Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

The match ups and data you see below were pulled Friday morning. The data is for the 2015 season. Please be aware the match ups are subject to change. If you have any questions about the rankings hit me up Twitter @MattCommins

These are rankings for the entire week so I give the edge to a lot of fantasy pitchers who pitch twice. Also, the rankings are based on traditional 5×5 categories. I also provide write-ups for a few pitchers. My hope is after you read them you have a better understanding of why I ranked them.

Carlos Rodon has had four straight quality starts (1.61 ERA and 1.00 WHIP), but I’m still not believing this is a hot streak or he’s turned a corner. During this span his walk rate is 10.2 percent and before those four starts 12.9 percent. Also, the strike percentage is also the same. The biggest difference is the BABIP. During the four starts .219 and before .366. I believe Rodon has the raw stuff to be a top 25 starting pitcher, but I don’t trust pitchers with such a high walk rate.

In 26 road starts since 2014 Jake Odorizzi has a 4.97 ERA, 1.414 WHIP and 12.7 percent HR/FB rate. For comparison, his home HR/FB rate during that same time frame is 4.7 percent. Odorizzi doesn’t have overpowering stuff, which is why he’s been a much better pitcher at home.

Hector Santiago has two great matchups this week. Both the A’s and Rangers do not make a lot of hard hit contact against lefties. For most of Santiago’s career (as a starter) walks have been a problem for him. However, since June his walk rate is only 6.9 percent. Also, the strikeout rate is 21.5 percent. I would have ranked him higher, but the Angels have the worst offense in August and I have doubts if they are going to score enough runs for him to earn wins.

In Colin McHugh’s last five starts he has a 1.89 ERA, 1.110 WHIP and a 25 percent strikeout rate. Since the All-Star Break the Mariners have the scored the seventh most runs in the majors so this matchup is not the cake walk as it seems on paper. However, the reason why I like McHugh has been the introduction of a cutter. The cutter is allows him to miss more bats and most importantly, allows the fastball to play up.

My approach to ranking/selecting pitchers in GPP formats on DraftKings is broken into three parts.

1. How good is the pitcher? This may sound overly simplistic but I’ll never use a pitcher unless I believe he has a high likelihood he can get outs consistently. I use three statistics primarily to evaluate a pitcher: strikeout rate, hard hit rate and hit distribution (ground balls and fly balls). Strikeouts are not the end all, be all because there are different expectations based on the pitchers salary. Strikeouts are very important, but they need to evaluated and rooted in the second part.
2. What is the pitcher’s salary? There different point expectation levels for each salary range. A pitcher with five digits implies he is going to provide 27-plus points (usually with a lot of strikeouts) and the likelihood of that are high. A pitcher below $7,000 means expectations should be lowered. Therefore, expect 10-14 points with the expectation he could score in the single digits. When evaluating a pitcher below $7,000 I’m looking for a quality start with moderate strikeouts (4-5) over 6-plus innings. The reason why is these pitchers may not have the ceiling as the pricier pitchers, but they may the higher ROI potential. By that I mean, if a $6,500 pitcher provides 19 points that’s better than a $11,000 pitcher providing 27 points because the ROI (return on investment) is better. Or in other words, you’re making more points per dollar spent.
3. Who is the pitcher playing and where is the game? Everyone uses Coors as an example as a place where to not choose a pitcher, but let’s take it a little further. Obviously you don’t want a pitcher pitching in Coors, but what about a fly ball pitcher in Milwaukee? I’m not using a fly ball pitcher in that ballpark because the likelihood of home run is higher than in another ballpark like Oakland or Minnesota. The initial team statistics I look at is wOBA and hard hit rate against the handedness pitcher. These statistics quickly provide insight into how effective the offense is. It’s very important to take these statistics into context because players may have been injured and come back into the lineup. The next team statistic is strikeout and hit distribution against the handedness pitcher. For example, if a team hits a lot of ground balls, the pitcher generates a lot of ground balls and is only priced $6,500 odds are I’m going to use him.

The match ups and data you see below were pulled Saturday morning. The data is for the 2015 season. Please be aware the match ups are subject to change. If you have any questions about the rankings hit me up Twitter @MattCommins

These are rankings for the entire week so I give the edge to a lot of fantasy pitchers who pitch twice. Also, the rankings are based on traditional 5×5 categories. I also provide write-ups for a few pitchers. My hope is after you read them you have a better understanding of why I ranked them.

The Rangers are a much better offense against righties, but I’m still buying Kevin Gausman. The primary reason is he he’s actually a more effective pitcher against lefties than righties over his career.

If the Royals can make Jeremy Guthrie look like a Major Leaguer then Kris Medlen is going to have fantasy value. He’s been pitching in relief so he may only be limited to 50-60 pitches in his first outing, but if he’s in the rotation the rest of the year he’s a must add in 14-team mixed leagues.

I have Alex Wood as high as I do because he has a great chance to earn two wins. Ultimately (i.e. when he becomes arbitration eligible like Drew Pomeranz) he’s going to wind up in the bullpen.

I loved Derek Holland to begin the year and it looks like he’s finally healthy. In his first start back form the DL the stuff looked great and most importantly did not walk anyone.

Even though Jonathan Gray got lit up by the Mets (in New York) I’m still using him in deep mixed leagues because the matchup is too good to pass up. Also, I’m very likely to be using him because he will likely be priced less than $6,000 in DraftKings.