WACHA LOOKS YUKCY
Michael Wacha allowed six runs over four innings against the Rockies Thursday. The effort upped his ERA to 4.03 and his WHIP to 1.46. Let’s investigate.
The soon to be 25 year old Wacha is striking out 7.71 batters per nine with a 3.16 BB/9 ratio. Those numbers are pretty close to his 7.92 and 2.85 career marks.
Wacha is allowing 0.70 homers per nine innings this season. His career mark if 0.76.
Wacha also has a 1.73 GB/GB ratio which is well above his 1.33 career mark. That’s good news.
Wacha has a 4.08 SIERA and 3.84 xFIP this year, 0.06 and 0.04 off his marks from last season. So why is his ERA over four and his WHIP a terrible 1.46?
Wacha has a .338 BABIP versus his career mark of .285.
Wacha is throwing fewer first pitch strikes. This season the mark is 59.8 percent. The mark was over 63 percent the last two seasons.
Wacha isn’t missing bats. Each year of his career his swinging strike rate has gone down. That’s a terrible trend. Here are the marks for four years: 11.4, 10.2, 9.5 and 7.9 percent.
His fastball is getting hit, hard. For his career the pitch has allowed batters to hit .259 with a .711 OPS. This season the marks are .340 and .814. Folks around the team say his fastball is pretty straight and he’s just slightly missing his spots – hence the poor results.
Wacha isn’t that far off and might be a good “buy low” type from an upset owner. It’s reasonable to expect the ERA to be much closer to 3.50 the rest of the way, and the WHIP is likely to finish closer to his career 1.22 mark than his current 1.46 rate.
TELL ME IT AIN’T SO
I’ve been getting a ton of questions about a former first round draft pick, he was actually taken 3rd overall in 2013, who allowed four runs over three outings. Look I get it. Over 20 innings he allowed a mere 10 hits, only walked four guys and struck out a whopping 24 batters. So why is it that I told everyone who was asking about the pitcher to be very cautious? He pitches for the Rockies.
Jon Gray is an elite talent. If he was on about 25 teams in baseball I would be pushing folks to add him. Unfortunately, he pitches for the Rockies which means that he’s going to be making a ton of starts at home, in Colorado, and that’s just not a place anyone should be starting pitchers.
So let me state the obvious before moving on.
I would never start a Rockies pitcher in Colorado.
I would never roster a Rockies pitcher in a mixed league unless (A) I was desperate for wins or strikeouts in the second half of a season or (B) he was making two starts. That’s it.
That means that Jon Gray isn’t on any of my rosters this season.
Gray has a fantastic combination of 10.97 strikeouts per nine and a 51 percent ground ball rate. He’s even lowered his walk rate down to 2.81 per nine this season. All of this is really good stuff folks. But he pitches for the Rockies so you have to be concerned with him, just off the hop. You should be downright concerned when he gets blitzed on the road as he did Thursday night when the Cardinals scored nine runs against him. Again, the skills are impressive and there is a ton to like long-term… if he gets out of Colorado. To this point it’s lots of strikeouts – 79 in 72.2 innings – but a .292 BAA, .381 BABIP and 1.51 WHIP betray the fact that he’s simply unable to overcome the travails of being a big league pitcher… so far.
SEVERINO UPDATE
I’m a fan of the skill set of Luis Severino. You all know that by now. Unfortunately, the game hasn’t caught up to the skills as he’s gone 0-6 with a 7.46 ERA. He then came down with a triceps injury that landed him on the DL. With numbers that bad it’s not a shock at all to hear the Yankees are considering making a change to their starting rotation when Severino is healthy. Still, manager Joe Girardi is standing fast in support of Severino. "Well, we haven't talked about any changes," Girardi said. "Obviously the biggest thing is you've got to get [Severino] healthy and see where he's at. We haven't talked about, 'This is what we're going to do.” At the same time, Girardi then offered the old caveat, and no one wants to see that. "There are a lot of things that can happen between today, tomorrow and the next day. I've always told you, I cross the bridges when we get there. It doesn't make any sense."
Bottom line is that if Ivan Nova, who figures to get at least one more start, pitches well that he could take over the spot that Severino was filling in the rotaiton. Nova, no great shakes, is performing in a manner that Severino could only dream about having allowed three runs over 16.1 innings. If you’re not familiar with Nova there a good reason for that – he hasn’t been fantasy relevant since 2013. The 29 year old has struck out fewer than six batters per nine since the start of the 2014 season with a league average walk rate. He’s also allowed a whopping 23 homers in 145 innings. He does generate grounders, a ton of them, at 51 percent for his career. Still, he’s more of a place holder than anything else.
The real issue for the Yankees is that they lack starting pitching depth. I noted the struggles of Severino but things might be even more concerning when it comes to Michael Pineda who appears to have lost all his confidence. He’s now 1-5 with a 6.60 ERA and 1.65 WHIP, though the majority of metric suggest he should be performing at a much higher level. Still, he’s made some bad pitches this season and batters have hammered them to the tune of 10 homers in eight starts. He allowed 21 homers in 27 starts last season.
In the end Nova is a streaming option in mixed leagues, but it’s possible he carves out a role as an AL-only option given all the uncertainty with the Yankees staff.
Ray Flowers and Jeff Mans are ready to take your questions, in the weekly Fantasy Alarm Live Advice session, at 2 PM EDT. Do you have time to sneak a question in while at work? Find out how to be part of the experience.
DFS DIAMONDS
*The following list of players are guys that Ray recommends as daily plays.
CATCHER: Matt Wieters has two homers and two doubles his last four games with four RBI. Hector Santiago allows 1.26 homers per nine innings and his 7.02 K/9 mark would be a 5-year low so Wieters could keep it going.
FIRST BASE: Clay Buchholz cannot get lefties out as they’ve hit .319 against him with a .404 OBP. Meanwhile there is Carlos Santana who has had three walks, four hits, including two homers, leading to six RBI his last three games.
SECOND BASE: Christian Friedrich cannot get righties out. Rather comical really. Here is his career slash line against them: .321/.388/.442. Howie Kendrick will use that matchup to springboard a push to success. After all, he’s hit .297 against lefties in his career.
THIRD BASE: Martin Prado has gone 9-for-18 against Tanner Roark with five RBI. Prado is batting a rather vacuous .371 on the year that also includes a .351 mark under the lights.
SHORTSTOP: Jimmy Rollins has lit up Dillon Gee with a .452/.500/.710 line over 34 plate appearances. That effort includes two homers and seven runs. Rollins has seven hits in eight games and has scored eight times in seven games.
OUTFIELD: Kole Calhoun is opposed by Mike Wright who has been torched for a .895 OPS by lefties (.371/.437/.507). Calhoun is batting a solid .274 with a .355 OBP against lefties and he’s been on his game in May (.323/.413/.403).
OUTFIELD: Danny Valencia takes on the returning from the disabled list, CC Sabathia. The big lefty has been hit hard by righties this season with a .293 average and .350 OBP. The noted lefty smasher that is Valencia is batting .393 with four homers and a 1.309 OPS against portsiders.
OUTFIELD: Stephen Piscotty is batting .400 with a 1.20 OPS against lefties this season. He’s hitting .371 with a .935 OPS in May. Patrick Corbin has allowed a .288/.329/.464 slash line against righties.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 7 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).