MLB Pitching Pulse: 3-29-18

Pitching is the lifeblood of a DFS lineup, and an important part of keeping those tabs open deep into the night. For those new with us, the Pitching Pulse is focused on providing information on four to five pitchers that are viable in various formats. This is a premium article that will give away one free preview pitcher, while the rest will be for premium members. We take a deep dive into pitchers across all salaries, looking for exploitable matchups, game theory plays, and identify the nightly chalk. Our information comes from our optimizer, FanGraphs, and other various MLB sites listed below. Feel free to comment below, or find us on Twitter at @BrentHeiden1, @JGuilbault11, and @dfcafe. We focus on Main Slates across all content, but will feature blurbs about other slates at times, and can be reached via Twitter or comments.

Opening Day brings us a fresh start and a boatload of aces for DFS. With DraftKings and FanDuel not matching up main slates, you have Clayton Kershaw and Corey Kluber in the main slate on FanDuel. Kershaw offers up a solid cash game floor as always, while Kluber is just a pivot away from Kershaw and Sale. You also have Max Scherzer in the mix against Cincinnati, but there is already some weather concerns. Scherzer should be a contrarian play, as Sale/Kershaw take a bulk of the ownership up top.

Digging into my favorite pay-up option on Opening Day, Chris Sale gets a Tampa Bay team that Sale owned last season. It is worth noting Sale was hit by a line drive, and is expected to be ready to go. Sale went 4-1 over six starts against Tampa, striking out 66 over 40.2 innings pitched. Going back to his slider more often last year, and throwing the fast ball less, we saw Sale reach a career high 36.2% strikeout rate. In addition to his strikeout potential, Sale isn't a wild arm with just a 5.1% walk rate. Sale got off to an insane start last season, before wearing down a bit later in the year. The Sox ace gets to face two Florida teams in a row, which are essentially Triple-A teams at this point. I expect another hot start to 2018.

Tampa was one of the worst offensive teams in baseball last season against left-handed pitching. They ranks 26th as a team in wOBA, 25th in ISO, and had the 5th highest soft-contact rate. The Rays were also a notoriously high strikeout team, sitting at 25.9%. They had a league high 12.9 SwStr% and were dead last in contact rate (73.5%). The Rays ranked 23rd against sliders last season, which Sale thew 32.9% of the time. Tampa has swapped a few right-handed bats in the lineup, Matt Duffy, Wilson Ramos, Carlos Gomez, and C.J. Cron are either new or weren't in the lineup much last season. Since 2015, Ramos has the highest wOBA vs. LHP of that group, sitting at .336. The rest are below .300. Nobody is shaking in their boots looking at this lineup, and we will be firing away quite often this year. Park Factor isn't something I weight heavily, unless I am looking at a 90 degree day in a medium to small ballpark. That isn't the case here. We know the stellar pitching parks are out west in Seattle, San Diego, Bay Area, and L.A. Tropicana Field suppresses home runs from both sides of the plate, as well as extra base hits.

Coming off a World Series winning run, and a stellar second half, Justin Verlander returns to Houston looking to repeat. They open up on the road against Texas, who were a big boom-or-bust offense last season. This is pretty much the same lineup as last season, which means the strikeout rate should continue to be rather high. The Rangers have some power, ranking 17th in wOBA against right-handers and 5th in ISO. That 24.3% strikeout rate against righties is what really made them an attractive option to target for upside. Texas was also a much better team at home, with a .345 wOBA compared to .297 on the road. I have a hard time going Verlander over a Sale/Kershaw in cash games, but tournaments it is pretty viable.

At 35 years old, coming off of a 243 inning season, do we need to worry? Maybe, but luckily in DFS we get to take chances on a daily basis instead of seasonly. We should expect a Verlander arm in the middle of his first and second half from last year. He allowed a .327 wOBA in the first half, and .233 in the second. Everything changed for the better in Houston, he cut his hard-contact down by 6%, and improved his K-BB by 15%. While it is a very small sample size, Verlander's September/October was a hell of a run. Over the course of 2017, Verlander boasted a 25.8% strikeout rate, and maintained a strong 95.2 mph velocity on his fastball. As pitchers get older, velocity diminishes, which can be an important edge in the fantasy world. As much as I sound like Verlander can't keep this up, I don't expect a drop off in 2018. Verlander is going to be a viable pitcher in all formats most starts, but he just misses out on the safety here for Opening Day.

Before I jump into more of the value tiered arms, Luis Severino stands out against Toronto. Touching on Toronto's offense first, I expect them to be a little bit better this season. A healthy Josh Donaldson and Devon Travis would help, but the additions of Randal Grichuk, Aledmys Diaz, and Curtis Granderson are not terrible offseason acquisitions. Will it be enough to get them over the hump against dominant arms? No, probably not, but this offense will be better than 2017's version.

Luis Severino was one of the league's best arms last season. He took a major step forward, and will look to build on elite 2017 numbers. Severino combined a 50.6% groundball rate with a 29.4% strikeout rate. Which means about 80% of at-bats resulted in groundballs or strikeouts. Pretty incredible when you think about it. Severino's two outings against Toronto last season aren't going to be too telling, but one start was five earned over 5.2 innings, while the other was two earned over seven. Severino tallied ten strikeouts over 12.2 innings. At these prices, we are going to want the strikeouts out of Severino which Toronto can offer up. Looking at what should be the Opening Day lineup, six of the nine hitters had a strikeout rate north of 21% last year against right-handed pitching. Justin Smoak, Kendrys Morales, and Curtis Granderson look to be the only lefties in the lineup, meaning the rest are likely to be right-handed.

Severino was dominant against right-handers, holding them to a .243 wOBA with a 29.7% strikeout rate. That number goes up a little against lefties (.287), but the strikeout rate remains the same. Severino averaged 97mph on his fastball last season, and dominated hitters with his slider. He threw it 35.1% of the time, generating a 17.6% swinging strike rate and 37.3% strikeout rate. The Jays ranked 29th against sliders last season, and 19th against changeups. While I do expect improvement as an offense, it is likely to be around league average. Severino is a slightly cheaper option than some of the big arms, and an ownership spin away from them.

It was announced rather late compared to other teams, but a healthy Garrett Richards is starting Opening Day against Oakland. Richards has all the talent in the world to be an above average starting pitcher, but health has been the issue the last two seasons. His last full season came in 2015, where he threw 207 innings with a 3.65 ERA. Since 2016, he has thrown 62.1 innings. There is one concerning aspect of Richards as a DFS play that Brent Heiden mentioned to me in our Slack -- Richards has only thrown 12.2 this Spring Training. It is also concerning that he allowed 15 baserunners over that span, and seven came via the walk. While we can always expect rust after lengthy injuries, there is risk moving into the regular season and pitching at this level. Richards did have 14 strikeouts over the 12.2 innings this Spring for what it is worth. Spring Training isn't usually something I reference stats from. Launch angles, pitch changes, and velocity changes is more important.

Over the healthier seasons for Richards (2013-2015), which resulted in 512 innings, he had a 3.45 ERA and 3.53 xFIP. A groundball rate over 50% made him a successful arm. He held opposing hitters to just a 24.7% hard-contact rate, and induced a 20% soft-contact rate. The strikeout rate was fairly average (20.4%), which is something we are after in DFS. Richards can become a strong strikeout arm with his above average fastball, solid slider, and a possibly revamped changeup and curve. A matchup against the A's ups the strikeout upside if his leash is long enough. Oakland is a team with a ton of power, and a team I will be playing offensively a lot this year. But, with big power comes strikeouts. Oakland had the highest ISO against right-handers last season, but also the fourth highest K% (24.4). With several boom-or-bust bats still in the lineup, things should remain the same. Richards has been excellent limiting home runs in his career with a 0.69 HR/9. Nice. The only thing I am worried about is Richards stamina and some rust.

On sites like FantasyDraft and DraftKings the pricing makes me feel a little bit easier about rostering Richards. Solo SP sites I do not see a real need for Richards given the slate of aces, and overall value of bats.

I was hesitating on the fifth name here. Danny Duffy was the name I was debating with, but I have moved away from Duffy. I don't mind him in tournaments, as Kauffman Stadium is friendly, and Duffy can pitch well from time-to-time. He is still average against right-handed bats, and Chicago should have about eight in their lineup. Instead we turn to Chase Anderson against a revamped San Diego lineup. Longtime San Diego Padre, Chase Headley, returns but that isn't the big splash in SD. Freddy Galvis is the big one. Just kidding, Eric Hosmer moving to San Diego will at least give them a bat that doesn't strikeout 25% of the time. San Diego won't make a big jump for power, and there K% should drop, but at 25.3% vs. RHP, they should still be in the bottom ten. San Diego has been a bottom barrel offense for a while now, and they should be a bit better this year, but likely still be a team to pick on.

After mentioning a few new lefties in the lineup, they are not the problem for Anderson. He has held left-handers to a .299 wOBA in his career, but .344 wOBA to right-handers. Last year, Anderson held right-handers to a .291 wOBA, but Anderson is likely to regress a little in 2018. If he can hold a 23.4% strikeout rate this season, and keep his walks to 2017 numbers, Anderson should continue to be a viable option in positive matchups. Anderson has the advantage of pitching in Petco Park, which is good given he allows a decent amount of fly balls. I don't expect a ton of ownership on Anderson this slate, even with a friendly matchup. 2SP sites you might see a little more as an SP2, where is where he is better served.