Investing & Maybe Fantasy Baseball

Matt Cain had the weirdest game I’ve seen from a starter. He gave up seven earned runs, all in the third inning. What made the start strange was in the five other innings he pitched, he didn’t allow a hitter to get on-base. Basically, other than the third inning he pitched like vintage Cain. In the third inning he was pitching in the stretch and he left a lot of balls in the middle of the plate and at times, it looked as though the hitters knew what was coming. Maybe he’s tipping his pitches? The table below shows his struggles this year with men on-base.

Dan Straily, like Bartolo Colon the night before, pounded the strike zone with all of his pitches. The White Sox are a bad offensive club. They’re 28th in OBP, 26th in batting average and 25th in slugging. It’s getting to the point where you start any pitcher starting against them. It’s no surprise seven of Straily’s eight strikeouts were swinging. Straily throws four pitches: fastball, changeup, slider, and curveball. He had trouble throwing the curveball for quality strikes; 50 percent of the hits he allowed were on that pitch. Basically, Straily pitched very well, but he was also helped out by the poor approach of the White Sox hitters.

Chris Archer pitched better than his box score would indicate. He has a plus-plus (on the scouting scale) fastball that sits in the mid-90s and touched 99 mph. The slider looked really good; if I didn’t know it was a slider I would think it’s a curveball because the slider has similar depth and movement of a curveball. The changeup looked really good at times, but he left too many of them up in the zone. When they were up in the zone the Indians hitters hit the ball with authority. I’m a big fan of the stuff and he is someone you should pick up if you haven’t done so already.

Michael Wacha looked really good yesterday. His fastball sat 92-93 mph and touched 96 a few times. The money pitch was the circle changeup; it was thrown with deception and has good fade; batters swung and missed 50 percent of the time. What impressed me the most from a fantasy perspective was the 53 percent ground ball rate. I love pitchers who can miss bats and generate a lot of ground balls. In terms of his delivery he puts a lot torque on the elbow right before he releases the ball, which gave me pause. My initial reaction to noticing that could lead to injury concerns … but honestly, anything could lead to injury. He only threw the curveball three times so I couldn’t get a real gauge of the pitch, but if he’s going to make it as a starter he’s going to need to develop that pitch into something more than a “show me” pitch.

Despite the solid box score from Eric Hosmer I’m not impressed as he’s still not hitting the ball with authority.

Despite the great matchup Andrew Cashner let down his fantasy owners. The problem was the feel for the changeup as he left it up and in the middle of the zone too often. He has the raw stuff to be a number 1-2 starter, but he doesn’t have the “I’m a badass” mentality I want to see from a pitcher of that caliber.

Despite having a 1.50 ERA and 1.22 WHIP in Jordan Lyles’ last three games. Having played in the majors since 2011 it’s easy to forget Lyles is only 22 years old. After watching a few of his starts the past two years Lyles doesn’t have overly impressive stuff, but has plus command of his fastball (sits at 89-92 mph) and command of his other three pitches (changeup, slider and curveball). Pitchers like Lyles have ceilings of a number three starter, which he has a really good chance of achieving. However, from a fantasy perspective Lyles isn’t someone you want on your roster besides deep leagues. This year he has a swing and miss rate of 18.2 percent, which ranks 116th overall among starters with at least five starts this year. On the bright side he has a ground ball rate of 50 percent (that ranks 31st overall among starters) he should have lower BABIPs and LOB rates, which will make him a serviceable fantasy spot starter. In terms of his start yesterday, he consistently pitched with men on-base and in scoring position (in five of his seven innings). In one inning the bases were loaded with zero outs and he was able to pitch out it.