Straight Cheese Streaming Starting Pitchers Week 9

This is my weekly column where I suggest low owned starting pitchers that have a matchup in their favor in the coming week to help your fantasy baseball team. Most of these hurlers are to be used and tossed back to the waiver wire. Some of them will graduate from the wire and find a permanent space on someone’s roster, hopefully yours. This week we are looking at streaming starting pitchers week 9.

My process is to look at wOBA, iso and K% to identify weak lineups and conversely for pitchers I look at wOBA and iso against and their K%.

Streaming Starting Pitchers Week 7 Review

Before we get into next week’s pitchers to stream let’s look back at my previous recommendations, streaming starting pitchers week 7. Note we have to look back two weeks since last week’s Straight Cheese is for the current week. Got it? Good.

While the overall numbers for the week were respectable I’m still disappointed that one of my recommendations crapped the bed spectacularly. I think Banuelos is Spanish for stay very far away from this bad pitcher.  Can we talk about Odorizzi though! To say that I needed him to come through is like saying that the GoT fans are a little upset with the penultimate episode last week.

All statistics, ownership and projected starting dates are as of Friday morning, May 17.

Streaming Starting Pitchers Week 9

I’ve been tinkering with the Stream-O-Matic algorithm in hopes of weeding out these weekly miscalculations. Here are your three starters to stream next week.

RHP Chris Bassitt OAK
Owned Y46%/E30% · @ Cleveland Indians – Tuesday, May 21st

Through 5 starts he’s sporting a 1.93 ERA, 3.36 xFIP, 0.92 WHIP and 38 strikeouts in 32.2 innings (29.9 K%). Why is he still out there swimming in most league’s free agent pool? Because his solid start to 2019 cannot be trusted. In 191.1 career MLB innings over 4 seasons prior to 2019 his overall ERA sits at 3.86 (with an xFIP no lower than 4.50 in any of the 4 seasons), his WHIP is 1.37 and he struck out batters at 17.8%. His perfect LOB% of 100% so far this season isn’t going to last either. Odds are that he is going to regress eventually.

Let’s just hope it isn’t against the Indians who are currently producing a 0.302 wOBA (23^rd), 0.112 ISO (29^th) and 21.3 K% (11^th) against RHP at home. This appears to be a good matchup for both Bassitt and us.

His start should be safe but if he somehow slips to later in the week against the Mariners do not start him as the matchup isn’t nearly as favorable… in fact it is much more in favor of Seattle.

RHP Julio Teheran, ATL
Owned Y45%/E41% · @ San Francisco – Tuesday, May 21st

Julio hasn’t been great in 2019, but he hasn’t been awful either. He’s just sort of… there. Through 10 starts his ERA sits at 3.88 with a 4.59 xFIP. He has a 1.28 WHIP with 56 strikeouts in 55.2 innings. His 23.9 K% is higher than his career 21.0 K%. He’s only allowed one earned run in his last three starts.

When he takes the mound in San Francisco he’ll be facing a Giants team that is struggling against RHP at home. They’re last in MLB with a 0.258 wOBA, 4^th worst in ISO with 0.135 and 5^th worst in K% with 26.3%.  This matchup is just enough in his favor that we need to take advantage.

His start against the Giants should not be in any jeopardy.

RHP Spencer Turnbull, DET
Owned Y43%/E26% · vs. Miami Marlins – Tuesday, May 21st

Let’s talk about the Marlins first. Stop me if you’ve heard this before but they stink. They are currently last in both wOBA (0.250) and ISO (0.082) versus RHP on the road. They are also striking out 26.3% of the time which is 5^th worst in MLB.

Turnbull through 9 starts has a 2.40 ERA, 4.35 xFIP, 1.25 WHIP and a 23.7 K% (50 strikeouts in 48.2 innings). A high xFIP, LOB% (76.6%) and low HR/FB (9.1%) tell us that he’s not as good as his numbers but he’s good enough to take advantage of the anemic Marlins lineup.

His start on Tuesday appears to be safe but if he gets pushed back to the Mets series in New York, you can still start him… in fact, he’s scheduled for two starts which brings me to…

Extra Cheese

Here is where I recommend a two-start pitcher for you to stream. Please bear in mind that things can change after this article is posted. Injuries, rain delays, managerial moves, etc. can happen.

Two weeks in a row where my two-start pick actually gets two starts, but not quite the same results as last week. Blech is about all I can say. Disco Tony set a Disco Inferno to my pitching stats and anyone else who started him. Let’s just move along and try and put this in our rear view mirror.

RHP Spencer Turnbull, DET
Owned Y43%/E26% – vs. Miami (Tue May 21) & @ New York Mets (Sun May 26)

I mentioned him earlier for his matchup with Miami. Hopefully he gets a second start in New York during the weekend series. While the matchup with the Mets isn’t quite as attractive as that of the Marlins, there something to work with. Versus right-handers at home they have a 0.329 wOBA (11^th), 0.163 ISO (22^nd) and a 23.8 K% (18^th).

We’re clearly targeting Turnbull for his start against Miami but this is one of those weeks where a low-owned two-start pitcher with a favorable matchup is rare. Let’s cross our fingers and hope that his start in New York is positive and doesn’t cancel out the results against Miami.