Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

In tonight’s slate I am going to use Jordan Zimmerman (home to the Braves) and Clay Buchholz (home to the Orioles) as my two starting pitchers. I love Gerrit Cole and he’s my number one option, but everyone is going to use him in a GPP format.

Zimmerman has been very hittable this year, but his hard hit average is only slightly higher than last year, which indicates the .340 BABIP has more to do with bad luck than him being very hittable. I’ve seen a couple of his starts and his command been off, which has led to balls getting hit hard. However, the Braves will not have Freddie Freeman in the lineup so Zimmerman should be able to coast through this Triple-A offense.

The reason why I’m using Buchholz is fairly simple. Blind resume time. There are three pitchers and one of them is Buchholz. Can you pick which one is him?

Player A is David Price and C is Felix Hernandez. I was shocked myself when I took a deep dive into Buchholz’s numbers. He’s basically performed just as well as Price and Hernandez but his salary on DraftKings is $3,500-4,000 less. Obviously Buchholz carries a lot more risk because on a 1-10 scale for consistency he rates as a two, but at his salary he provides the highest ROI opportunity (also, you could make the argument Price and Hernandez are priced too high and I would agree with you).

Other Pitchers I considered:

Mike Bolsinger – @CHC

Bolsinger falls into the Tyson Ross and Carlos Martinez class of pitcher in that they’re high strikeout, high walk and high ground ball rate pitchers. However, Bolsinger is a far lesser than pitcher because his hard hit rate is 18.4 percent, which is league average. The fact he’s facing the Cubs making him an intriguing option. Against righties, they have the second highest strikeout rate, seventh lowest hard hit rate and the lowest in-play rate.

Roenis Elias – KC

I’ve been saying for a couple of weeks Elias is going to regress and he hasn’t. The Royals are an above average offense against lefties in terms of wOBA and hard hit rate. Elias is a fly ball pitcher so pitching at home increases his value. The Royals do not hit a lot of ground balls so a lot of balls will be hit in the air. Elias’ hard hit rate is 19.5 percent which is below average, which means I think he’ll allow 1-2 home runs.

Jimmy Nelson – NYM

I considered Nelson because he’s facing the Mets offense, but he’s been a far less effective pitcher in his last seven starts than his first seven starts (table below).

If you’re playing in DFS on Monday you’re probably going to use either (or both) Clayton Kershaw or Felix Hernandez (for the record, Kershaw is my number one pitcher). If you don’t use both pitchers you’re most likely going to win or lose, because of the short slate, on your second pitcher performs. Below are my starting pitcher rankings. Also, all my analysis in regards to team based statistics are the same handedness of the pitcher.

Michael Pineda

This past Wednesday I wrote I was hesitant to use Pineda because after a stellar start to the year he was very average. He pitched great against the Marlins that night, but I still have reservations if he will continue to improve upon his last start. However, he’s facing the Phillies and even if he’s only 75 percent of his true talent level he should do well. If you’re playing in a GPP at DraftKings I bet the majority owners will go with Pineda and either Kershaw or Hernandez so you may want to use another pitcher.

Hector Santiago

I’ve been hesitant to recommend Santiago because of the high walk rate, but in his last eight starts he only has 12 walks (6.2 percent walk rate). The Astros’ best hitters are righties, which implies they should mash lefties, but for the year they only have the tenth best hard hit rate against southpaws. Santiago is a fly ball pitcher and he’s pitching at home. The Astros have the seventh highest strikeout rate against lefties so if he can limit the amount of hard hit contact he should do well.

Drew Hutchison

In regards to upside, Hutchison’s upside is as high as any pitcher starting on Monday. I was extremely high on him entering the season, but after watching him struggle in most of his starts I’m backing off. The biggest reason why he’s struggled has been due to bad fastball command to righties. He was very successful last year throwing the fastball up in the zone, but this year when the catcher wants the fastball up he’s leaving it in the middle of the strike zone. What has me the most concerned is his plan of attack is always the same to righties: get ahead in the count with the fastball then throw sliders down and away.

The Rays are below average offense against righties (in both wOBA and hard hit rate). They also have the seventh highest strikeout rate and have the ninth worst in-play rate, which means they won’t put a lot of balls in-play and will strikeout a lot. The reason why I rated Hutchison ahead of Tommy Milone is because the true talent level discrepancy is wide.

Tommy Milone

Milone is a getting a lot of love in the fantasy community as a sneaky streaming option. Milone is pitching at home, which suits his talent level (i.e. he pitches to contact with well below average stuff and hopes the ballpark will suppress fly balls). Also, the White Sox have the lowest wOBA against lefties for the year. In fact its 42 points less than the next team. They also have the lowest hard hit rate (by 34 points) against lefties too. Milone doesn’t have good stuff so you’re playing with fire, but if there was ever a chance to use him and feel good about it it’s this matchup.

Trevor Bauer

At first glance I thought Bauer would be my number option because on a pure talent level he’s the best pitcher. The Tigers matchup is obviously not a good one, but it’s not as a bad as you may think. For the year, they’re only 11^th in wOBA and tenth in hard hit average. Part of the reason why the numbers could be suppressed was due to Victor Martinez hitting fourth for half of the season. Bauer’s stuff is good enough he could strikeout 10-plus, but since he walks so many hitters he’s going to be flirting with trouble the entire game.

Tsuyoshi Wada

In six starts Wada has been incredibly inconsistent regardless of the matchup. In his 2015 Wada struck out nine in 4.2 innings, but since then he hasn’t had more than six strikeouts. One reason why the strikeout totals have been down was due his low pitch counts, but in his last start he threw 107 pitches in seven innings. The Dodgers have the sixth highest hard hit average against lefties and since Wada walks too many hitter’s means I’m looking elsewhere.

Matt Andriese

Since Andriese is a ground baller he has a puncher’s chance to pitch well, but his hard hit rate would put him in the bottom 15 percent among starting pitchers (small sample caveat). If he wasn’t facing the Blue Jays I could be convinced he’s worth a start on a short slate, but the Blue Jays have the best offense in 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.

I was light with the pitcher analysis this week because I’m writing DFS pitcher rankings every day and I feel like I would just be repeating myself. My DFS rankings actually provide good write-ups about how well/poorly a pitcher is performing in general. Check out my Twitter account for links to my DFS rankings for the past few days.

I was extremely impressed with Matt Wisler’s debut Friday night against the Mets. There is a slight asterisk because it was the Mets, but the bottom line is he has the pitches that can get lefties and righties out and most importantly, his command looked big league ready.

I’ve been saying all season that I still believe in Collin McHugh, but at this point I no longer believe he can revert back to the player he was in 2014, but I still believe he can be a top 50 starting pitcher the rest of year. The primary reason is his swing and miss rate is 24.2, which puts him in the top 25 percent among qualified starting pitchers. The strikeouts should improve, but his hard hit rate is much higher than last year, which indicates when he’s missing, he’s missing badly.

I wrote a few days ago I have no idea what to make of Jimmy Nelson, but he’s facing the Mets and the matchup is worth a stream start in a 12-team mixed league. Also, he’s going to be a sneaky play in DFS formats.