In these dog days of summer, I imagine a video montage of baseball highlight reels set to classic rock music while our favorite teams and players continue to work their way to the end of the season. It’s all those fun baseball movies rolled into one, where Cleveland is trying to keep the team from moving away, say, in Major League, or Crash Davis is breaking minor league records while the major league world passes him by in Bull Durham.
It’s the sweaty, gritty, snot-rocket kind of highlight reel where players are muscling through their 162-game stretch while barely seeming to register that the fans are watching. They’re just doing the job.
Maybe I’m a romantic, but aren’t we all when it comes to baseball?
Here we go again for another week of streaming pitchers, and I’m always excited to defend a few choices. Remember that I’m keeping the availability of pitchers to around 50% in Yahoo leagues. I will offer someone to stream every single day, even if it’s a bad day to stream. However, I will warn you. I have a couple two-start pitchers this week who will also serve as my claim-and-hold guys.
Maybe this week we will find a solid version of Wild Thing or Nuke Laloosh.
Fantasy Baseball SP Streaming Options
Monday, July 17
Bryan Woo (SEA) vs. MIN 45%
The Baseball Savant page is a sea of red for the 23-year-old rookie. As a fantasy manager, we should be drooling over a pitcher like Woo if he’s available for hire on the waiver wire. His 3.66 ERA comes with a 2.77 xERA, and he’s in the 84th percentile or higher for chase rate, K%, and xBA.
Woo doesn’t walk a lot of guys and his impressive Double-A numbers were bound to come down to earth because of an 82.5% LOB%. But his LOB% has gone the other direction at the big league level, so there is some bad luck. It’s enough to imagine 3.50 as a reasonable baseline for now, which warrants increasing his ownership across the board.
Tuesday, July 18
Tarik Skubal (DET) at KC 53%
Today is Tarik Day, certainly. He’s facing one of the lowest-scoring teams in baseball, and while he has not gone five innings in this last two starts (as he recently came off the IL), it feels like Skubal is close to throwing more pitches. In 8 IP against Toronto and Oakland, he punched out 11 hitters and did not give up an earned run. The best news is that his velocity is up to 96 mph on the fastball. It was around 94 mph last year.
Last season, Skubal finished with a 3.52 ERA and was highly-touted as someone who would breakout at the beginning of the year. In 307 IP in the major leagues, he has struck out 329 guys, so that strikeout rate has always been there. If you can get Skubal in your league, like Bryan Woo above, you might claim and hold.
Wednesday, July 19
Aaron Civale (CLE) at PIT 53%
The 28-year-old hurler was drafted in the third round in 2016 and holds a career 3.88 ERA. That’s a solid streaming career ERA right there. Better actually. So far in 2023, Civale owns a 2.56 ERA, but the 3.70 xERA, as you can see, shows his good fortune as it’s closer to his career number.
The luck can be attributed to that 82.1% LOB%. Nevertheless, he has managed to stop more hitters from barreling up the ball, as his Barrel% is down 3% from last year. The Pirates are ranked 27th in home runs and 24th in runs-scored, so it feels relatively safe to send Civale to the mound in this situation.
Thursday, July 20
J.P. France (HOU) at OAK 40%
Streaming France doesn’t feel great necessarily, but the options for Thursday have me looking for the exits. France is not a strikeout machine, but he’s been effective, owning a 2.81 ERA in 25.2 IP in the last month. He throws the fastball and cutter ineffectively; his changeup seems to have the best results. But he doesn’t throw it enough. This is something you see with rookies sometimes, an over-reliance on the bread-and-butter pitch until they gain more confidence.
If it makes you feel any better, France had a K/9 above 12 in 19.1 IP for Triple-A this year. In 66.1 IP for the Astros, he has an xERA of 4.14 on the year, however, which is a slightly above our ideal streamer-zone. France gives up the long-ball too often and owns an xSLG of .415, even though he keeps the ball on the ground 46.3% of the time. So why am I choosing him today? As I said, limited options. But another reason is that he is facing Oakland, and they have the third-lowest SLG % in the previous month, and the lowest SLG % (.353) on the entire campaign.
Houston is 10th in the league for runs-scored, and so the reality is that this is a matchup play on a day that I would skip if I didn’t need the innings.
Friday, July 21
Seth Lugo (SD) at DET 34%
Lugo sits there on the waiver wire, beckoning. The reason it’s so tantalizing is the 3.39 ERA, which is coupled with a 2.12 ERA in the previous 17 IP. For the 2023 season, the underlying numbers seem to agree, with a 3.37 FIP (3.57 xFIP).
As I said last week, Lugo seems to be setting up the fastball better, using the curveball to leave hitters flapping at the breeze belatedly when the Springsteenian speedball finally speeds by. Just look at the results. On the fastball, he has an O-Sw% of 35.5%. Last year it was only 22.4%. And he’s got the Tigers this week in that big ballpark. Let’s send him out there.
Saturday, July 22
Bryan Woo (SEA) vs. TOR 45%
I’m sticking with Woo here, not because I’m a Cubs fan and his last name makes me think of Ronny Woo Woo, but because I believe in the skills. Everything from Monday applies, except I should add that Toronto is 23rd in runs-scored in the last month. In that time, they are batting .237/.299/.392 as a team. Not so good.
Maybe the Jays will come into the second half of the season as a different team, but the trend right now is a squad that dwells in the bottom third offensively. They may be better than the Twins, but I’m not sure we should be shaking in our boots when it comes to occasionally streaming against them. Of course, any big league team can hurt us, and they have some guys (Springer, Guerrero, Bichette) who can definitely sting us, but let’s go for it.
Sunday, July 23
Tarik Skubal (DET) vs. SD 53%
The Padres may be 44-47 as of this writing, but their offense has improved in the last month. They are tied for 4th in runs-scored with the Rangers during that time, with a .252/.342/.417 line. Still, given the available pitching options on the waiver, I’m taking a chance by sticking with the other two-start pitcher of the week.
Everything from last Tuesday applies of course, except that you may want to take a look at Skubal’s results against the Royals just to see if anything stands out. According to Baseball Savant, Comerica Park has the lowest number of home runs and ranks 26th on the list for Park Factor, and according to the Savant website this number “…is generated by looking at each batter and pitcher, controlled by handedness, and comparing the frequency of that metric in the selected park compared to the performance of those players in other parks.” In other words, it’s a decent place to stream pitchers.
Skubal already has a 64.3% GB% on his brief season, so I’m hoping the 10th-ranked team in hitting the ball softly (the Padres) will struggle to meet the moment on Sunday.
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