Daily Pitcher Breakdown: Saturday, May 16th
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 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
View descriptions of stats below here.
Daily Pitcher Chart
| Pitcher | TM | OPP | IP | ERA | SIERA | WHIP | GEM% | K% | BB% | HR/9 | G/F |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wood | ATL | MIA | 40 | 4.28 | 4.10 | 1.58 | 58.3% | 17.9% | 8.1% | 0.23 | 1.79 |
| Latos | MIA | ATL | 34.1 | 4.72 | 4.40 | 1.49 | 66.7% | 18.8% | 9.4% | 0.52 | 1.11 |
| Colome | TBR | MIN | 16 | 5.63 | 2.94 | 1.19 | 23.9% | 1.5% | 2.25 | 1.20 | |
| May | MIN | TBR | 30 | 5.40 | 4.14 | 1.57 | 17.8% | 5.9% | 0.60 | 1.00 | |
| Price | DET | STL | 46.1 | 3.30 | 4.16 | 1.23 | 52.4% | 16.9% | 5.1% | 0.58 | 1.00 |
| Lyons | STL | DET | |||||||||
| Cole | PIT | CHC | 42.2 | 2.32 | 2.95 | 1.13 | 28.6% | 25.9% | 6.9% | 0.42 | 2.33 |
| Lester | CHC | PIT | 41.2 | 4.10 | 3.57 | 1.34 | 65.0% | 22.2% | 6.7% | 0.86 | 1.43 |
| Bradley | ARI | PHI | 20 | 1.80 | 4.89 | 1.00 | 18.2% | 14.3% | 0.00 | 1.88 | |
| Williams | PHI | ARI | 38 | 5.21 | 4.51 | 1.55 | 14.0% | 5.3% | 1.42 | 1.11 | |
| Shoemaker | LAA | BAL | 31.1 | 6.61 | 3.70 | 1.34 | 44.4% | 23.1% | 5.2% | 2.87 | 0.52 |
| Jimenez | BAL | LAA | 33.2 | 2.41 | 3.34 | 1.01 | 27.8% | 24.4% | 9.2% | 0.80 | 2.45 |
| Estrada | TOR | HOU | 20.1 | 3.54 | 3.80 | 1.18 | 27.8% | 21.2% | 8.2% | 1.77 | 0.96 |
| Feldman | HOU | TOR | 41.1 | 5.23 | 3.94 | 1.35 | 47.1% | 13.4% | 4.1% | 1.31 | 2.18 |
| Garza | MIL | NYM | 42.1 | 4.04 | 4.46 | 1.39 | 35.0% | 17.9% | 10.3% | 1.49 | 1.62 |
| Degrom | NYM | MIL | 41.2 | 3.46 | 3.81 | 1.32 | 50.0% | 20.7% | 6.7% | 1.30 | 1.21 |
| Sabathia | NYY | KCR | 45 | 5.20 | 3.68 | 1.40 | 25.0% | 20.0% | 5.3% | 1.60 | 1.32 |
| Duffy | KCR | NYY | 33.1 | 5.67 | 4.55 | 1.71 | 57.1% | 17.7% | 9.8% | 0.81 | 1.27 |
| Vogelsong | SFG | CIN | 33.1 | 5.67 | 4.44 | 1.44 | 52.6% | 17.5% | 8.7% | 2.16 | 1.02 |
| Leake | CIN | SFG | 49.2 | 2.36 | 4.11 | 0.97 | 45.0% | 14.4% | 6.2% | 1.09 | 2.00 |
| Salazar | CLE | TEX | 33 | 3.27 | 1.84 | 0.88 | 12.5% | 37.2% | 3.9% | 1.36 | 1.24 |
| Lewis | TEX | CLE | 45 | 2.40 | 4.12 | 1.02 | 11.8% | 19.8% | 6.4% | 0.60 | 0.69 |
| Scherzer | WAS | SDP | 49.2 | 1.99 | 2.73 | 0.93 | 60.0% | 27.9% | 3.1% | 0.54 | 0.84 |
| Cashner | SDP | WAS | 44 | 3.07 | 3.28 | 1.23 | 75.0% | 24.2% | 5.9% | 1.64 | 1.33 |
| Danks | CWS | OAK | 31.2 | 5.12 | 4.56 | 1.48 | 50.0% | 16.1% | 6.3% | 1.42 | 0.70 |
| Chavez | OAK | CWS | 31.2 | 2.56 | 3.45 | 1.01 | 52.6% | 24.8% | 7.8% | 0.28 | 0.92 |
| De La Rosa | COL | LAD | 16 | 9.56 | 3.96 | 2.19 | 40.0% | 27.7% | 14.5% | 0.56 | 2.00 |
| Greinke | LAD | COL | 47.1 | 1.52 | 3.60 | 0.89 | 50.0% | 21.6% | 6.1% | 0.57 | 1.30 |
| Porcello | BOS | SEA | 44 | 4.50 | 3.79 | 1.32 | 55.6% | 20.1% | 5.8% | 1.23 | 1.19 |
| Hernandez | SEA | BOS | 48.2 | 1.85 | 2.50 | 0.84 | 81.0% | 27.2% | 4.4% | 0.74 | 2.21 |
ALL-IN:
The aces that are worth pushing all of the chips into the middle of the table.
Felix Hernandez SEA (vs. BOS) – The Boston offense is supposed to be intimidating, but as a team the Red Sox have the second-lowest slugging percentage in the American League this season. They do lead the AL in walks, but that is unlikely to be any help against King Felix, whose walk rate has been on a decreasing trend for the last five years, including a career-low rate of 4.4% this season. Hernandez has allowed two runs or fewer while registering 20 or more outs in 6 of his 7 turns this season, and his strikeouts have met or exceeded his innings pitched in four separate starts.
Max Scherzer WAS (at SD) – Scherzer is Felix’s biggest competition for the top spot in our rankings, given the combination of preseason value and in-season value, but Mad Max falls just shy of the throne. The Pads have scored the third-most runs in the NL, though the San Diego marine layer will help to suppress offense. Not that Scherzer needs the help – he has a sub-2.00 ERA and has allowed two earnies or fewer in 6 of his 7 starts. The only exception was a 5-run outing two turns ago, but Scherzer had held the Marlins to two runs into the 8th inning and struck out 10 batters in that contest.
Zack Greinke LAD (vs. COL) – All three of today’s All-in candidates have been ridiculously consistent thus far in 2015. Greinke has thrown seven consecutive quality starts, leads the majors with a 1.52 ERA, and is facing a Rockies club that has lost 12 of their last 13 ballgames. The only knock against Greinke this season has been a non-elite strikeout rate, but he still sits above 20% on the K rate for the fifth straight season (and eight of the past nine campaigns).
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.
Danny Salazar CLE (at TEX) – Salazar has been a veritable strikeout machine thus far in 2015, and he has been so effective that it’s easy to forget that he didn’t crack the starting rotation out of Spring Training. He has struck out 9 or more batters in 4 of his 5 starts this season, totaling an astounding 48 punchouts in just 33 frames, and his career K rate now stands at 28.6% through his first 195 innings in the big leagues. Perhaps even more impressive than the K’s is a walk rate that has disappeared, going from the 7.4% rate of 2014 to just 3.9% this year, though his vulnerability to the longball is still intact.
Andrew Cashner SD (vs. WAS) – Cashner has been on a solid run, pitching 6 or more innings while allowing 2 earned runs or fewer in 5 of his last 6 starts, though he has allowed 5 baseballs to leave the yard over his last 4 ballgames. He’s been durable while maintaining a K rate of a batter-per-inning, addressing the two biggest weaknesses in his game entering the season, and Cashner has done so while maintaining the sub-6% walk rate that helped to put him on the map last year. He might want to allow some room in the rate to walk Bryce Harper a time or two today, just to steer clear of the path of Washington’s Harvester of Sorrow.
Jacob deGrom NYM (vs. MIL) – The K rate has taken a small step backward from last season, but the walks have remained below-average this season. The big difference in deGrom’s performance has been homers allowed. The right-hander surrendered just 7 homers in 140.3 innings last season, an incredible rate that was unlikely to be repeated, but deGrom has flipped the script this season with 6 bombs bequeathed in his first 41.7 frames of 2015. He’s been hit harder and more consistently this season, some of which is likely due to regression to his personal mean (a.k.a he was playing a bit over his head last year), but most of the carnage has taken place over his last 4 starts, as he had a miniscule 0.93 ERA and one homer allowed in his first 3 turns.
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% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wood | 0.284 | 1.69 | 0.366 | 5.22 | 0.276 | 0.758 | 0.378 | 2.97 | 0.308 | 95.57 | 17.9% |
| Latos | 0.392 | 6.57 | 0.296 | 3.68 | 0.255 | 0.707 | 0.333 | 3.49 | 0.274 | 81.00 | 18.8% |
| Colome | 0.357 | 7.71 | 0.310 | 2.70 | 0.231 | 0.623 | 0.304 | 4.58 | 0.273 | 79.33 | 23.9% |
| May | 0.356 | 4.58 | 0.281 | 6.97 | 0.235 | 0.684 | 0.366 | 3.21 | 0.307 | 85.50 | 17.8% |
| Price | 0.300 | 2.08 | 0.287 | 3.78 | 0.250 | 0.673 | 0.297 | 3.27 | 0.255 | 102.57 | 16.9% |
| Lyons | 0.570 | 27.00 | 0.306 | 4.00 | 0.273 | 0.777 | |||||
| Cole | 0.256 | 1.56 | 0.269 | 2.84 | 0.242 | 0.694 | 0.301 | 2.63 | 0.225 | 95.71 | 25.9% |
| Lester | 0.395 | 5.59 | 0.293 | 3.66 | 0.210 | 0.626 | 0.325 | 3.41 | 0.263 | 98.71 | 22.2% |
| Bradley | 0.236 | 0.75 | 0.200 | 3.38 | 0.207 | 0.567 | 0.176 | 3.54 | 0.138 | 82.50 | 18.2% |
| Williams | 0.393 | 6.39 | 0.349 | 4.62 | 0.256 | 0.693 | 0.336 | 4.72 | 0.311 | 87.57 | 14.0% |
| Shoemaker | 0.394 | 8.66 | 0.394 | 3.95 | 0.281 | 0.835 | 0.298 | 6.18 | 0.28 | 78.50 | 23.1% |
| Jimenez | 0.271 | 3.86 | 0.242 | 1.37 | 0.227 | 0.624 | 0.229 | 3.56 | 0.186 | 90.00 | 24.4% |
| Estrada | 0.323 | 3.72 | 0.304 | 3.38 | 0.244 | 0.747 | 0.236 | 5.11 | 0.221 | 42.25 | 21.2% |
| Feldman | 0.312 | 4.18 | 0.378 | 6.62 | 0.235 | 0.718 | 0.316 | 4.43 | 0.297 | 97.57 | 13.4% |
| Garza | 0.328 | 2.75 | 0.329 | 5.16 | 0.235 | 0.653 | 0.266 | 5.15 | 0.244 | 96.86 | 17.9% |
| Degrom | 0.385 | 3.60 | 0.235 | 3.32 | 0.232 | 0.650 | 0.303 | 4.25 | 0.261 | 95.86 | 20.7% |
| Sabathia | 0.176 | 3.38 | 0.389 | 5.59 | 0.297 | 0.805 | 0.338 | 4.50 | 0.296 | 98.14 | 20.0% |
| Duffy | 0.315 | 5.63 | 0.391 | 5.68 | 0.266 | 0.837 | 0.368 | 4.22 | 0.309 | 86.29 | 17.7% |
| Vogelsong | 0.488 | 11.25 | 0.282 | 2.53 | 0.224 | 0.691 | 0.267 | 5.96 | 0.259 | 79.57 | 17.5% |
| Leake | 0.286 | 2.81 | 0.213 | 1.88 | 0.245 | 0.673 | 0.203 | 4.31 | 0.198 | 101.57 | 14.4% |
| Salazar | 0.238 | 4.24 | 0.304 | 2.25 | 0.193 | 0.559 | 0.279 | 2.93 | 0.198 | 106.60 | 37.2% |
| Lewis | 0.317 | 2.59 | 0.228 | 2.18 | 0.247 | 0.701 | 0.260 | 3.30 | 0.219 | 96.14 | 19.8% |
| Scherzer | 0.260 | 1.99 | 0.228 | 2.00 | 0.244 | 0.694 | 0.282 | 2.20 | 0.212 | 97.86 | 27.9% |
| Cashner | 0.354 | 3.80 | 0.290 | 2.38 | 0.239 | 0.669 | 0.292 | 4.35 | 0.249 | 101.00 | 24.2% |
| Danks | 0.302 | 6.30 | 0.410 | 4.57 | 0.206 | 0.543 | 0.317 | 4.79 | 0.288 | 89.67 | 16.1% |
| Chavez | 0.228 | 3.78 | 0.246 | 1.20 | 0.256 | 0.679 | 0.247 | 2.57 | 0.186 | 59.13 | 24.8% |
| De La Rosa | 0.321 | 13.50 | 0.432 | 8.53 | 0.239 | 0.651 | 0.468 | 3.33 | 0.324 | 81.00 | 27.7% |
| Greinke | 0.276 | 1.72 | 0.208 | 1.42 | 0.284 | 0.772 | 0.220 | 3.08 | 0.183 | 101.29 | 21.6% |
| Porcello | 0.299 | 3.24 | 0.354 | 6.16 | 0.234 | 0.660 | 0.311 | 4.08 | 0.267 | 102.00 | 20.1% |
| Hernandez | 0.215 | 2.08 | 0.274 | 1.59 | 0.257 | 0.714 | 0.244 | 2.84 | 0.191 | 101.43 | 27.2% |
CALL:
Long-shot plays that could hit it big but carry considerable risk of blow-up.
Archie Bradley ARI (at PHI) – Bradley has been out since late April, hitting the DL after getting brained by a line drive against the Rockies on the 28th. He had thrown between 92 and 112 pitches in each of his first three turns, accumulating 18 or more outs in each contest, an impressive feat for a rookie whose ascension up the minor-league ladder was slowed by inconsistency. He kept runs off the scoreboard (1.80 ERA) but the true outcomes have left a little something to be desired, with 14 K’s and 11 walks through his first 20 frames, and fantasy owners should tread lightly with their expectations in his first start back, though he does draw an easy opponent tonight to help ease the transition back to the bump.
Ubaldo Jimenez BAL (vs. LAA) – We mentioned the disappointing start in the power categories for Boston, but guess which team has the lowest slugging percentage in the AL? Most folks would need a dozen guesses before getting to the Angels, thanks to the presence of the current best player in the game (Mike Trout) and the former best player in the game (Albert Pujols), but the Halos have struggled when Trout is not in the batter’s box. Their team slugging percentage is just .349, falling 14 points below the BoSox. Jimenez has fallen back a bit from the incredible efficiency of his first start of the season, but since that gem he has put up a 3.03 ERA with 24 K’s against 11 walks in 26.7 innings, a solid-yet-unspectacular showing that underscores the improvements that he has made since the disaster of 2014.
Jesse Chavez OAK (vs. CHW) – The right-hander started the season in the bullpen but has been shuttled back to the rotation after a couple of the Athletics’ starters proved unfit for the job. Most relievers need to be stretched out as they ease into the starting role, but Chavez went right to it with 90 pitches in his first turn and he climbed up to 103 throws in his last outing. Chavez has allowed just one homer in 31.7 innings so far in 2015, but Chavez has struggled to keep that homer rate down throughout his career and the White Sox are the type of club that could drive regression. In a related note, Jose Abreu is due for a monster day.
Mike Leake CIN (vs. SF) – Leake might be on the best run of his life. Over his last three starts, Leake has pitched 22 innings of near-shutout baseball with just one run allowed, that coming on a solo homer by Andrelton Simmons in his last turn. The run prevention is really the only thing that stands out in the box score, as Leake has struck out just 6 batters while allowing 4 walks and 16 base hits during that span. He was pitching alright up to that point, avoiding blow-up starts but lacking any semblance of dominance, and I expect that tonight’s outing will involve more of the same – low on true outcomes, high on balls in play, and a middling result for the starting pitcher.
Matt Shoemaker LAA (at BAL) – Shoemaker made a name for himself last season by keeping opposing batters at bay, but he has been a flyball factory this season and several of those flies have left the yard. Shoemaker has been tagged for a ridiculous 6 homers over his last two starts, a total of 10 bombs for the season in 31.3 innings, and his ultra-low grounder rate of just 27% (after sitting between 42-47% for the last few years) indicates that something is amiss beyond simple statistical correction.
CC Sabathia NYY (at KC) – The lack of velocity is a concern, as Sabathia is averaging 90-91 mph on his fastball to mirror the pitch-speed of early 2014, this following a spring full of positive reports on his supposedly-improved radar gun readings. Opposing hitters have been teeing off, with a whopping 18 homers allowed over his last 91.0 innings of work extending back to the 2014 season. He has surrendered 4 or more runs in 5 of his 7 starts this season, and I expect more of the same against a Kansas City ballclub despite their vulnerability against southpaws.
Colby Lewis TEX (vs. CLE)
Rick Porcello BOS (at SEA)
Danny Duffy KC (vs. NYY)
Matt Garza MIL (at NYM)
Jorge De La Rosa COL (at LAD)
FOLD:
Run away. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200. Consider stacking with opposing lineups.
Jerome Williams PHI (vs. ARI)
Ryan Vogelsong SF (at CIN)
John Danks CHW (at OAK)
Scott Feldman HOU (vs. TOR)
Marco Estrada TOR (at HOU)
Starting Pitcher Salaries
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