Daily Pitcher Breakdown: Saturday, July 2nd
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chi Gonzalez | TEX | MIN | 72 | 4.25 | 5.58 | 1.29 | 10.5% | 11.1% | 0.75 | 1.59 | |
| Duffey | MIN | TEX | 125.2 | 4.44 | 3.89 | 1.37 | 20.3% | 6.3% | 1.15 | 1.61 | |
| Nelson | MIL | STL | 272.1 | 3.93 | 4.39 | 1.31 | 18.8% | 9.2% | 0.99 | 1.62 | |
| Wainwright | STL | MIL | 124.1 | 4.27 | 4.23 | 1.29 | 84.2% | 17.7% | 5.8% | 0.58 | 1.50 |
| Sale | CWS | HOU | 321.2 | 3.19 | 2.86 | 1.05 | 64.3% | 29.5% | 5.0% | 1.01 | 1.16 |
| Fister | HOU | CWS | 196.2 | 3.80 | 4.56 | 1.30 | 58.3% | 14.9% | 6.2% | 1.28 | 1.38 |
| Snell | TBR | DET | 20.1 | 3.54 | 5.18 | 1.77 | 16.7% | 11.5% | 0.00 | 1.40 | |
| Fernandez | MIA | ATL | 159.1 | 2.54 | 2.64 | 1.06 | 75.0% | 34.3% | 7.0% | 0.51 | 1.29 |
| Duffy | KCR | PHI | 203.1 | 3.81 | 4.12 | 1.29 | 57.1% | 21.2% | 8.1% | 1.15 | 0.93 |
| Nola | PHI | KCR | 168.2 | 4.06 | 3.41 | 1.24 | 23.5% | 5.8% | 1.07 | 1.87 | |
| Arrieta | CHC | NYM | 332 | 1.87 | 3.01 | 0.91 | 50.0% | 27.1% | 6.9% | 0.38 | 2.36 |
| Colon | NYM | CHC | 282.2 | 3.76 | 4.11 | 1.22 | 42.1% | 16.6% | 3.2% | 1.08 | 1.19 |
| Straily | CIN | WAS | 105 | 4.54 | 4.78 | 1.29 | 14.3% | 19.6% | 10.7% | 1.11 | 0.88 |
| Ross | WAS | CIN | 166.2 | 3.46 | 3.91 | 1.17 | 21.3% | 6.9% | 0.81 | 1.43 | |
| Santiago | LAA | BOS | 266 | 4.13 | 4.55 | 1.28 | 16.7% | 20.6% | 9.4% | 1.56 | 0.65 |
| Buchholz | BOS | LAA | 189.2 | 4.32 | 4.14 | 1.31 | 33.3% | 19.9% | 7.4% | 1.00 | 1.29 |
| Kuhl | PIT | OAK | |||||||||
| Hill | OAK | PIT | 93 | 2.03 | 3.19 | 0.98 | 29.7% | 7.8% | 0.39 | 1.39 | |
| Wilson | BAL | SEA | 114 | 4.18 | 5.03 | 1.32 | 11.2% | 6.2% | 0.87 | 1.41 | |
| Paxton | SEA | BAL | 101.2 | 3.98 | 4.10 | 1.51 | 50.0% | 21.2% | 8.7% | 0.97 | 1.46 |
| Bettis | COL | LAD | 204.1 | 4.93 | 4.10 | 1.47 | 18.5% | 7.2% | 1.01 | 1.85 | |
| Kazmir | LAD | COL | 271.2 | 3.61 | 4.11 | 1.24 | 63.2% | 21.5% | 8.3% | 1.13 | 1.14 |
| Nova | NYY | SDP | 163.1 | 5.18 | 4.37 | 1.41 | 25.0% | 15.5% | 6.8% | 1.43 | 1.76 |
| Pomeranz | SDP | NYY | 174 | 3.21 | 3.75 | 1.16 | 25.0% | 25.7% | 9.8% | 0.83 | 1.20 |
| Samardzija | SFG | ARI | 317.2 | 4.62 | 4.19 | 1.26 | 60.0% | 18.2% | 5.5% | 1.22 | 1.09 |
| Corbin | ARI | SFG | 180.2 | 4.33 | 4.01 | 1.37 | 19.1% | 6.6% | 1.20 | 1.76 |
ALL-IN:
The aces that are worth pushing all of the chips into the middle of the table.
Jose Fernandez MIA (at ATL) – It’s a testament to Jake Arrieta’s floor that Fern’s combination of baseline talent, upside, and weak opponent barely vaulted the Marlins young stud into the top spot. Fernandez is the current major league-leader in strikeout rate, whiffing 13.1 batters per nine innings this season and clearing 11 or more strikeouts six times in his 15 starts. He faced the Braves just two starts ago, a game in which he was on cruise control with just one hit and two walks allowed over 7.0 frames. The K count was a modest seven strikeouts, a number that would be solid for just about any other pitcher but which has been met or exceeded by Fernandez a dozen times in this season alone. He has a nine-start streak of going at least six innings, clearing 7.0 frames in seven of those starts, and over that stretch Fern has obliterated opponents with a composite ERA of 1.18 and 91 strikeouts in 61.0 innings pitched. The Braves are simply overmatched.
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.
Jake Arrieta CHC (at NYM) – Arrieta gives up his throne for a day, an unseating that has more to do with the incredible upside of Fern than it does any slight in Arrieta’s condition for today, who is facing a light-hitting opponent himself in a Mets team that has been ravaged by injuries. If looking for a strike against him, then one need look no further than the fact that Arrieta is coming off his worst start of the season, giving up five walks and five runs to the Reds over just five innings of work. It actually marked the second consecutive game of wildness from Arrieta, who has given away nine free passes over the last two contacts, and who actually has six games already this season with four or more walks allowed – he had zero such games last season. His hit rate is as impossibly-low as ever, but all of a sudden he is walking a bit of a tightrope given that free baserunners are populating the bags in the event that the hit rate endures some regression to the mean.
Chris Sale CHW (at HOU) – It’s a stud-packed day with three worthy All-In options, and with such a top-heavy slate on tap for today, Sale just misses the top shelf due to a slightly less-favorable context. That said, his opponent has a reputation for boosting strikeout totals, something that could boost Sale’s overall stat-line over a strikeout per inning. That might seem like small potatoes for a pitcher who whiffed a major league-best 11.8 batters per nine innings last season, but Sale has intentionally eased off the this season by subtracting some velocity and encouraging contact earlier in the count, resulting in a career-low rate of 8.7 K/9 this season. It would take four more strikeouts than innings pitched to bring him back to even for the season, a tall order for any pitcher, but Sale has been stepping up the Ks recently and could post the double-digit strikeouts necessary to make it happen. He misses the All-Ins by the slimmest of margins, as much due to avoid overcrowding the top layer as anything else, but the gap between Sale and the second spot is much closer than that between him and the next arm on the list.
Joe Ross WAS (vs. CIN) – The month of May has been forgettable for Ross. The young right-hander is having a strong season overall, but in five June starts he registered a 5.22 ERA and 31:8 K:BB ratio in 29.1 innings pitched. He gave up multiple runs in every start, and the hit rate has become an issue in his last three turns, with 23 hits allowed over 18.1 innings. He has bumped up an otherwise-pedestrian K rate to more than a strikeout-per-inning during his June swoon, but Ross and his fantasy managers would be more satisfied if he would go back to his old ways of preventing runs even if it meant giving back one or two strikeouts in each game.
Rich Hill OAK (vs. PIT) – Hill was on an excellent run of strikeouts and run prevention when a busted hamstring sent him to the disabled list. At the end of May, Hill was cruising along with a 2.25 ERA and 74 strikeouts in 64.0 innings this season. He had thrown quality starts in eight of his previous ten turns, missing another one by just one out, and the only thing limiting him from a larger impact is an inefficient pitch count that has limited Hill to a theoretical cap of six full innings this season despite the A’s letting him take his pitch count over the century mark in his last nine starts (he threw 99 pitches in the game prior). He has only finished the seventh inning twice this season, and the somewhat limited exposure should continue today as the A’s ease Hill back into the fray, so expect that Hill will need to perform on a limited pitch count in today’s game.
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% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chi Gonzalez | 0.312 | 4.76 | 0.272 | 3.79 | 0.243 | 0.699 | 0.229 | 4.87 | 0.219 | 0.01 | 10.5% |
| Duffey | 0.306 | 2.72 | 0.351 | 6.00 | 0.259 | 0.740 | 0.322 | 3.91 | 0.273 | 0.01 | 20.3% |
| Nelson | 0.357 | 5.08 | 0.277 | 3.00 | 0.264 | 0.762 | 0.280 | 4.40 | 0.242 | 0.00 | 18.8% |
| Wainwright | 0.309 | 4.82 | 0.310 | 3.88 | 0.255 | 0.714 | 0.315 | 3.33 | 0.267 | 0.01 | 17.7% |
| Sale | 0.278 | 3.26 | 0.277 | 3.18 | 0.243 | 0.745 | 0.298 | 2.99 | 0.225 | 0.01 | 29.5% |
| Fister | 0.343 | 4.11 | 0.308 | 3.47 | 0.249 | 0.701 | 0.283 | 4.67 | 0.264 | 0.00 | 14.9% |
| Verlander | 0.277 | 2.97 | 0.301 | 4.63 | 0.241 | 0.704 | 0.270 | 3.72 | 0.227 | 0.01 | 22.9% |
| Snell | 0.314 | 2.70 | 0.273 | 0.792 | 0.362 | 3.21 | 0.294 | 0.04 | 16.7% | ||
| Fernandez | 0.318 | 3.04 | 0.203 | 2.14 | 0.252 | 0.676 | 0.325 | 2.08 | 0.214 | 0.01 | 34.3% |
| Duffy | 0.245 | 2.08 | 0.338 | 4.28 | 0.250 | 0.670 | 0.295 | 4.22 | 0.25 | 0.00 | 21.2% |
| Nola | 0.330 | 4.24 | 0.284 | 3.92 | 0.270 | 0.734 | 0.310 | 3.56 | 0.253 | 0.01 | 23.5% |
| Arrieta | 0.226 | 1.52 | 0.231 | 2.17 | 0.241 | 0.709 | 0.245 | 2.48 | 0.182 | 0.01 | 27.1% |
| Colon | 0.313 | 3.51 | 0.307 | 4.03 | 0.248 | 0.742 | 0.302 | 3.79 | 0.271 | 0.00 | 16.6% |
| Straily | 0.304 | 4.99 | 0.312 | 3.99 | 0.247 | 0.719 | 0.253 | 4.66 | 0.221 | 0.01 | 19.6% |
| Ross | 0.349 | 3.65 | 0.225 | 3.30 | 0.244 | 0.701 | 0.281 | 3.50 | 0.233 | 0.01 | 21.3% |
| Santiago | 0.289 | 3.05 | 0.330 | 4.48 | 0.274 | 0.765 | 0.255 | 4.99 | 0.23 | 0.00 | 20.6% |
| Buchholz | 0.319 | 4.44 | 0.310 | 4.20 | 0.254 | 0.713 | 0.305 | 3.95 | 0.259 | 0.01 | 19.9% |
| Kuhl | 0.250 | 0.701 | |||||||||
| Hill | 0.206 | 1.99 | 0.250 | 2.05 | 0.255 | 0.711 | 0.266 | 2.57 | 0.187 | 0.02 | 29.7% |
| Wilson | 0.321 | 3.64 | 0.327 | 4.77 | 0.249 | 0.736 | 0.286 | 4.35 | 0.269 | 0.00 | 11.2% |
| Paxton | 0.435 | 6.38 | 0.293 | 3.46 | 0.242 | 0.687 | 0.332 | 3.82 | 0.273 | 0.01 | 21.2% |
| Bettis | 0.321 | 4.56 | 0.364 | 5.30 | 0.243 | 0.722 | 0.330 | 4.03 | 0.282 | 0.00 | 18.5% |
| Kazmir | 0.314 | 4.40 | 0.301 | 3.32 | 0.258 | 0.713 | 0.276 | 4.17 | 0.234 | 0.00 | 21.5% |
| Nova | 0.374 | 5.50 | 0.326 | 4.92 | 0.239 | 0.677 | 0.298 | 4.96 | 0.275 | 0.00 | 15.5% |
| Pomeranz | 0.229 | 1.98 | 0.291 | 3.77 | 0.255 | 0.732 | 0.260 | 3.49 | 0.204 | 0.00 | 25.7% |
| Samardzija | 0.350 | 5.64 | 0.296 | 3.70 | 0.264 | 0.739 | 0.296 | 4.18 | 0.263 | 0.00 | 18.2% |
| Corbin | 0.306 | 3.35 | 0.344 | 4.62 | 0.265 | 0.714 | 0.316 | 4.16 | 0.274 | 0.01 | 19.1% |
CALL:
Long-shot plays that could hit it big but carry considerable risk of blow-up.
Drew Pomeranz SD (vs. NYY) – Pomeranz has been a revelation for the Padres this season, and his strong performance over the first half of the campaign could very well lead to his exile out of San Diego before the trade deadline at the end of the month, as the Friars look to move anything that’s not nailed to the ground. He blanked the Reds over seven frames in his last start, with just three hits and one walk allowed, helping Pomeranz to rebound from a three-start stretch in which he surrendered 11 earned runs in 16.0 innings of work (6.19 ERA). Two games prior to that bad run, he gave up six tallies to Arizona over 5.0 innings. All of a sudden, the pitcher who had developed a knack for run prevention had lost some of his luster, a development that brought with it a fair degree of cynicism as to his performance this season. He will look to get on track tonight against the Yankees, with his trade value on the line and hanging by a thread.
Danny Duffy KC (at PHI) – Some might be surprised to see Duffy listed this high, but he brings together a perfect storm of contextual factors to support his case. After posting just 6.8 K/9 over the past two seasons combined, Duffy has upped the ante this season with a whopping 79 strikeouts in his 67.2 innings of work this season (10.7 K/9), and at the same time he has slashed his walk rate from last season’s below-average frequency of 3.3 BB/9 (8.9 percent) to the stingy 2.2 BB/9 (6.0 percent) of this season, reversing his status as a walk-prone, hittable pitcher into one whose dominance extends to empty swings and limited free passes. He started the season pitching out of the KC bullpen, but since his ascension to the rotation in mid-May he has slowly built his stamina, and the fact that he has cleared 100 pitches in each of his last two starts indicate that he has caught up to where he needs to be as far as stamina for a starting pitcher. The rest of the fantasy community may not have yet caught on to his emergence as a bona fide starter, opening a window to exploit the market inefficiency and enlist his services, though his price tag on DraftKings ($8900) indicates that he may not be affordable for very long.
Justin Verlander DET (at TB) – He just refuses to make it easy. Verlander looked to be on the cusp of earning his way back into the circle of trust. Entering his last start, he had gone 6.2 or more innings in nine consecutive starts, seven of which crossed the threshold of being quality starts, and he brought the Ks with 69 strikeouts in 65.1 innings over that stretch while allowing just five home runs. So, naturally, he coughed up eight runs on four homers among five hits and a pair of walks to Cleveland in his last turn. The Indians are watching everything fall into place during their current winning streak, so perhaps Verlander deserves some leniency in light of his red-hot opponent in the last game, but the manager confidence that was built from his performance throughout most of May and June has quickly been shattered. He faces an easier opponent today, but that won’t make it easy to shake the recent memory of Indians leaving the yard.
Adam Wainwright STL (vs. MIL) – It seems that Wainwright has shaken the bug that made him unplayable for the first six weeks of the season, but he is still a long ways from the Cy-contending ace of his past. His relative lack of strikeouts are a liability in the fantasy world, and though he posted a four-game run of quality starts to lead off June, he then tarnished any goodwill that had been generated by giving up six runs and ten hits to the Royals in his last start. It’s a low ceiling, but these days A&W doesn’t compensate with an elevated floor.
Jeff Samardzija SF (at ARI) – The move out of hitter-friendly US Cellular Field and into cavernous ATT Park has done wonders for Samardzija’s stat-line as well as his reputation, as the underlying peripheral stats indicate that he is much the same pitcher as he was last season, when a constant barrage of hits and runs knocked him out of fantasy relevance. On a per-inning basis, his three True Outcomes have literally not budged – his 6.9 K/9, 2.1 BB/9 and 1.2 HR/9 were the exact same in both 2015 and ‘16. He has lopped a full hit-per-nine off his record, but his ERA has nearly been undone by back-to-back six-run performances, and he gave up six tallies in three of his five outings of June. The biggest culprit has been home runs; the Shark gave up just five homers in his first 11 starts, but in the last five turns he has watched the baseball leave the yard nine different times.
Blake Snell TB (vs. DET) – The upside is immense, but Snell hasn’t shown enough in his four MLB starts to warrant too much excitement.He has struck out four or fewer batters in each of his three turns since his recall, a total that has been matched by his walks in each outing, while the baserunners have piled up thanks to 23 hits allowed in those 15.1 innings. He has yet to give up a home run, a factor which might be keeping his ERA artificially low, but right now the hype outstrips the performance.
Marco Estrada TOR (vs. CLE)
Jimmy Nelson MIL (at STL)
Scott Kazmir LAD (vs. COL)
Ivan Nova NYY (at SD)
Patrick Corbin ARI (vs. SF)
Bartolo Colon NYM (vs. CHC)
Dan Straily CIN (at WAS)
James Paxton SEA (vs. BAL)
Chad Kuhl PIT (at OAK)
Doug Fister HOU (vs. CHW)
Chad Bettis COL (at LAD)
Tyler Wilson BAL (at SEA)
Clay Buchholz BOS (vs. LAA)
FOLD:
Run away. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200. Consider stacking with opposing lineups.
Chi Chi Gonzalez TEX (at MIN)
Tyler Duffey MIn (vs. TEX)
Lucas Harrell ATL (vs. MIA)
Hector Santiago LAA (at BOS)
Shawn Morimando CLE (at TOR)
NOTE: Button for pitcher salary chart above opens in popup window