Daily Pitcher Breakdown: Thursday, August 4th

by Doug Thorburn (DougThorburn) Last Updated 2016-08-05 01:36:26

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
Kennedy	KCR	TBR	289.2	4.26	3.76	1.26	47.6%	24.3%	7.5%	1.77	0.87
Smyly	TBR	KCR	184	4.50	3.66	1.27	50.0%	25.2%	6.6%	1.61	0.74
Santiago	MIN	CLE	301.1	3.85	4.59	1.29	16.7%	20.8%	9.9%	1.46	0.65
Clevinger	CLE	MIN
Leake	STL	CIN	320	4.02	3.99	1.19	45.0%	16.2%	5.0%	1.13	1.99
Finnegan	CIN	STL	165.1	4.35	4.85	1.36		18.6%	11.3%	1.63	1.19
Moore	SFG	PHI	193	4.52	4.50	1.36		18.7%	7.6%	1.35	0.88
Velasquez	PHI	SFG	153.1	3.70	3.74	1.29		26.1%	9.0%	0.94	0.82
Zimmermann	DET	CWS	297.1	3.75	4.05	1.22	52.6%	18.3%	4.7%	0.97	1.17
Colon	NYM	NYY	315.1	3.94	4.13	1.23	42.1%	16.6%	3.5%	1.20	1.22
Eovaldi	NYY	NYM	271	4.45	4.12	1.40	50.0%	18.3%	7.5%	1.03	1.83
Hahn	OAK	LAA	139	4.01	4.36	1.29	57.1%	14.4%	7.0%	0.71	2.20
Nolasco	LAA	OAK	162	5.50	4.31	1.43	16.7%	18.3%	6.1%	1.17	1.14
Griffin	TEX	BAL	67.2	3.99	4.85	1.26		19.2%	9.9%	1.33	0.76
Miley	BAL	TEX	305.2	4.65	4.33	1.36	33.3%	17.6%	7.5%	1.03	1.53
Vogelsong	PIT	ATL	156.2	4.54	4.57	1.47	52.6%	17.9%	9.8%	1.15	1.24
Jenkins	ATL	PIT	29.1	4.91	6.21	1.77		10.9%	14.5%	1.84	1.44
Happ	TOR	HOU	303	3.42	3.98	1.22	30.8%	21.0%	6.8%	0.92	1.21
Fiers	HOU	TOR	290.1	3.97	4.09	1.29		20.9%	7.3%	1.27	1.03
Maeda	LAD	COL	120	3.23	3.64	1.08		25.0%	6.7%	0.90	1.18
Chatwood	COL	LAD	110.2	3.50	4.88	1.35	25.0%	15.1%	10.8%	0.65	2.30
Pomeranz	BOS	SEA	202.1	3.34	3.74	1.16	25.0%	25.5%	9.4%	0.89	1.21
Miranda	SEA	BOS

ALL-IN:

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

It’s a rather full slate for a Thursday, with 24 of 30 MLB teams scheduled to take the field, split with seven games that qualify for the night slate and five games in the early set. With so many teams on the schedule, we would expect a relatively robust set of pitchers when compared to typical travel days, but there isn’t a pitcher that comes within spitting distance of qualifying as an All-In candidate. These can be some of the most interesting slates for DFS, as the lack of top-end options effectively spreads the ownership distribution of the top half of the player pool. Even the Raise options are thin, achieving that level mostly due to the lack of available alternatives.

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.

Jose Quintana CHW (at DET) – Quintana was en fuego for all of July, cruising through the month with a 1.95 ERA and 29:8 K:BB in 32.1 innings across five starts. He’s been pitching deep into games, throwing at least 6.2 innings in six of his last nine starts. He struck out nine Twins in his last outing en route to 26.20 points on DraftKings, and he has scored 15 or more points in six straight games and 28 of 21 starts overall. However, he’s only cracked 30 points one time this season, as Quintana is a prime example of a pitcher with a high floor combined with a low ceiling, a low variance safety net whose greatest strength is the lack of weakness. I tend to give a boost to pitchers with high upside due to their enhanced value in large tournaments, but today’s slate is so full of holes that Quintana’s relative predictability zooms him to the top of the pile for today.

Drew Pomeranz BOS (at SEA) – After imploding in his first start for the BoSox, Pomeranz rebounded in his next game only to falter again when Boston traveled to Anaheim for his most recent outing. All told, Pomeranz has posted a 7.53 ERA with a 15:6 K:BB and four homers allowed in just 14.1 innings for the Red Sox. Even with the shaky transition, Pomeranz still has a composite ERA of just 3.09. Pomeranz was due to see a knock to his numbers by moving to hitter-friendly Fenway Park and the DH league, not to mention the gravitational pull of regression following a breakout first half, but the magnitude of his struggles thus far in Boston have been a bit higher than imagined, and some managers might overreact to these three bad starts and keep their distance, keeping his ownership rate low. He still possesses high upside in the strikeout department, a rarity among the group of pitchers scheduled to take the mound today.

Vincent Velasquez PHI (vs. SF) – Velasquez had a roller coaster ride through the first two months of the season, but lately he has stabilized his performance to post a string of solid outings. He has a 2.75 ERA, a 35:14 K:BB and just three homers allowed over 36 innings in his last six starts, holding opponents to two runs or fewer in five of those six, and he hasn’t surrendered more than four runs in a ballgame since he returned from the Disabled List. The strikeouts that buoyed his value in the early-going has tapered off to K-per-inning territory and he hasn’t punched out more than seven hitters in a game since mid-May; he recorded a modest count of five whiffs in three straight starts while walking 10 batters over his last 19.0 innings.

J.A. Happ TOR (at HOU) – Happ hasn’t received much attention in these pages this season, largely due to a pedestrian strikeout rate his penchant for disaster starts, but his recent performance commands attention. Prior to the month of July, Happ had only struck out more than five hitters in two of his first 16 starts, but then he went and bookended the month with 11-K efforts while punching out more than five hitters in four of his five starts last month. He also kept runs off the scoreboard, posting a July ERA of 1.44 with an excellent K:BB of 42:9 over 31.1 innings, including just two homers allowed. He has also been given a longer leash – after clearing 100 or more pitches in just three of his first 15 turns, Happ has now exceeded the century mark in five of his last six starts.

Matt Moore SF (at PHI) – Moore was very inconsistent in the month of June, firing 7.0 scoreless frames in two outings yet coughing up five runs apiece in two others, but he stabilized the shaky performance pattern in July – at last in terms of run prevention – giving up three or fewer earnies in all five starts last month. Interestingly, his K:BB was a meager 19:12 over 33.2 innings over that stretch, and he hasn’t topped a half- dozen strikeouts in any of his last eight starts. In fact, he’s only topped that mark in four of his a21 starts this season. The Phillies have given Giants aces Madison Bumgarner and Johnny ache to a run for their money over the last two games, turning up the heat on the pressure cooker in Moore’s first start for his new ballclub, but the last two days aside, the Phillies should be a soft landing for Moore’s first foray into the National League.

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%
Kennedy	0.345	4.52	0.330	4.00	0.241	0.704	0.286	4.76	0.246	0.00	24.3%
Smyly	0.287	4.58	0.335	4.48	0.273	0.735	0.303	4.23	0.253	0.01	25.2%
Santiago	0.294	2.82	0.323	4.18	0.267	0.734	0.254	4.88	0.226	0.00	20.8%
Clevinger					0.246	0.711
Leake	0.317	4.08	0.294	3.96	0.247	0.706	0.279	4.11	0.254	0.00	16.2%
Finnegan	0.319	2.90	0.336	4.82	0.236	0.683	0.250	5.45	0.233	0.00	18.6%
Moore	0.305	5.09	0.337	4.31	0.256	0.683	0.298	4.60	0.264	0.01	18.7%
Velasquez	0.318	3.70	0.306	3.69	0.264	0.737	0.317	3.50	0.245	0.01	26.1%
Quintana	0.270	3.26	0.311	3.14	0.270	0.777	0.312	3.24	0.255	0.00	21.5%
Zimmermann	0.320	4.00	0.293	3.51	0.250	0.699	0.302	3.69	0.263	0.00	18.3%
Colon	0.321	3.79	0.308	4.09	0.247	0.725	0.299	3.98	0.271	0.00	16.6%
Eovaldi	0.355	4.53	0.298	4.39	0.241	0.709	0.315	4.06	0.273	0.00	18.3%
Hahn	0.351	5.54	0.249	2.68	0.257	0.721	0.286	4.00	0.256	0.01	14.4%
Nolasco	0.321	4.22	0.365	6.72	0.249	0.704	0.333	4.11	0.289	0.00	18.3%
Griffin	0.368	5.56	0.253	2.41	0.261	0.769	0.251	4.83	0.227	0.01	19.2%
Miley	0.294	4.16	0.338	4.80	0.263	0.748	0.304	4.15	0.266	0.00	17.6%
Vogelsong	0.392	7.54	0.298	2.37	0.252	0.679	0.298	4.59	0.261	0.00	17.9%
Jenkins	0.372	6.00	0.390	4.15	0.261	0.727	0.271	6.92	0.274	0.00	10.9%
Happ	0.298	3.34	0.301	3.44	0.243	0.743	0.294	3.63	0.247	0.00	21.0%
Fiers	0.301	3.79	0.337	4.12	0.258	0.780	0.293	4.25	0.252	0.00	20.9%
Maeda	0.289	2.73	0.258	3.61	0.270	0.777	0.276	3.36	0.221	0.01	25.0%
Chatwood	0.283	3.67	0.325	3.34	0.248	0.735	0.272	4.22	0.24	0.01	15.1%
Pomeranz	0.240	1.82	0.290	3.97	0.257	0.733	0.262	3.54	0.208	0.00	25.5%
Miranda					0.274	0.770

CALL:

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

Jordan Zimmermann DET (vs. CHW) – Zimmermann is back from the neck strain that put him on the shelf for most of July, and he is treated with facing a light White Sox attack to soften the fall in his first landing. Zimm is all about run prevention and chewing innings, with strikeouts being off his radar of goals as he seeks to induce weak contact early in the count, so his statistical margin of error is slim given the lack of Ks. He will also be on a pitch count, most likely, after reaching just 79 pitches in his final rehab start, so expect him to be capped around 90 pitches in this one, further shrinking his projected K count.

Ian Kennedy KC (at TB) – Rostering Kennedy is all about the counting stats, because his run prevention leaves much to be desired. He’s cleared 100 pitches in 15 of his 21 starts this season, including the last five games in a row, and he’s upped the ante on strikeouts lately with a K count of eight or higher in four of his last seven ballgames, though the last was three starts ago – a game in which he gave up seven earned runs. His rate of implosion is relatively high, but his upside was evident in the 37-point day that he put up against the Astros a month ago. His weak opponent makes rostering Kennedy more enticing, as the thin Rays lineup was thinned even further by the trade deadline.

Mike Leake STL (at CIN) – Leake is coming off a pair of forgettable starts, giving up 13 runs and 19 hits in 11.0 innings, with seven strikeouts but zero walks over the last two games. He didn’t walk a single batter in the month of July, and his two rough turns immediately followed his two best starts of the season (by far), in which he struck out 21 batters and only gave up two total runs over 13 innings. He has a softer opponent today, facing a Reds offense that just lost Jay Bruce, giving Leake a chance to right the ship, though the biggest anomaly of Leake’s season was the two-game trip into high-strikeout territory, as he has punched out a half-dozen hitters or less in the other 19 of his 21 starts. He has also suffered from a quick hook this season, and has been pulled before reaching 90 pitches in four of his last five starts.

Kenta Maeda LAD (at COL) – This is a high ranking for just about any pitcher being tasked with pitching in the thin air of Coors Field, and though Maeda has earned special consideration in Coors after firing 6.1 scoreless innings in his first exposure to the high-altitude ballpark. That said, Maeda’s personal sample is too small to trust above the long history of pitcher hell in Denver, and he still faces a tall task in conquering Coors in a repeat performance, though the Rox just lost Trevor Story for the season to injury. He spiked 13 strikeouts against the Padres four starts ago, but Maeda typically whiffs less than half that number, and in the other four of his five May starts he has struck out five or fewer hitters in each turn. Similar to many of the pitchers just above him on this list, Maeda can be penciled in for a relatively modest pitch count, as he’s thrown 93 pitches or fewer in four of his last five starts and has only exceeded 100 pitches five times in 21 starts this season.

Drew Smyly TB (vs. KC)

Hector Santiago MIN (at CLE)

Bartolo Colon NYM (at NYY)

Nathan Eovaldi NYY (vs. NYM)

Ryan Vogelsong PIT (at ATL)

A.J. Griffin TEX (at BAL)

Ricky Nolasco (vs. OAK)

Mike Fiers HOU (vs. TOR)

Jesse Hahn OAK (at LAA)

Tyrell Jenkins ATL (vs. PIT)