Miami Marlins starting pitcher Jose Fernandez throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park, Sunday, May 15, 2016, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Welcome to the daily MLB updates and news article. We'll try and update it right up to line-up locks with as much information as comes across our desks. Let's get to it!
Last night's picks can be found here, so you can wrap your mind around what you need to be looking at before lineups lock today.
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Personnel
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St. Louis Cardinals
You can pretty much count on at least one team showing up here anytime we get Coors Field baseball, and as far as our algorithm is concerned, the choice is obvious tonight. Jorge de la Rosa had actually put up a couple of decent seasons heading into 2016 (at least for a guy making half his starts in Colorado), but he's regressed in a few very important ways this year. If you're a frequent reader here and know the kind of stats we value, you can probably already guess where that regression came: strikeouts, walks and homers. Those are the three numbers most under the direct influence of pitching performance, and when they're tanking across the board, it's a sure sign something ain't right. It could just be that de la Rosa is getting old, but the root of the problem isn't our concern; we're just looking to take cold-blooded advantage. The Cardinals have actually been slightly below average against lefties this season, but for a couple of reasons, we're not that concerned. 1) This is Coors Field, which turns below average offenses into very good ones; 2) The Cards have some right-handed bats we like; and 3) we don't totally believe in the reverse splits posted by righties like Jedd Gyorko, who prior to 2016 showed heavy favoritism for southpaws. The presence of Brandon Moss and/0r Matt Adams in the middle of the order could force some tough decisions when it comes to how you attack this lineup, but one way or another, we think you're going to want a good bit of exposure to the Cardinals tonight.
Texas Rangers
Next to Coors Field, Globe Life Park is arguably the best hitting environment in baseball, and the Rangers will have the pleasure of facing one of the weakest pitchers on the slate, which makes them an attractive option if you're looking to pivot away from Cardinals and Rockies. After about four years of mostly uninspiring results in the minors, Daniel Wright got called up to the bigs earlier this season, and things have gone about as poorly as you might have expected for a guy who had a 4.21 FIP in Triple-A. Of course with just 23 MLB innings to his credit, the sample size is tiny, but the 4.3 Ks/9 and 1.57 HRs/9 have more or less confirmed what we would've expected. Meanwhile, the Rangers improved their lineup dramatically with the trading deadline additions of Carlos Beltran and Jonathan Lucroy, and the results have followed. They rank fourth in baseball in wRC+ and ISO over the last 30 days as they've expanded their lead in the West to near double digits. Virtually every bat in the lineup is in play, as the plus-90-degree temperatures in Texas should have the baseball hopping tonight.
When we're treading in these waters, the question we have to ask ourselves is "how deep do we want to go?" Obviously, today, we've chosen "as deep as we can possibly get." Ok. Lots to talk about here. On the positive side, if you're playing Shields in your GPPs (don't play him in cash ever ever ever), you can count on being among the very very few who will, and differentiation is key if you're trying to take down a big tourney. On the other hand, it's a 15-game slate and lineup variation shouldn't be that tough to come by. Still, we're OK with a Shields lineup or two, not only to be contrarian, but because he's not always as terrible as you might think. The game log is dotted with some nice outings, like last time out when he gave up one run and fanned eight Indians in six innings, or when he shut out the Cubs over 7.2 IP a couple of months ago. Yeah, obviously if we're going back to July in search of anecdotal support of our argument, the premise is a little flimsy. We'll grant you that, and it's why we're not recommending deep exposure, despite the fact that the projection system sees Shields returning solid value. But as bad as Shields has been this year (5.27 xFIP), the Phillies have been his offensive equivalent of ineptitude (29th in wOBA vs. RHP, t-29th in wRC+). So basically, we're willing to risk (a little) not that Shields is good or even decent, but that the Phillies are worse.
If you need a mental mouthwash after reading about James Shields and the Philadelphia offense, Fernandez is the right kind of tonic. Surprising no one who's been paying attention, he leads all qualifying pitchers in 2016 with a 2.61 xFIP and 12.44 Ks/9. You'd be hard-pressed to argue any pitcher in the game has been more dominant, and that's why we love him in all formats tonight, even against a solid lineup like the Nationals. Also, it's worth noting: even though they've got some formidable sticks in the lineup, Washington hasn't actually been that great offensively. They rank 18th in the league with a 95 wRC+ against righties this season, and while they showed a nice uptick after making Trea Turner the everyday leadoff man, they've slumped over the last month. Like we often say, we don't get too concerned about hot and cold streaks, because they carry little predictive value, but the fact that Turner hasn't completely fixed the Nats lineup means we're not backing down against them when we've got a chance to use Fernandez at home.
Gyorko's not our highest-projected offensive player by any means, but the combination of his multi-position eligibility on DraftKings and his nice expected value on both DraftKings and FanDuel has him showing up in about 95 percent of our top optimal lineups as of Tuesday morning. Obviously, a big chunk of this recommendation is Coors-related, but it shouldn't go unnoticed that Gyorko has finally showing the power that was expected from him after he hit 23 homers in 2013. His ISO on the year is up to .240, and while he's done much of that damage against RHP, the numbers should start tilting toward a traditional platoon split as time goes on, based on both Gyorko's own history and years of data that tell us long-term reverse splits are extremely rare. All that to say, we like his matchup with de la Rosa tonight, and if he's in the heart of the order, we think he's a strong play in all formats.
These are players that show up in each of the top 10 lineups as produced by our lineup optimizer. This doesn't necessarily mean that they're "safe," it just means that their projected weighted-mean point total is a solid building block for a great lineup foundation today.
Good luck out there today! If you want access to all of our numbers, get started with a free trial below of our lineup optimizer, on us!
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