Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

Chris Tillman has struggled this year. Entering Tuesday he had a 6.10 ERA and 1.62 WHIP. His biggest problem has been command; he has 22 walks in 41.1 innings or another way to put it is he’s walked 12 percent of the batters he’s faced. Among pitchers with at least six starts he has the fourth highest walk rate.

Odds are if you drafted Tillman (53^rd on average in ESPN) you may be encouraged to believe he may be turning a corner when you look at his box score against the Astros. The major positive was he threw more strikes. This year he’s only throwing strikes 60.2 percent of the time. Last night the strike percentage was62.8 percent, which is on par to the strike percentage he’s had from 2012-14 (63.3 percent).

Even though the strike percentage was up a lot of the strikes he threw were not quality strikes. He left a lot of fastballs in the middle of the zone and he couldn’t throw his curveball for strikes. In fact I don’t think any of the curveballs would have been strikes if the batters never swung.

The Astros have the second highest strikeout rate and third lowest batting in the majors. As I was watching I couldn’t help but think how a better offense would have performed against him (by better, I mean a team that makes more contact) because he threw a lot of bad strikes but got away with it.

The question for fantasy owners is what to do with Tillman moving forward. What’s interesting about Tillman is from 2012-14 his ERAs were all below his FIP and xFIP. Tillman wasn’t the only pitcher who outperformed his FIP and xFIP. Three other starting pitchers had similar results with the outlier being Ubaldo Jimenz. Usually when a pitcher outperforms his FIP and xFIP odds are he’s been a little lucky, but the fact he’s done it for three straight seasons and the Orioles pitching staff have seen similar results make it seem like its not luck.

Other than 15-team mixed or AL-only leagues I would not have him in my starting lineup for the simple reason he’s not throwing strikes consistently and the quality of strikes he is throwing are not good, which is part of the reason why his BABIP (.312) is the highest its been since 2011. If I were in a 12 or 10-team mixed league I would drop him for either good streaming options (Roenis Elias and Brett Anderson) or pitchers with higher ceilings (Drew Hutchison and Jesse Hahn).

Choosing pitchers in DFS can be a very tricky proposition because more times than not you’re going to win or lose based on how they perform. I play at DraftKings, which requires two starting pitchers; FanDuel only requires one starting pitcher. Since I play at DraftKings I’m going to focus the rest of the article on that format.

There are a lot of strategies on how to select pitchers. Some recommend choosing the hitters first, then the pitchers. That’s a bad idea. Predicting future baseball results can be a very futile, but predicting the performance of a starting pitcher is more accurate than hitters. Therefore, I choose the two pitchers I want to use for that day.

The pitchers I choose vary depending on the type of format I’m playing. Specifically, 50/50 (double ups) and GPP (guaranteed prize pools). In general when I’m recommending a pitcher for GPP it’s because they have upside to have a big day at a very low cost. What makes a pitcher a GPP recommendation and not a 50/50 recommendation is the GPP pitcher has a greater chance of not performing well. In 50/50 contests if one of your pitcher blows up (i.e. has an in-game ERA of over 4.50 and a WHIP over 1.3) you’re not likely going to win. When I’m choosing pitchers for 50/50 I want pitchers who have a great chance of providing a quality start with a strikeout per inning.

Below you will find analysis on what type of format I would use a particular pitcher (if at all) for Monday, May 25, 2015. Also, I omitted some pitchers on purpose because there is no chance I would be using them in any format. Lastly, I’m not ranking the players because I want you, the reader to make him his/her own mind ;0)

Nate Eovaldi: Pass

The Royals have a fairly left-handed lineup and Eovaldi still has not figured out lefties. This year lefties have a .988 OPS and for his career before 2015 .770 (compared to only .678 against righties).

Bartolo Colon: GPP

Colon has been brutal his last three starts, allowing 17 earned runs 15.1 innings. However, he’s facing the Phillies at home. The Phillies do not have a good lineup or a good team. They currently have the lowest wOBA against right-handed pitching for the season. The velocity of the fastball has been relatively stable, which is why I think he could have a bounce back start.

Dallas Keuchel: 50/50, GPP

Keuchel is a good pitcher. He fields his position well, holds runners well and produces a lot of ground balls. In fact he had the highest ground ball rate last season and leads all qualified starters this season. The Astros are among the leaders in baseball in the number of times they utilize the defensive shift, which is great for him. He’s going to be a massive regression candidate as the season progresses, but I expect him to have continued success against the Orioles who are 24^th in the majors in wOBA in the past month.

Wei-Yin Chen: GPP

Since Chen pitches a hitter friendly ballpark you would think he has a substantial difference in his home-road splits, but his career numbers are almost identical at home and on the road. The Astros strikeout the most of any team in baseball so you may be able to get 6-7 innings with 8-plust strikeouts.

Kyle Lohse: GPP

If you remove the first start of the year he has a 4.47 ERA and 1.113 WHIP so he’s pitched much better than his ERA and WHIP would indicate. For the year, the Giants surprisingly have the fourth best wOBA against right handed pitching.

Tim Lincecum: GPP

In Lincecum’s last four starts he has a 1.05 ERA and a 0.974 WHIP, but I’m still not buying. The simple reason why is during that stretch he’s walking 10.9 percent of batters. I avoid high walk pitchers for yearlong fantasy as well as DFS, but he’s facing an average Brewers team and may be worth a chance.

Joe Kelly: GPP

The Twins mash lefties, but they cannot hit righties; they’re 27^th in the majors in wOBA against righties for the season. Despite Kelly’s poor ERA and WHIP he has made an improvement in the strikeout rate; going from 15.9 percent last year to 21.2 percent this year.

Tanner Roark: GPP

The reason why he’s only a GPP is because the most pitches he’s thrown this season is 50 pitches so I doubt the Nationals will allow him to come close to 100 pitches. If I knew for a fact he could throw 100 or more I would say he’s a 50/50 play too.

Jesse Hahn: GPP

Hahn has not looked like the pitcher he was last year, but he hasn’t pitched as poorly as his ERA would indicate. He’s facing the Tigers who have the third highest wOBA against righties so he is definitely a high risk, high reward player.

Carlos Martinez: GPP

Martinez could be a 50/50 play, but I want to see what the Diamondbacks lineup looks like first. The reason why I say that is because for some reason they are platooning A.J. Pollock, their second best hitter, with two other outfielders. Also, he still has major problems getting lefties out so if the lineup is fairly left handed I wouldn’t use him in a 50/50.

Chase Anderson: GPP

I love fastball-changeup pitchers. Anderson has pitched extremely well for the season, but he’s going to regress to a 3.30ish ERA when the season concludes. The reason why is he doesn’t have overpowering stuff and he pitches in one of the worst ballpark for pitchers. In the past month the Cardinals have the fifth highest wOBA against righties.

Drew Hutchison: GPP

I wrote a “scouting” report on Hutchison here.

Jake Odorizzi: 50/50, GPP

Odorizzi has totally revamped his approach to pitching. He’s walking far less batters, generating more ground balls and is pitching deeper into games. All of that is great, but this is coming at the expense of the strikeout rate, which is not good for fantasy. Despite that, he’s going to be on my 50/50 lineup.

Roenis Elias: GPP

Elias pitched great in his last start against the Orioles, but the Rays are sixth in the majors in wOBA against lefties. Last year walks plagued Elias, but this year the walk rate is down two and a half percentage points (from 9.2 percent to 6.8 percent).

Brett Anderson: GPP

The Braves are 26^th in the majors in wOBA against lefties for the year and Anderson has struck out 15 batters in the past two starts (11.2 innings). Eventually the Dodgers are going to hit so the odds of him winning are higher than normal.

Tyson Ross: GPP

Most fantasy players will have Ross as a 50/50 player, but he’s walking batters at an enormous rate (13.5 percent), which is too high for me. Since he’s one of the better pitchers on Monday he’s going to be priced too high.

Jered Weaver: GPP

In his last three starts Weaver has a 1.54 ERA and 0.729 WHIP. Maybe he has found something and made the appropriate changes? Or maybe he’s benefitted from a .179 BABIP?

The match ups and data you see below were pulled Sunday 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.

Johnny Cueto is going to miss today’s (Sunday, May 24) start due to elbow soreness. According to Mark Sheldon he’s only going to miss one start and he could have pitched today, but just not at 100 percent. Any time you hear elbow soreness and pitcher in the same sentence it’s never a good thing. The injury and the potential he misses more than one start is the reason why I ranked him lower than he should be.

With Doug Fister on the DL Tanner Roark, not A.J. Cole is going to get Fister’s spot in the rotation. Roark has not thrown more than 50 pitches this year so I have to assume he’ll only throw 80-90 pitches in his first start. If Fister misses a substantial amount of time and Roark were to say in the rotation the rest of the year then he’s a top 50 starting pitcher because of the win potential and underlying stats.

I wrote about Carlos Rodon and Drew Hutchison at Baseball Professor. Hutchison is a two-start pitcher this week and has two slightly above average matchups (home to the White Sox and at the Twins). If he was only starting at the Twins he would be ranked 10-15 spots higher because of the pitcher friendly ballpark.

Mike Bolsinger’s ERA and WHIP are very deceiving, but that does not mean you should automatically overlook what he’s done so far. He’s a ground ball pitcher who does not throw hard so his margin for error is smaller, but he’s still pitching on one of the top five best teams in baseball and is very valuable in quality starts leagues. The Cardinals matchup is not as it seems. In the month of May they are only 17th in the majors in wOBA against righties.

The Padres offense has been very hit or miss this year, which is very similar to the offense last year. In the past month they are last in the majors in wOBA against left handed pitching, which appears to bode well for Francisco Liriano’s start in San Diego. However, since their best hitters are all right-handed hitters I would think twice before I put Liriano in my lineup.

I love how the Orioles are giving Mike Wright another start. I saw his Major League debut and I was impressed and surprised. The scouting reports said his fastball was 92-94 mph, but his first pitch was 98 mph. Not only did he reach that velocity once, he hit 96-plus multiple times throughout the game. He’s more a ground baller because he throws a two-seamer that sits 91-94 and only throws the hard four-seam fastball when he needs it. What impressed the most about his start was he threw any of his pitches regardless of the count, which is a sign he has confidence in his command. At this point he’s better than Miguel Gonzalez, Bud Norris and (sadly) Chris Tillman and I hope he gets a long look in the rotation. His OFP (overall future potential) is good number three real life starter. Sadly, his future depends on how well Wright pitches again against the White Sox. If he struggles, he will most likely get sent back to Triple-A.