Ariel Miranda Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

Five of tonight's 16 pitchers have an aEV of 85.2 mph or less this year all with less than 5% Barrels/BBE and 33% 95+ mph EV (three below 30%). Neither Carlos Carrasco, nor Zack Greinke are among that group. Kenta Maeda (84.9 - 4.6% - 29.3%) and C.C. Sabathia (84.4 - 4.1% - 29.5%) are probably names that won't surprise anyone at this point in the season. Kyle Freeland (84.4 - 4.4% - 32.8%) might and he's still going to be a pitcher players want to attack tonight considering that Paul Goldschmidt and J.D. Martinez are likely going to be in the opposing lineup. Among those with much smaller samples, Brandon Woodruff (84.7 - 3.1% - 32.3%) does come with some prospect hype, has started his career strongly and is in a nice spot against a weak hitting Pittsburgh offense. Chris Stratton (85.2 - 4.8% - 27.4%) pitches in a great park (San Francisco) against an ice cold offense tonight (43 wRC+, 27.4 K%, 8.2 HR/FB last seven days). He has struck out 10 in two of his last four starts, but no more than four in any of his other four starts this year and has not exceeded a 20.2 K% since A ball. On the other end of the spectrum are Reynaldo Lopez (89.5 - 9.1% - 36.4%), Ubaldo Jimenez (88.4 - 7.8% - 39.6%), and Ariel Miranda (87 - 9.5% - 34.1%). Lopez has some strikeout ability with an 8.8% or better SwStr% in all four starts, but a 28.8 GB% is not going to lead to a lot of favorable outcomes with that much hard contact. Jimenez should probably no longer be starting in this league. Miranda is tied of the league lead with 35 HRs allowed in just 156.1 innings (30 to RHBs).

C.C. Sabathia has done a great job of managing contact this year. He may still have some issues facing a powerful, predominantly RH lineup in Baltimore, but it's probably not a surprise at this point to find out that his 84.8 mph aEV is lowest on the slate. What might be a surprise is the two pitchers who are lower. Both have sample size issues and would probably increase over a full season, but the point stands that neither Ordrisamer Despaigne (81.6 mph aEV in 28 IP) nor Ben Lively (84.5 mph aEV in 59 IP) are allowing a lot of hard contact. Neither misses enough bats to be considered a useful daily fantasy pitcher with strikeout rates below 15%, but they may not necessarily be pitchers players should be lining up to attack either. Both have a 95+ mph EV rate below 30% as well. Jacob deGrom and Michael Wacha are the only other pitchers on the board who can boast that as well. Lively does have a 23.6 K% (10.5 SwStr%) over his last three starts, but in the outing with the most strikeouts (eight) and only above average SwStr%, he also allowed four HRs with a 50% hard hit rate. On the other end of the spectrum, Kendall Graveman has the worse aEV (89.5 mph) and 95+ mph EV (42%). No other pitcher is above 88.5 mph or 40%. Robert Stephenson (9.9%) and Ariel Miranda (9.7%) have the highest rate of Barrels on batted balls. Stephenson has a 15+ SwStr% in three of his last four starts with just one HR allowed over his last five though.

Jason Vargas has had some success as a low strikeout, extreme fly ball pitcher due to a big park, great outfield defense and lots of weak contact. He has an ERA above seven over his last seven starts because one of those things has gone away. He's allowed 10 HRs over that span with a 44.5% hard hit rate. Cleveland bats with power should be closely looked at tonight. Jake Odorizzi matches that hard hit rate (45.6%), only RHBs for the entire year with 17 of his 25 HRs allowed. Unfortunately, Tommy Pham is not in the St Louis lineup tonight, but some Paul DeJong (130 wRC+, .264 ISO vs RHP) exposure may be mandatory. Some other pitchers who have allowed too much hard contact include Parker Bridwell who's 88.4 mph aEV and 39.7% 95+ mph EV are both among the worst rates on the board with a 23.3 LD% to match. He has a 2.92 ERA due to an 83.8 LOB%. Kendall Graveman's 89 mph aEV and 41.6 95+ mph EV are both highest on the board. Jerad Eickhoff has a 35.3 GB% over his last seven starts with a hard hit rate above 33% in six of them. Ariel Miranda has allowed a league leading 31 HRs this year and his 9.0% Barrels/BBE is the second worst mark on the board. His opponent, the Yankees are second in sOPS+ vs fly ball pitchers (114). Jeremy Hellickson allowed five HRs in his last start and has a hard hit rate above 40% in five of his last seven starts without a ground ball rate exceeding 40% in any of those starts. Premium subscribers have access to the daily Trendspotting article, which matches batters making the hardest contact with pitchers allowing it each day and it favors some Boston batters tonight against a pitcher allowing nearly 10% Value Hits to LHBs this year. LHBs have a 13.6 GB% and 42.5 Hard% over that span. Robert Stephenson has the only double digit barrel rate on the board (11.6% of BBEs). Premium subscribers have access to the daily Trendspotting article, which matches batters making the hardest contact with pitchers allowing it each day.

According to Baseball Savant, not only does George Springer have three HRs in nine PAs against Ariel Miranda, but he also has a 94.6 mph aEV on seven batted balls. No other player on the slate has as many HRs against the pitcher they are facing tonight, though Nolan Arenado is the only batter who exceeds a 90 mph aEV on those who have two. In nine PAs and eight BBEs against Luis Perdomo, he's averaged a 96.6 mph aEV. Perdomo has held RHBs to a 68.3 GB% since entering the league though. Another ground ball pitcher, Marcus Stroman (RHBs 59.6 GB% since last season) does not have much a split and a couple of Red Sox have hit him fairly hard. Xander Bogaerts has one HR, but three extra-base hits in 20 PAs with a 97.4 mph aEV (14 BBEs) and Mookie Betts has just a double in 19 PAs, but a 96.1 mph aEV on 12 BBEs. On the other side of that matchup, Jose Bautista has an interesting history with Eduardo Rodriguez. In 15 PAs, he has just one HR and one K, but a 94.4 mph aEV (12 BBEs).

Miranda has a low wOBA of .296 but that's in part due to his unsustainable BABIP of .206. Considering he's posted a 33.1% Hard%, that number should certainly rise over time. He's posted a high ISO of .213 in split though and has an xFIP of 5.23. Sano has pounded LHP for a 43.2% Hard% during the same stretch and he's fully capable of exploiting Miranda's high fly ball rate - he has a 43.2% FB% over the past two seasons. Those numbers have enabled him to post a .273 ISO and .361 wOBA. His teammate Brian Dozier has produced even better stats with a .315 ISO and .405 wOBA to go along with his 51.4% FB% and 40.4% Hard%. Minnesota will have eight batters attacking from the right side of the plate - Escobar, Buxton, Polanco, and Gimenez all have fly ball rates of at least 38.3% vs. LHP dating back to last season - and they make for an interesting tournament stack as their projected run total is fourth on the three-game slate, which should keep their ownership down a touch. Sano and Dozier are in the top three in our projections model on both FanDuel and DraftKings.

Ariel Miranda has pitched better at home (17.2 K-BB% since last season) than on the road, but has been a bit of a HR machine either way (10 in 50 innings at home). The Angels have just a 4.0 HR/FB vs LHP, but are predominantly RH. Though Miranda has kept RHBs to a wOBA more than 40 points lower than to LHBs, he’s surrendered 17 of his 18 career HRs to righties. If we’re dealing with a potential hard contact generator against a contact prone offense (6.8 K-BB% vs LHP), it’s difficult to find enough upside beyond the risk for more than $7K. Mike Trout was a top ranked bat no matter the platoon split of the pitcher. Projecting for a middling 4.1 runs with the expectation of a full strengh lineup, the issue is that they still don't strike out. Ben Revere may actually lessen the strikeout expectation, In a solidly negative run environment no bat deems necessary exposure here, but as one of just a few games without weather related risk tonight, Kole Calhoun (102 wRC+, .160 ISO vs LHP since 2015) and Yunel Escobar (126 wRC+, .107 ISO vs LHP since 2015) may merit looks.

Ariel Miranda is coming off of a less than stellar outing against the Oakland Athletics in which he allowed four earned runs in just three innings pitched. This is concerning considering the Athletics offense is nothing to write home about and he'll receive the unenviable task of matching up with the Cleveland Indians this evening. Through the first 88 innings of Miranda’s career, he has a below-average 19.9% strikeout rate to right-handed batters and an even-farther-below-average 15.7% strikeout rate to lefties, though he has only completed 15.1 career innings against them, so the sample is even more limited. Miranda also allows hard contact to batters from both sides of the plate, and while he does a solid job keeping the ball on the ground to left-handed batters (51.0% GB%), this is not at all the case versus righties, as he has notched only a 30.1% groundball rate thus far in his career. This is an excellent situation to stack the Indians batters in tournaments, as Edwin Encarnacion (125 wRC+, .363 wOBA, .202 ISO career vs LHP), Brandon Guyer (120 wRC+, .351 wOBA vs LHP since 2016), and Jose Ramirez (122 wRC+, .353 wOBA vs LHP since 2016) are really the Cleveland hitters that stand out from a skills perspective versus left-handed pitching. The other big name bats like Francisco Lindor and Carlos Santana haven't exhibited sustained success against southpaws, reserving them to tournament-only viability as stack fillers.

The RotoGrinders HR Predictor has been on target early this season and it has a bullseye on Giancarlo Stanton tonight. His 8.85% leads all players in a matchup against Ariel Miranda, who has already allowed three HRs to RHBs this season, after allowing 11 of his 12 to them last year as well. Stanton has a 178 wRC+ and .406 ISO vs LHP since 2015. Khris Davis (7.32%) is second most likely to homer. Although A.J. Griffin has been more competent against RHBs (.300 wOBA, 34.2 Hard% since last year), Davis has a .282 ISO vs RHP since 2015 and is facing a pitcher who allows a lot of hard contact in the air. Eric Thames (6.8%), Chris Carter (6.4%) and Marcell Ozuna (6.33%) are the other three players to exceed 6%. None of those names should come as a surprise.