3.08 | 3.04 | 1.10 | 47.6% | 24.90% | 4.9% | 0.92 | 1.19 |
| Hutchison | TOR | SEA | 288.2 | 4.74 | 3.67 | 1.34 | 31.6% | 22.40% | 7.4% | 1.06 | 0.91 |
| Happ | SEA | TOR | 260.2 | 4.18 | 3.98 | 1.34 | 30.8% | 19.00% | 7.1% | 1.10 | 1.09 |
| Gonzalez | BAL | TBR | 257.1 | 3.60 | 4.32 | 1.29 | 40.0% | 17.20% | 7.7% | 1.47 | 0.96 |
| Ramirez | TBR | BAL | 159.1 | 4.35 | 4.13 | 1.31 | 27.3% | 19.10% | 8.8% | 1.13 | 1.14 |
| Gonzalez | WAS | PIT | 259.1 | 3.71 | 3.56 | 1.29 | 46.7% | 23.00% | 8.8% | 0.52 | 1.66 |
| Burnett | PIT | WAS | 339.0 | 3.80 | 3.82 | 1.35 | 38.1% | 20.10% | 9.0% | 0.69 | 1.92 |
| Sale | CHW | CLE | 299.2 | 2.46 | 2.45 | 0.98 | 64.3% | 31.40% | 5.3% | 0.75 | 1.05 |
| Carrasco | CLE | CHW | 248.1 | 3.19 | 2.65 | 1.07 | 0.0% | 27.00% | 5.3% | 0.65 | 1.72 |
| Lee | LAD | NYM | |||||||||
| Harvey | NYM | LAD | 118.1 | 3.19 | 3.40 | 1.10 | 0.0% | 23.40% | 6.3% | 1.06 | 1.17 |
| Sabathia | NYY | MIN | 152.1 | 5.26 | 3.42 | 1.42 | 25.0% | 20.80% | 4.6% | 1.71 | 1.40 |
| Milone | MIN | NYY | 187.1 | 3.89 | 4.51 | 1.35 | 43.8% | 15.30% | 7.3% | 1.30 | 1.00 |
| Feldman | HOU | KCR | 246.0 | 4.06 | 4.28 | 1.33 | 47.1% | 14.00% | 6.3% | 0.91 | 1.63 |
| Duffy | KCR | HOU | 219.1 | 3.08 | 4.46 | 1.23 | 57.1% | 17.40% | 8.9% | 0.78 | 0.88 |
| Miller | ATL | STL | 302.2 | 3.18 | 4.27 | 1.23 | 21.1% | 18.30% | 8.9% | 0.86 | 1.16 |
| Martinez | STL | ATL | 200.2 | 3.18 | 3.45 | 1.33 | 0.0% | 23.50% | 9.8% | 0.63 | 2.03 |
| Jungmann | MIL | ARI | 53.0 | 2.04 | 3.79 | 1.02 | 0.0% | 18.80% | 7.3% | 0.34 | 1.80 |
| De La Rosa | ARI | MIL | 219.0 | 4.64 | 3.92 | 1.40 | 57.1% | 18.60% | 7.4% | 1.40 | 1.54 |
| Cueto | CIN | COL | 366.1 | 2.43 | 3.21 | 0.96 | 76.2% | 24.60% | 6.4% | 0.81 | 1.28 |
| Rusin | COL | CIN | 73.0 | 4.44 | 4.06 | 1.52 | 0.0% | 14.70% | 7.0% | 1.11 | 1.98 |
| Phelps | MIA | SDP | 207.1 | 4.17 | 4.26 | 1.36 | 42.9% | 17.30% | 8.1% | 0.91 | 1.21 |
| Kennedy | SDP | MIA | 291.1 | 3.99 | 3.56 | 1.30 | 47.6% | 23.50% | 7.9% | 1.14 | 1.03 |
| Gallardo | TEX | LAA | 309.2 | 3.28 | 3.98 | 1.29 | 50.0% | 17.30% | 7.4% | 0.84 | 1.72 |
| Santiago | LAA | TEX | 240.2 | 3.07 | 4.10 | 1.25 | 16.7% | 21.30% | 8.7% | 1.05 | 0.61 |
ALL-IN:
The aces that are worth pushing all of the chips into the middle of the table.
Chris Sale CHW (at CLE) – There are a bunch of great starters going today, but the six-foot-six Condor stands head and shoulders above the rest. His string of games with 10 or more K’s was recently broken and Sale has been reasonably hittable recently, with 23 hits and four homers allowed across his last three starts, but his reluctance to give away free passes has remained intact with just four walks allowed in his last six starts combined. He’s the AL leader in K rate and FIP, and he’s today’s leader in the Daily Pitcher Breakdown clubhouse.
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 Martinez STL (vs. ATL) – Car-Mart can be forgiven if he was off-kilter in his last game, as rather than go through his normal pre-start routine he was asked to take the mound in relief and throws 72 pitches during an 18-inning marathon with the Mets. He had been dominant in the three starts leading up to that appearance, with a 0.90 ERA and 19 strikeouts against seven walks in 20.0 innings. Today he draws a Braves club that lacks punch with Freddie Freeman on the shelf, and Atlanta’s offense has limped through the last seven days with a .267 wOBA and 598 OPS. The Braves are skilled at making contact, an element which could limit Car-Mart’s K count for the day, but he enters the game with a heavy advantage in keeping runs off the scoreboard.
Carlos Carrasco CLE (vs. CHW) – The White Sox are one of the weaker-hitting teams in the game (their team wOBA of .288 is the lowest in baseball), making for an easy target for Cleveland pitching this weekend, but the ChiSox refused to oblige yesterday by lighting up Cy Young winner Corey Kluber for six runs, the day after scoring eight tallies with six of them coming against starter Trevor Bauer. Carrasco has rebounded from a rough couple of months to start the season and has been dominant in four of his last five turns, and even with a 5-run trip-up against the Astros he has a 2.94 ERA and 38-to-six ratio of K’s to walks in the 33.7 innings that span those five starts. It was against the Pale Hose that Carrasco was knocked from an April ballgame by a comebacker against the game’s second hitter, but he came back a week later to strike out eight Chi-Sox in 5.0 frames. He should be relatively fresh after throwing just 73 pitches across six innings in his last start, and so Carrasco could be in for a long outing.
Matt Harvey NYM (vs. LAD) – Harvey has been an All-in candidate all season, but he hasn’t really pitched like an auto-start player since May and his performance has really hit the skids in July. Over his last three starts, Harvey has a 4.26 ERA with 16 strikeouts against 13 walks in 19.0 innings of work. The walks have become a major problem, seemingly out of nowhere – Harvey didn’t walk more than two batters in any one ball game for the first three months of the season, but over his last three turns he has given up five, four, and four walks in each contest. He’s only cracked a half-dozen K’s once in his last seven starts, and given the command issues that typically plague Tommy John survivors, it is likely prescient to let Harvey works out the kinks before trusting him in DFS. Facing the Dodgers makes that an easy decision for today.
Shelby Miller ATL (at STL) – Miller has enjoyed a breakout season to re-establish the tremendous value that was on display his rookie season, and the addition of a cutter to go with his fastball-curve repertoire has paid huge dividends. He has been hit up a bit recently, as the only two times that he has given up more than three runs in a game have occurred in his last four starts, but one of those contests occurred in Colorado while the other included 10 strikeouts to help off-set the runs in terms of fantasy points. Strikeouts have been a bit elusive this season, but Miller has stepped on the gas pedal in his last four starts with at least seven punchouts in each turn and a total of 33 K’s in 22.3 innings over that stretch (he hadn’t struck out as many as seven hitters in any one of his previous eight starts).
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% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hamels | 0.277 | 1.57 | 0.295 | 3.38 | 0.255 | 0.715 | 0.299 | 3.18 | 0.236 | 104.33 | 24.1% |
| Arrieta | 0.253 | 2.16 | 0.246 | 2.81 | 0.241 | 0.647 | 0.275 | 2.38 | 0.204 | 99.61 | 27.0% |
| Simon | 0.345 | 4.44 | 0.291 | 3.20 | 0.261 | 0.720 | 0.284 | 4.23 | 0.254 | 95.28 | 16.0% |
| Wright | 0.320 | 5.34 | 0.313 | 3.13 | 0.280 | 0.769 | 0.269 | 4.64 | 0.250 | 62.22 | 16.7% |
| Bassitt | 0.310 | 3.16 | 0.308 | 3.81 | 0.273 | 0.748 | 0.299 | 3.67 | 0.251 | 71.14 | 14.9% |
| Bumgarner | 0.253 | 2.34 | 0.298 | 3.28 | 0.243 | 0.684 | 0.296 | 3.12 | 0.237 | 101.48 | 24.9% |
| Hutchison | 0.337 | 5.55 | 0.316 | 3.77 | 0.232 | 0.682 | 0.315 | 3.81 | 0.258 | 94.39 | 22.4% |
| Happ | 0.352 | 3.98 | 0.325 | 4.23 | 0.295 | 0.837 | 0.305 | 4.02 | 0.264 | 91.92 | 19.0% |
| Gonzalez | 0.336 | 3.38 | 0.324 | 3.86 | 0.233 | 0.660 | 0.272 | 4.91 | 0.252 | 94.23 | 17.2% |
| Ramirez | 0.304 | 3.63 | 0.345 | 5.32 | 0.256 | 0.742 | 0.281 | 4.51 | 0.245 | 67.26 | 19.1% |
| Gonzalez | 0.278 | 3.60 | 0.312 | 3.75 | 0.251 | 0.690 | 0.313 | 3.12 | 0.244 | 96.91 | 23.0% |
| Burnett | 0.333 | 4.37 | 0.307 | 3.33 | 0.252 | 0.717 | 0.308 | 3.73 | 0.253 | 100.62 | 20.1% |
| Sale | 0.221 | 0.36 | 0.267 | 2.89 | 0.261 | 0.726 | 0.289 | 2.49 | 0.208 | 107.00 | 31.4% |
| Carrasco | 0.261 | 3.05 | 0.283 | 3.30 | 0.246 | 0.674 | 0.302 | 2.61 | 0.229 | 62.97 | 27.0% |
| Lee | 0.238 | 0.660 | |||||||||
| Harvey | 0.323 | 4.50 | 0.253 | 2.10 | 0.255 | 0.768 | 0.270 | 3.54 | 0.225 | 97.61 | 23.4% |
| Sabathia | 0.213 | 4.54 | 0.396 | 5.46 | 0.249 | 0.682 | 0.339 | 4.46 | 0.295 | 94.46 | 20.8% |
| Milone | 0.274 | 3.15 | 0.347 | 4.13 | 0.244 | 0.732 | 0.281 | 4.70 | 0.260 | 90.29 | 15.3% |
| Feldman | 0.317 | 3.23 | 0.338 | 4.97 | 0.276 | 0.747 | 0.298 | 4.19 | 0.271 | 101.20 | 14.0% |
| Duffy | 0.230 | 1.94 | 0.315 | 3.42 | 0.243 | 0.726 | 0.263 | 4.01 | 0.229 | 82.34 | 17.4% |
| Miller | 0.312 | 3.61 | 0.282 | 2.82 | 0.267 | 0.735 | 0.263 | 3.99 | 0.228 | 92.14 | 18.3% |
| Martinez | 0.340 | 3.80 | 0.271 | 2.68 | 0.261 | 0.700 | 0.310 | 3.36 | 0.241 | 41.38 | 23.5% |
| Jungmann | 0.302 | 1.82 | 0.234 | 2.22 | 0.260 | 0.721 | 0.253 | 3.21 | 0.209 | 99.63 | 18.8% |
| De La Rosa | 0.389 | 5.95 | 0.302 | 3.39 | 0.259 | 0.715 | 0.309 | 4.52 | 0.274 | 93.53 | 18.6% |
| Cueto | 0.249 | 2.06 | 0.269 | 2.77 | 0.276 | 0.783 | 0.238 | 3.26 | 0.193 | 105.52 | 24.6% |
| Rusin | 0.303 | 3.97 | 0.369 | 4.65 | 0.241 | 0.718 | 0.321 | 4.35 | 0.290 | 77.00 | 14.7% |
| Phelps | 0.313 | 3.83 | 0.329 | 4.50 | 0.237 | 0.664 | 0.295 | 4.14 | 0.257 | 67.65 | 17.3% |
| Kennedy | 0.320 | 3.78 | 0.336 | 4.19 | 0.250 | 0.667 | 0.306 | 3.88 | 0.250 | 99.76 | 23.5% |
| Gallardo | 0.290 | 2.96 | 0.310 | 3.56 | 0.251 | 0.715 | 0.285 | 3.84 | 0.249 | 100.13 | 17.3% |
| Santiago | 0.252 | 1.80 | 0.316 | 3.59 | 0.233 | 0.669 | 0.275 | 4.01 | 0.232 | 85.73 | 21.3% |
CALL:
Long-shot plays that could hit it big but carry considerable risk of blow-up.
A.J. Burnett PIT (vs. WAS) – Burnett is coming off his worst start of the season, a six-run shellacking at the hands of the Royals that included 11 hits, two homers, and just a pair of strikeouts in six full innings. The three homers that he has coughed up in his last two turns have doubled his homer-count for the season, and Burnett hasn’t been striking batters out recently with just 16 punchouts in his last 27.0 frames. The walks have been up a bit as well, so the magic spell that carried Burnett through the first half of the season might be wearing off, and Bryce Harper will be there to drop a harsh dose of reality if Burnett falters again this evening.
Gio Gonzalez WAS (at PIT) – Gio has been on a serious roll lately, with a 1.38 ERA over his last four starts, and it began with seven shutout frames against these Pirates on June 21. The peripheral numbers are less impressive, including 19 strikeouts and eight walks in 26.0 innings across those four games, but his owners in season-long leagues are smiling because Gonzalez has dropped his ERA on the campaign by nearly a half-run in the process. The Pirates have been churning strikeouts like butter lately, with an enormous 28.2-percent K rate over their last seven games, so the recent trends paint the picture of a huge outing for Gio.
Johnny Cueto CIN (at COL) – Everybody takes a hit when pitching at altitude, even studs like Cueto, and the fact that he has been off his game for the last couple of starts adds fuel to the fire of avoidance tonight against the Rox. Cueto walked six Indians in just 4.0 innings of his last start, which is more than he gave up the entire month of April, and he has just four strikeouts combined over his last two ballgames. It’s bad timing for the Reds, who are trying to showcase Cueto as the trade deadline draws near and his poor performance could raise eyebrows from the GM’s of opposing clubs who are worried about Cueto’s elbow woes that cropped up in May.
Yovani Gallardo TEX (at LAA) – The Astros have a way of disrupting the best laid plans of pitchers and catchers, and sure enough Gallardo’s recent hot streak was disrupted by Houston in his last start, with five runs and 10 baserunners through 4.0 innnigs before he was knocked from the game. Prior to that start, Gallardo had been on fire, with a 1.29 ERA across his previous 10 turns, but the wheels had loosened before Gallardo even had Houston in his sights, with 12 walks combined in his previous three starts after riding a low BB count for much of the season.
Hector Santiago LAA (vs. TEX) – His 2.30 ERA tells the story of a breakout for Santiago, but the 3.71 FIP indicates that he may have been skating by on the ice of luck for part of the season. Then again, beating his FIP has been an annual occurrence for Santiago, whose ERA has been lower by at least half-a-run in every season of his career. The southpaw has been especially stingy of late, with a 1.13 ERA over his last five turns and never having surrendered more than a single tally in any one of those games. He struck out 10 Red Sox in just 5.0 innings of his last start, and he had one of his best games of the year when he blanked these Rangers over 7.0 innings on Independence Day.
Taylor Jungmann MIL (at ARI) – Jungmann has been surprisingly consistent this season, as evidenced by a 2.04 ERA on the campaign as well as the fact that he has given up two or fewer earnies in seven of his eight starts. The strikeouts aren’t impressive but he keeps the bases clear of free passes, which is key when facing an Arizona club that is fourth in the NL in walks this season.
Zach Lee LAD (at NYM) – It’s the MLB debut for Lee, the 2010 first-rounder who has been hanging out on Dodger prospect lists since he was selected. He draws a Mets club that has been struggling to score runs with just 21 tallies over their last nine games (2.3 runs per game), creating a softer landing for the right-hander in his first game. Lee has posted an impressive 2.36 ERA in the PCL this year with 50 strikeouts against 14 walks in 68.7 innings, thanking his lucky stars that the Dodgers moved their Triple-A affiliate from the launching pad of Albuquerque to the more neutral environment of Oklahoma City.
Danny Duffy KC (vs. HOU) – Duffy has been a July revelation for the Royals, having spun 20.3 innings this month while giving up just three runs (1.33 ERA), though he has been much less impressive on the peripheral scale with a paltry five strikeouts and seven walks during that stretch. The K’s might pick up a notch today against the Astros, but his ERA is likely to suffer, as the Astro offense has been rolling to the tune of 37 runs over their last six games (6.2 runs per game).
CC Sabathia NYY (at MIN)
David Phelps MIA (at SD)
Scott Feldman HOU (at KC)
Tommy Milone MIN (vs. NYY)
Ian Kennedy SD (vs. MIA)
Rubby De La Rosa ARI (vs. MIL)
FOLD:
Run away. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200. Consider stacking with opposing lineups.
Chris Rusin COL (vs. CIN)
Starting Pitcher Salaries
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