June is flying by quickly and summer is officially here.
Texas is going to be very hot again today as temps and heat indexes rise once again. It was very tolerable and somewhat comfortable temperatures most of this month, but then boom, prefaces of what’s to come in July, August and September arrived.
That means tonight’s game between the Rangers and White Sox will be one of the better hitting environments on today’s slate. We will get to them in a bit, but before that game and today’s recommendations, here’s the table of xFIPs for pitchers today (Baltimore not included). xFIP is listed first, then ERA is in parenthesis.
Pitcher xFIP vs. LH
1. Reynaldo Lopez – 6.56 (5.40)
2. Taylor Clarke – 6.41 (6.60)
3. Jeff Samardzija – 5.77 (4.50)
4. Brad Peacock – 5.62 (4.58)
5. Ariel Jurado – 5.62 (4.30)
6. Eric Lauer – 5.44 (5.40)
7. Sandy Alcantara – 5.40 (3.83)
8. Trevor Bauer – 5.45 (3.74)
9. Michael Wacha – 4.90 (3.75)
10. Tanner Anderson – 4.71 (7.20)
Pitcher xFIP vs. RH
1. Mike Leake – 5.51 (5.40)
2. Trent Thornton – 5.29 (3.68)
3. Reynaldo Lopez – 4.94 (7.12)
4. Michael Wacha – 4.91 (7.50)
5. Joe Musgrove – 4.83 (3.95)
6. Jakob Junis – 4.81 (4.60)
7. Chase Anderson – 4.62 (6.41)
8. Martin Perez – 4.59 (3.71)
9. Eric Lauer – 4.56 (4.34)
10. Griffin Canning – 4.49 (5.11)
And away we go!
PITCHERS
Aaron Nola – vs. Miami Marlins – $8,700
Analysis: I feel like I am really targeting the Marlins a lot, but it’s been working! Nola is priced $200 more than Mike Leake today, which is outright ridiculous! But the Marlins are still bad and much worse away from Marlins Park. They are 29th in wOBA in all of MLB and have a hapless .121 ISO and strike out 22.1% of the time to righties. Nola has had some struggles this year, but he’s still making balls miss bats: Against RH bats, he has 9.00 k/9 and versus lefties, it’s 11.53 K/9. He’s struggled and been unlucky to lefties, so it’s a good thing the Marlins don’t have a lot of lefties in this lineup.
HITTERS
Jung Ho Kang – 3B – Pittsburgh Pirates – $2,200
Analysis: The Pirates aren’t a super strong team against lefties, but they have some RH bats that can do some damage. Josh Bell is one of the better plays on the slate, but also one of the most expensive 1B. Kang comes in waaay super cheap against Eric Lauer, who owns a a 4.56 xFIP with a .322 wOBA and a 46% hard hit rate and 1.29 HR/9. Kang has a small sample size against lefties this year, but he’s been unlucky and is making good contact. He owns a .195 ISO with a 41.7 hard hit percentage. However, his wOBA and batting average are very low. His BABIP is very low too, sitting at .227. So when he’s making contact vs. southpaws, it’s hard and going for extra bases at times, but also resulting in outs. Eventually, those wrongs will right themselves.
