Daily Pitcher Breakdown: Thursday, July 30th
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cashner | SDP | NYM | 240 | 3.22 | 3.71 | 1.22 | 75.0% | 19.5% | 6.4% | 0.75 | 1.51 |
| Niese | NYM | SDP | 303 | 3.53 | 3.91 | 1.31 | 41.2% | 16.4% | 6.2% | 0.89 | 1.81 |
| Scherzer | WAS | MIA | 363.1 | 2.82 | 2.78 | 1.04 | 60.0% | 28.7% | 5.4% | 0.77 | 0.82 |
| Haren | MIA | WAS | 309 | 3.82 | 3.94 | 1.15 | 30.0% | 18.0% | 4.6% | 1.37 | 0.88 |
| Simon | DET | BAL | 307.1 | 3.81 | 4.25 | 1.30 | 63.2% | 16.0% | 7.3% | 0.97 | 1.43 |
| Gonzalez | BAL | DET | 265 | 3.53 | 4.30 | 1.27 | 40.0% | 17.2% | 7.5% | 1.46 | 0.97 |
| Miller | ATL | PHI | 310 | 3.14 | 4.29 | 1.21 | 21.1% | 18.3% | 8.9% | 0.84 | 1.15 |
| Harang | PHI | ATL | 310.1 | 3.74 | 4.24 | 1.34 | 75.0% | 17.7% | 7.4% | 0.78 | 0.94 |
| Duffy | KCR | TOR | 225.1 | 3.04 | 4.47 | 1.21 | 57.1% | 17.3% | 8.8% | 0.76 | 0.88 |
| Estrada | TOR | KCR | 249.2 | 4.04 | 4.05 | 1.19 | 27.8% | 19.8% | 7.3% | 1.44 | 0.67 |
| Sale | CHW | BOS | 306.2 | 2.47 | 2.45 | 0.98 | 64.3% | 31.2% | 5.2% | 0.73 | 1.05 |
| Wright | BOS | CHW | 73.2 | 4.15 | 4.01 | 1.29 | 16.9% | 7.0% | 1.47 | 1.28 | |
| Locke | PIT | CIN | 239.2 | 4.02 | 4.07 | 1.34 | 66.7% | 16.9% | 8.0% | 0.86 | 1.87 |
| Holmberg | CIN | PIT | 30 | 4.80 | 5.32 | 1.43 | 13.1% | 11.7% | 2.40 | 0.83 | |
| Rusin | COL | STL | 78 | 4.62 | 3.94 | 1.55 | 15.1% | 6.6% | 1.15 | 2.04 | |
| Martinez | STL | COL | 208.2 | 3.06 | 3.44 | 1.31 | 23.4% | 9.6% | 0.60 | 2.03 | |
| Gallardo | TEX | NYY | 313.2 | 3.39 | 4.01 | 1.30 | 50.0% | 17.2% | 7.5% | 0.83 | 1.71 |
| Happ | SEA | MIN | 262.1 | 4.25 | 4.03 | 1.35 | 30.8% | 18.9% | 7.3% | 1.10 | 1.10 |
| Hughes | MIN | SEA | 340.1 | 3.68 | 3.59 | 1.17 | 45.0% | 18.7% | 2.0% | 1.03 | 0.88 |
| Shoemaker | LAA | HOU | 233 | 3.67 | 3.44 | 1.15 | 44.4% | 21.9% | 5.0% | 1.20 | 1.00 |
| Kazmir | HOU | LAA | 307 | 3.05 | 3.63 | 1.12 | 63.2% | 21.6% | 6.9% | 0.67 | 1.20 |
| Arrieta | CHC | MIL | 291.1 | 2.56 | 2.81 | 1.00 | 50.0% | 27.0% | 6.3% | 0.43 | 1.83 |
| Nelson | MIL | CHC | 191.2 | 4.32 | 3.86 | 1.35 | 19.3% | 7.6% | 0.89 | 1.61 | |
| Carrasco | CLE | OAK | 252.1 | 3.35 | 2.66 | 1.09 | 27.0% | 5.4% | 0.68 | 1.76 | |
| Bassitt | OAK | CLE | 63.1 | 3.41 | 4.66 | 1.34 | 15.2% | 8.7% | 0.28 | 0.93 |
ALL-IN:
The aces that are worth pushing all of the chips into the middle of the table.
Chris Sale CHW (at BOS) – Perhaps it’s his delay to start the season, but Sale has been making his starts out of sequence with most of the other top-flight arms such that he tends to be alone on top of the pitcher pile on the days that he takes the mound. Tonight he is followed by a long line of Raise-worthy pitchers, but Sale still stands well ahead of the others with both a higher floor and a vaulted ceiling of potential performance when stacked up against the other hurlers on the slate. His bat-missing skills will be tested against the Red Sox, however, with a team K rate of 17.2 percent for the season that has been particularly low over the last seven days, coming in at just 13.9-percent for Boston batters.
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 MIL) – Arrieta has had a fantastic follow-up to his breakthrough campaign of 2014, with a walk rate that continues to improve and thus offset the natural upward regression of his hit rate. For the second consecutive season, the right-hander is fanning more than a batter per inning and has a K-to-walk ratio of greater than four-to-one. Last season’s obscenely low homer rate (five bombs allowed in 156.7 innings) was essentially unsustainable, and though his homer-per-nine has doubled this season (from 0.3 to 0.6 HR/9), Arrieta’s ability to keep the baseball in the yard is still a tremendous asset. Arrieta has been especially effective over his last seven starts, during which he has a 1.37 ERA and opposing batters are hitting just .166/.214/.265 against him with 52 strikeouts and 10 walks in 52.7 innings.
Carlos Martinez STL (vs. COL) – His 3.42 FIP outpaces his ERA by over a run, but those waiting on some regression to pull that ERA upward are still waiting. Nearly half of his earned runs allowed this season (14 of 31) came in back-to-back starts at the beginning of May, but since those turns he has allowed more than two runs in a game just one time (and it was a three-run outing), and in his last four starts Car-Mart has a microscopic ERA of 0.64 with 25 strikeouts in 28.0 innings, numbers that admittedly exclude his four-inning relief appearance on July 19th. His walk rate is certainly higher than the Cards would like to see, though not entirely surprising given the unpredictable Tsunami of his delivery, but his penchant for weak contact has helped to keep his overall stat-line in check.
Carlos Carrasco CLE (at OAK) – Carrasco is one of the most maddening pitchers to roster in DFS this season. The peripheral numbers on the season are enticing with 133 strikeouts against 26 walks in 118.3 innings, but his frequency of blow-up outings will sink a DFS battleship. He has given up five or more earned runs in two of his last four starts, has five such starts in 20 turns this season, and there’s no telling whether the blow-ups will occur at the hands of a legit offense like that of the Orioles (June 7th) or a weak hitting club like the White Sox (who rocked Carrasco six earned runs in his last start). Naturally he faces the boom-or-bust lineup of the A’s today, making it equally likely that he turns in another blow-up or shuts down the Oakland offense. Roster with caution.
Shelby Miller ATL (at PHI) – As Miller was mowing down hitters for the first couple months of the season, the one knock against him was a relative lack of strikeouts, but he has conquered that criticism with 37 whiffs in less than 30 innings pitched over his last five starts. He whiffed seven or more batters in four of those five games, and though a Denver outing marked up his ERA, Miller’s string of four losses in his last five turns is hardly indicative of his performance. He gets a reprieve tonight against the Phillies, a team that Miller blanked for a complete-game shutout at the beginning of May, a start that included eight strikeouts (before that was a noteworthy component of his stat-line) and just four baserunners. I’m not expecting another shutout tonight, but an eight-shot of strikeouts over six-to-seven clean innings is perfectly within reason.
Scott Kazmir HOU (vs. LAA) – The Angels match well enough with Kazmir on paper, but paper won’t stand in the way of a left-handed rock that has allowed just one earned run across his last four starts. He has topped seven innings pitched in three of the four outings, and the one time that Kaz faced the Angels this season (on June 21st) he limited them to just one run over 7.3 frames. The strikeout total won’t blow anyone away, but Kazmir’s roster intrigue is fueled by his run prevention more than his ability to miss bats.
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% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cashner | 0.335 | 4.24 | 0.267 | 2.39 | 0.242 | 0.669 | 0.290 | 3.42 | 0.244 | 97.08 | 19.5% |
| Niese | 0.291 | 3.63 | 0.334 | 3.51 | 0.236 | 0.667 | 0.300 | 3.92 | 0.265 | 92.84 | 16.4% |
| Scherzer | 0.292 | 3.26 | 0.248 | 2.28 | 0.247 | 0.661 | 0.292 | 2.65 | 0.219 | 107.25 | 28.7% |
| Haren | 0.317 | 3.80 | 0.306 | 3.83 | 0.254 | 0.722 | 0.266 | 4.27 | 0.244 | 96.42 | 18.0% |
| Simon | 0.345 | 4.36 | 0.290 | 3.20 | 0.252 | 0.734 | 0.284 | 4.20 | 0.254 | 95.04 | 16.0% |
| Gonzalez | 0.334 | 3.30 | 0.321 | 3.79 | 0.277 | 0.763 | 0.270 | 4.87 | 0.25 | 94.51 | 17.2% |
| Miller | 0.310 | 3.55 | 0.279 | 2.79 | 0.245 | 0.661 | 0.259 | 3.97 | 0.225 | 92.33 | 18.3% |
| Harang | 0.332 | 3.42 | 0.308 | 4.00 | 0.258 | 0.691 | 0.305 | 3.74 | 0.262 | 101.38 | 17.7% |
| Duffy | 0.229 | 1.90 | 0.311 | 3.38 | 0.290 | 0.832 | 0.260 | 3.98 | 0.227 | 82.76 | 17.3% |
| Estrada | 0.302 | 3.68 | 0.328 | 4.38 | 0.274 | 0.744 | 0.257 | 4.52 | 0.233 | 70.08 | 19.8% |
| Sale | 0.221 | 0.35 | 0.268 | 2.90 | 0.234 | 0.668 | 0.290 | 2.46 | 0.209 | 107.04 | 31.2% |
| Wright | 0.317 | 5.23 | 0.324 | 3.29 | 0.249 | 0.679 | 0.271 | 4.70 | 0.252 | 62.84 | 16.9% |
| Locke | 0.273 | 3.52 | 0.328 | 4.16 | 0.249 | 0.724 | 0.295 | 4.04 | 0.258 | 93.73 | 16.9% |
| Holmberg | 0.425 | 6.00 | 0.356 | 4.50 | 0.250 | 0.682 | 0.213 | 7.60 | 0.235 | 73.71 | 13.1% |
| Rusin | 0.312 | 4.18 | 0.372 | 4.80 | 0.231 | 0.660 | 0.333 | 4.31 | 0.3 | 77.94 | 15.1% |
| Martinez | 0.339 | 3.69 | 0.266 | 2.56 | 0.277 | 0.793 | 0.309 | 3.31 | 0.241 | 42.05 | 23.4% |
| Gallardo | 0.294 | 3.18 | 0.311 | 3.56 | 0.259 | 0.754 | 0.288 | 3.84 | 0.251 | 99.98 | 17.2% |
| Happ | 0.352 | 3.98 | 0.325 | 4.33 | 0.252 | 0.695 | 0.305 | 4.07 | 0.264 | 91.10 | 18.9% |
| Hughes | 0.290 | 3.05 | 0.333 | 4.42 | 0.233 | 0.689 | 0.311 | 3.36 | 0.271 | 94.06 | 18.7% |
| Shoemaker | 0.320 | 4.18 | 0.295 | 3.12 | 0.244 | 0.739 | 0.288 | 3.74 | 0.246 | 79.24 | 21.9% |
| Kazmir | 0.289 | 3.05 | 0.275 | 3.05 | 0.248 | 0.712 | 0.274 | 3.24 | 0.225 | 93.67 | 21.6% |
| Arrieta | 0.252 | 2.27 | 0.252 | 2.80 | 0.260 | 0.712 | 0.276 | 2.42 | 0.205 | 99.49 | 27.0% |
| Nelson | 0.364 | 4.97 | 0.295 | 3.82 | 0.233 | 0.678 | 0.312 | 3.97 | 0.263 | 87.76 | 19.3% |
| Carrasco | 0.268 | 3.18 | 0.285 | 3.50 | 0.259 | 0.711 | 0.305 | 2.65 | 0.232 | 63.33 | 27.0% |
| Bassitt | 0.306 | 2.86 | 0.307 | 4.08 | 0.242 | 0.695 | 0.294 | 3.70 | 0.249 | 72.87 | 15.2% |
CALL:
Long-shot plays that could hit it big but carry considerable risk of blow-up.
A.J. Burnett PIT (at CIN) – Burnett was coasting through this season, but he has hit a speed-bump over his last two starts that adds weight to the clouds of doubt that follow the sustainability of the 38-year old’s stat-line. The Royals and Nationals have knocked Burnett around for 22 hits and 11 runs scored in his last 11.7 innings of work, though the right-hander gets some leeway for the fact that both Kansas City and Washington have high-octane offenses that will pile on the safeties (the Nats registered another 14 hits off of Burnett back on June 19th. The strikeouts are less than ideal at 20.1-percent for the season, though his K rate has fallen to 17.6-percent over the last two months and could be in for another downgrade against a Reds club that strikes out less than 19-percent of the time.
Yovani Gallardo TEX (vs. NYY) – The glass slipper has fallen off. Gallardo enjoyed an incredible run from May 24 through the second of July, compiling an ERA of 0.88 across eight starts and more than 50 innings, but that ball has ended and the proverbial clock has struck midnight. In his last two starts, Gallardo has lasted just 12 outs in each game while giving up five earned runs in each turn, inflating his ERA on the season by 0.57 in the process. Tonight he faces a Yankee ballclub that has bludgeoned everyone, and they are unlikely to take things easy against a transplant from the NL like Gallardo.
Jimmy Nelson MIL (vs. CHC) – The question isn’t whether the Cubbies will score runs – I suspect that they will have no trouble against Nelson – but whether the Milwaukee right-hander can whiff enough batters to compensate for the Cubs that cross home. Nobody strikes out more often than the Cubs this season (24.2 percent), so Nelson should have ample opportunity to pile on the K’s if he stays in the game long enough to stockpile them.
Matt Shoemaker LAA (at HOU)
Phil Hughes MIN (vs. SEA)
Aaron Harang PHI (vs. ATL)
J.A. Happ SEA (at MIN)
Marco Estrada TOR (vs. KC)
Chris Rusin COL (at STL)
Chris Bassitt OAK (vs. CLE)
Alfredo Simon DET (at BAL)
David Holmberg CIN (vs. PIT)
Miguel Gonzalez BAL (vs. DET)
Steven Wright BOS (vs. CHW)
FOLD:
Run away. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200. Consider stacking with opposing lineups
Danny Duffy KC (at TOR) – There are just too many red flags here to recommend starting the low-K Duffy against a team that is mashing left-handers this season and just got even scarier with Tulo on board.
Starting Pitcher Salaries
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