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As reported by: RotoGrinders Crunch Time
Hyun-Jin Ryu has a pronounced reverse split, rarely gets through the lineup three times
Hyun-Jin Ryu has a pronounced reverse split (RHBs .403 wOBA last year, .338 career). The problem with attacking that in a straight line is that the Dodgers have a deep bullpen and generally don’t allow him to go through the order more than twice. He completed six innings in just eight of 24 starts last year. The Diamondbacks have countered by leaving three LHBs in the lineup, including David Peralta batting leadoff, though none of them hit same-handed pitching at even a league average rate. This may keep the advantage with the Dodgers tonight despite Paul Goldschmidt (145 wRC+, .276 ISO vs LHP since 2017) and A.J. Pollock (119 wRC+, .262 ISO), who hit LHP very well. The surprise here may be Nick Ahmed’s prowess against lefties (199 wRC+, .283 ISO). Again though, no batter should expect to see Ryu more than twice. Pitch splits may tell us a bit more. While Ryu threw more changeups to LHBs, he threw four pitches (fourseam, change, curve, cutter) more than 10% of the time to batters from either side of the plate last season. While the majority of the lineup mashed against the fourseamer and scuffled against curveballs, Paul Goldschmidt has been the standout bat against the change since 2016 (.386 wOBA, .432 xwOBA).
As reported by: RotoGrinders PlateIQ Other tagged players: David Peralta, A.J. Pollock, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Nick Ahmed Bryce Harper only LHB Sean Newcomb will face tonight, Anthony Rendon (184 wRC+ vs LHP) bats second
Sean Newcomb didn’t have a major platoon split issue last season (RHBs .337 wOBA, 23.2 K% – LHBs .330 wOBA, 24.8 K%) with a 43% ground ball rate and sub-30 Hard% against batters from either side. Where he did really struggle was in a 13.8 BB% against RHBs. The Washington Nationals are doing him no favors tonight, stacking eight RHBs (including the pitcher) around Bryce Harper (108 wRC+, .133 ISO vs LHP since 2017). New manager Dave Martinez has done something that his predecessor was reluctant to and that’s bat their best hitter against LHP (Anthony Rendon 184 wRC+, .343 ISO since 2017) second. This should make DFS players happy. The second best hitter against LHP (Ryan Zimmerman 162 wRC+, .323 ISO) bats cleanup. What a novel concept! Adam Eaton, one of the hottest bats in the league to start the year, sits tonight, while the Nationals offer several low priced batters, who have had some success against LHP in the lower half of the order: Howie Kendrick (137 wRC+, .189 ISO), Michael Taylor (115 wRC+, .196 ISO) and Wilmer Difo (119 wRC+, .190). If Newcomb’s control issues against RHBs continue, these lower half batters may see several RBI opportunities in the early innings. An interesting note from PlateIQ is that while several Washington batters struggled against the curveball last year, they had xwOBAs much higher. Newcomb used his curveball 22.3% of pitches against RHBs last season.
As reported by: RotoGrinders PlateIQ Other tagged players: Ryan Zimmerman, Sean Newcomb, Michael A. Taylor, Howie Kendrick, Wilmer Difo, Bryce Harper Orioles continue to bat high strikeout Chris Davis leadoff against even reverse split right-handed pitchers
Perhaps Buck Showalter is on to something, figuring Chris Davis’s ability to take a walk could lead to a high OBP. He has a career .341 wOBA against right-handed pitching. A 31.9 K% as well against them is less likely to be an issue with nobody on base. However, he’s also doing this for the second time this season against a RHP with reverse splits and may be doing DFS players a significant favor tonight. Charlie Morton has even spoken about how much the Astros like strikeouts. He obliged by raising his strikeout rate to 32.8% against LHBs last season. RHBs had a .345 wOBA against him (nearly 100 points higher), but with a 56.1 GB% and 0.4 Hard-Soft%. With Davis at the top of the lineup, that’s almost at least one strikeout for Morton, while additional lefties Colby Rasmus and Pedro Alvarez are by no measure contact hitters. Although he’ll face just three LHBs tonight, he’s looking at three high strikeout LHBs against Baltimore.
As reported by: Fangraphs Other tagged players: Charlie Morton, Colby Rasmus, Pedro Alvarez Blue Jays have the second best implied run line on the board; Reynaldo Lopez lost his curveball last year
The Toronto Blue Jays (5.35 runs) are behind only the Houston Astros in terms of implied runs tonight. No other offense eclipses a five run projection. It may not be so simple against Reynaldo Lopez, who arrived in Chicago with some potential after striking out 20% or better at every stop above rookie ball, including his 2016 debut with the Nationals. For the White Sox, it was 14.5% in 47.2 innings. His curveball lost spin and was essentially shelved, leading some to guess there may have been an injury (blister?) issue. If his arsenal returns, he could give the Blue Jays more trouble than expected, but if not, a projected run total above five could be accurate. Justin Smoak (129 wRC+, .276 ISO vs RHP since last season) has already begun proving that last year was not a fluke with two HRs Sunday. Even in a down year, Josh Donaldson has a 140 wRC+ and .253 ISO against RHP since 2017 as well. Donaldson has been forced to DH due to a “dead arm”. There is some concern and while he’s struck out in six of 17 plate appearances so far, when he has made contact, it’s been hard 57.1% of the time. Yangervis Solarte (109 wRC+, .196 ISO) and Curtis Granderson (112 wRC+, .248 ISO) are cheaper bats who have shown some upside against right-handed pitching since last season.
As reported by: Fangraphs Other tagged players: Curtis Granderson, Justin Smoak, Yangervis Solarte, Reynaldo Lopez Chris Tillman had a board worst .398 xwOBA, 89.6 mph aEV and 40.2% 95+ mph EV last season
The Houston Astros own a board leading 5.66 implied run line tonight with only one other offense (Toronto) even above five runs. Inexpensive pitching should allow players to stack Astros with impunity (though it may be a bit more difficult on DraftKings). While it’s possible injury can be to blame for some of Chris Tillman’s struggles last year, he is worst on the board in several key Statcast metrics, including xwOBA (.398) aEV (89.6 mph), and 95+ mph EV (40.2%) and no other pitcher is even close to him in any of those metrics. Further, he’s also worst on the board in terms of Z-O-Swing rate (48.9%) a measure that shows us that batters were able to lay off pitches out of the zone and punish strikes against him last season. Jose Altuve (161), Marwin Gonzalez (151), Carlos Correa (146), George Springer (130) and Josh Reddick (130) all have punished RHP to the tune of a 130 wRC+ or better since last season. All have an ISO above .180 against them as well (Reddick the only one below .200). Few players may realize that Houston has been one of the most negative run scoring environments in recent years because the Astros have been so good offensively. They owned a 121 wRC+ at home and 122 wRC+ vs RHP last season, both easily best in the majors.
Other tagged players: Josh Reddick, George Springer, Marwin Gonzalez, Carlos Corporan, Chris Tillman Jose Abreu and Avisail Garcia each have a 180 wRC+ against LHP since last season.
The White Sox may be only somewhere on the middle of the boards with a 4.16 implied run line, but they show up with some upside against left-handed pitching tonight. Jaime Garcia was below average, but not terrible against right-handed batters last season (.333 wOBA, 54 GB%, 87.3 mph aEV, 6.3 K-BB%), but he’s facing some thump in this lineup. Jose Abreu (.275 ISO vs LHP last year) and Avisail Garcia (.152 ISO) each have a 180 wRC+ against LHP since last season, though the latter has an unsustainable .509 BABIP. Welington Castillo (137 wRC+, .223 ISO) has always hit LHP well and Matt Davidson hit three HRs in a game Danny Duffy started on Opening Day. Yoan Moncada has just a 73 wRC+ against LHP in his young career, but leads the majors with an 85.7 Hard% this season. He also has a 400+ wOBA and xwOBA against sinkers, a pitch Garcia threw around 20% of the time against RHBs last season. He did struggle against changeups (.127 wOBA, .210 xwOBA), according to PlateIQ, a pitch Garcia utilized equally often against batters from that side of the plate.
As reported by: RotoGrinders PlateIQ Other tagged players: Avisail Garcia, Welington Castillo, Matt Davidson, Yoan Moncada, Jaime Garcia Adam Eaton, Elvis Andrus, and Justin Smoak have all come out of the gate hot (330+ wRC+)
Considering only batters available tonight, who has come out of the chute the hottest this season? Adam Eaton (388 wRC+) has hit eight of 12 batted balls hard, but loses the platoon leverage against Sean Newcomb. Elvis Andrus (338 wRC+) has a 69.2 Hard% in 16 PAs without a strikeout, but downgrades his environment dramatically tonight in Oakland against a pitcher with a 53.3 GB% and 24.2 Hard% against RHBs last season. Justin Smoak (336 wRC+) hit a Grand Slam on Sunday along with another HR and may have the most favorable matchup of the three at home against Reynaldo Lopez, not a pitcher entirely bereft of talent, but one who did allow LHBs a .338 wOBA and six HRs in 102 PAs. Charlie Blackmon (252 wRC+) is the only batter in the majors to have reached three HRs already (more than 10 PAs – Matt Davidson has three in nine PAs). He sees a significant park downgrade in San Diego against Bryan Mitchell tonight. Yoan Moncada leads the majors with an 85.7 Hard%. He has just a career 73 wRC+ against LHP. Jaime Garcia struggled a bit against RHBs last season (.333 wOBA, 14 HRs, 6.3 K-BB%).
Other tagged players: Elvis Andrus, Adam Eaton, Charlie Blackmon, Yoan Moncada Charlie Morton (26.4 K%) leads a pack of back-end of the rotation starters on Monday night.
We’re seeing the back end of rotations on Monday night, where Charlie Morton can be considered the only established high strikeout pitcher. DraftKings pricing is particularly tough, where Morton (26.4 K%), along with Mike Clevinger (27.3 K%) and Tanner Roark (21.4 K%) each cost $9.9K or more. While Hyun-Jin Ryu and Taijuan Walker also boast a 21.4 K% from last season, the former rarely goes much more than five innings and the latter has a difficult matchup with the Dodgers, even if we’re still counting on the humidor to under-value pitchers at this point in the season. Morton pitches in the most negative run environment in baseball the last few years and faces a predominantly right-handed Baltimore lineup. However, he had a reverse split last season, striking out more LHBs (32.8%), while generating more ground balls (56.1 GB%, 0.4 Hard-Soft%) against RHBs. That may bring down his upside somewhat, but he still struck out righties at a league average pace last year (20.9%). Clevinger struggles with his walk rate (12.5%), does carry the top strikeout rate on the board and walked just four batters this spring. He completed six innings in nine of his last 13 starts last season. Tanner Roark’s value lies in the fact that he is probably the pitcher most likely to finish six innings tonight. He’s the only pitcher on the board to average at least six innings per start over the last two calendar years. Lower priced potential pitchers of interest may include Bryan Mitchell, who had higher strikeout rates in the minors than he’s had in the majors so far and faces a perennially awful road offense in the Rockies in San Diego tonight, Brian Johnson, who’s similarly struggles to miss bats in the majors, but travels to Miami and struck out 13 in 15.2 spring innings, and Andrew Triggs, who has exhibited a double digit SwStr% and 50+ GB% in each of his two seasons before 2017 ended early due to injury. He’s in a strong spot at home against a Texas offense that was exposed )82 wRC+, 26.1 K%) outside a very hitter friendly home park last season.
Other tagged players: Mike Clevinger, Tanner Roark, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Taijuan Walker, Andrew Triggs, Bryan Mitchell, Brian Johnson Plug and Pray
You ever have that one player who you irrationally think is good because you rostered him the only time he had an absolutely dominating performance in his entire career? Well, that person is Reynaldo Lopez for me. He just had to go and strikeout 11 Braves back on August 18, 2011. I want to make one thing clear – this is not a great contextual matchup for Lopez and rostering Reynaldo is not for the feint of heart. With that said, when searching for those GPP winning, low-owned, why the hell would you play that guy, pitchers you need to target strikeouts. Lopez hasn’t fully transferred his strikeout rates to the Big Leagues but has flashed occasionally and put up strong numbers last year in AAA (25.4% strikeout rate). The likelier result is the Blue Jays touch Lopez up a bit but Lopez does at least have a high ceiling should the stars align.
Welcome to Miami
Never look at Spring Training stats. But if you do, you’ll see that fill-in Red Sox starter Brian Johnson crushed it this spring to the tune of 3 ER and 13 strikeouts in 15.2 innings pitched. That is obviously a super small, likely useless, sample but is encouraging nonetheless as Johnson and the Red Sox will travel to Miami to take on the Cub killing Marlins offense. We’re going to keep going back to the “use pitchers against the Marlins” well despite its lack of success over the first four games of the year as their AAA level offense should cool down significantly as the season progresses.
Big Upside for this Third Baseman
Anthony Rendon is one of the best hitters in baseball against left-handed pitching and he doesn’t get enough credit for it. In 2017, he finished the season with a .418 xwOBA and a 39% hard contact rate against southpaws. He also drew walks at an 11% clip. While SunTrust Park isn’t a great ballpark for right-handed hitters, Sean Newcomb isn’t a bad matchup by any means.
Next Best Option at Pitcher?
Yes, I included a question mark in the title of this blurb because who knows who the second best pitching option of this slate is going to be. Charlie Morton is clearly the best option, but I’m giving a slight edge to Andrew Triggs as my number two. He is pitching at home in a good ballpark and he is facing a Rangers’ offense that isn’t afraid to swing at pitches outside of the strike zone. The projected lineup for Texas had an average strikeout rate of 24% against right-handed pitching last season.
One of the Best Values of the Slate
The A’s are right there with the Astros as the best stack of the slate. They draw an exploitable matchup against Bartolo Colon, who has to be approaching his 60s soon. Colon gives up a lot of hard contact, which is great news for the A’s, who put the ball in play often. Matt Joyce is dirt cheap across the industry and provides far too much upside to be ignored in cash games or tournaments. In 2017, Joyce had a .362 xwOBA and a .252 ISO against right-handed pitching.
Can History Repeat Itself?
148, 128, 122, 111. Those are career weighted runs created plus (wRC+) for Jose Abreu, Welington Castillo, Avisail Garcia and Matt Davidson versus left handed pitching. The White Sox flashed their skills versus left handed pitching on Opening Day and get a chance to do so again on Monday night in the hitter friendly Rogers Centre. Don’t expect similar results to Opening Day but there will be some merit in stacking low owned White Sox versus left handed pitching all season long.
Other tagged players: Welington Castillo, Avisail Garcia, Matt Davidson