Dustin May Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

It’s pretty easy to look at tonight’s small slate, see the Dodgers facing the Mariners and plug in whoever’s pitching for the road team without even really looking. But there may be more justification to starting Dustin May this year against everyone. May struck out just 20.8% of batters with an 8.5 SwStr% over his first 90.2 major league innings in 2019 and 20. Through two starts this year, he’s struck out 16 of 44 with a 14.1 SwStr%. None of his 27 battted balls have been barreled with 15 on the ground. What’s changed? He threw 81 cutters to LHBs last year and 132 to RHBs with a 23 Whiff%. Not bad. He’s thrown 24 of 26 to LHBs this year with a 68.8 Whiff%. Last year, the pitch had 23.8 inches of vertical drop (-1.5 vs avg). This year, it’s 26.5 inches (-5.5 vs avg). Dustin May entered the season with over a 100 point wOBA split between left-handed and right-handed batters, keeping the latter grounded on 60.1% of batted balls and the former on just 40.6%. He’s now used his cutter to strike out nine of the 24 left-handed batters he’s faced, essentially neutralizing them, while RHBs have continued to pound it into the ground (71.4%). On the other side of this matchup, players are going to certainly want to sprinkle in some RH Dodger bats, as batters from that side of the plate have a .341 wOBA (.333 xwOBA) against Sheffield in his career. However, this is one of the more negative run environments in the league and the Seattle bullpen has been better than expected so far this season (2.93 ERA, 3.89 FIP, 4.01 SIERA).

Dustin May only struck out 21.1% of batters at AAA last season and just four of 20 Giants in his 2020 debut, but reasons to be encouraged include an average fastball velocity of 99 mph in his season debut (up over three mph since last season) and a 13.3 SwStr% after an 8.7 SwStr% in 34.2 innings last year. May also had a 53.3 GB% against the Giants, which compares favorably with his minor league batted ball rates (50+ GB% at every level). Concerns would be that May only threw 60 pitches last time out and that the Astros had just an 18.4 K% vs RHP last year. However, May pitched into the sixth inning in each of his four major league starts last year and was a late replacement on Opening Day. Houston is also an overall negative run environment and May costs just $6.1K on FanDuel.