Hope everyone had a great Father’s Day weekend, enjoying food, family and some U.S. Open Golf! That’s how I like to spend this weekend every year personally.
Outside of golf’s third major, there also was some big news in the land of baseball over the weekend.
Edwin Encarnacion was traded to the Yankees from the Mariners, ensuring the Mariners, who was MLB’s hottest team to open the season, they are officially in give-up mode. In a corresponding move, the Yankees optioned budding young outfield Clint Frazier, a move that all bud puts the nails in the coffin for him finishing the season a Yankee in my opinion. He’s likely a trade chip to acquire a big-name pitcher before the deadline.
I don’t agree with the move as the Yankees have chumps like Brett Gardner still in the starting 9, but hey, I am not a GM. What do I know?
What I do know is we have a big 12-game slate today filled with a bunch of mid-tier pitching options and a few scrubs we can hopefully use to tee off on in our lineups.
Before we get to today’s selections, here’s a list of the worst pitcher xFIPs for today’s slate. Their current ERAs vs. handedness are in parenthesis.
PITCHER xFIP vs. LH
1. Elieser Hernandez – 7.41 (3.86)
2. Jhoulys Chacin – 6.60 (6.66)
3. Rick Porcello – 5.93 (5.59)
4. Jake Arrieta – 5.76 (5.26)
5. Miles Mikolas – 5.35 (6.25)
6. Felix Pena – 5.13 (3.67)
7. Danny Duffy – 5.12 (9.00)
8. Kenta Maeda – 5.10 (5.40)
9. Mike Fiers – 4.83 (3.52)
10. Andrew Cashner – 4.75 (1.87)
11. Lance Lynn – 4.73 (4.35)
12. Tyler Beede – 4.68 (11.74)
PITCHER xFIP vs. RH
1. Edwin Jackson – 7.36 (15.32)
2. Mike Fiers – 5.77 (5.61)
3. Tyler Beede – 5.31 (6.14)
4. Andrew Cashner – 5.04 (7.36)
5. Jhoulys Chacin – 5.02 (5.01)
6. Tommy Milone – 4.98 (3.86)
7. Danny Duffy – 4.91 (3.86)
8. Wade Miley – 4.63 (2.64)
As you can see, we have tons of pitchers that are really bad against lefties. We also have Edwin Jackson, who doesn’t make the worst list for left-handed bats, but he still gives up a ton of wOBA to lefties, those hits just haven’t turned into runs yet.
Anyway, the Angels, along with the Dodgers, are the top stacks on the board for me. Anyone against Edwin Jackson and Tyler Beede will be any day of the week. The Angels are hitting well and beat up on the likes of Blake Snell and Charlie Morton over the weekend, so of course they will beat up on Edwin tonight, right?
Let’s go!
PITCHERS
Mike Fiers – vs. Baltimore Orioles – $7,600
Analysis: I really can’t believe I am recommending this guy. He’s on my “never” list along with Anibal Sanchez, Homer Bailey (who is now removed temporarily after last week’s great performance), and Andrew Cashner. But it’s 2019. What a world. Fiers is facing off against the Baltimore Orioles, who are about as bad as they come. They are 27th in team wOBA with a paltry .171 ISO and 24.7% K-rate. This is FanDuel though and I am OK with this play since ERs are all pitchers lose points for. I don’t know that I could go this way on DraftKings. Fiers also has some weird splits. You see his xFIP against lefties, which isn’t terrible. Against righties though, he’s much worse, or should be. He’s always been a reverse-splits pitcher. But even with his bad ERA and xFIP, he still has allowed only a .289 wOBA, but has a .171 BABIP with a 2.08 HR/9.
Danny Duffy – at Seattle Mariners – $7,300
Analysis: I usually make one lineup on FanDuel, so I may go to Duffy here instead of Fiers, but it will be between them both for me today. But after I type this analysis, I might be talking myself into Duffy. It’s time to pick on the Mariners now, minus E5 and whoever else they decide to trade hear on out. But right now against lefties, Mariners are 21st in team wOBA against southpaws are striking out at a whopping 27% clip, the highest among any handedness for any team on this slate. Duffy is normally a stud against lefties, but you can see his xFIP shows he’s not been as good against lefties as his history shows. But the sample size is small. Against righties though, Duffy has been solid with a .290 wOBA, 6.69 K/9 and 0.89 HR/9.
