Straight Cheese Streaming Starting Pitchers Week 20

This is my weekly column where I suggest streaming low owned starting pitchers that have a matchup in their favor next 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.

Streaming Starting Pitchers Week 20

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

All statistics, ownership and projected starting dates are as of Thursday, August 1.

LHP Eric Lauer, SDP
Owned Y9%|E9% · vs. Colorado Rockies – Thursday, August 8

Lauer has a 4.34 ERA, 1.39 WHIP and has struck out 18.7% of the batters he’s faced in his 19 starts. While that is not terribly exciting, if you look at his home/away splits you’ll find something that is. His home ERA is 2.60 with a 1.23 WHIP and a 17.1 K%. While the ratios are nice he needs some help with strikeouts.

Enter the Rockies and their MLB worst 30.3 K% versus southpaws on the road. They’re also bringing with them to San Diego their 0.286 wOBA (26^th in MLB) and 0.175 ISO (13^th). While the ISO might, initially, be worrisome take heed that Lauer’s ISO against at home is 0.111 so there’s reason to be optimistic that he can hold the Colorado bats in check.

The Rockies are allowing southpaw SP to put up a 3.81 ERA, 1.16 WHIP and a very appealing 11.6 K/9 in home starts.

LHP Danny Duffy, KCR
Owned Y12%|E8% · @ Detroit Tigers – Thursday, August 8

Through 17 starts, Duffy is carrying a 4.42 ERA, 1.37 WHIP and a 20.7 K%. There’s your proof to as to why he’s available in roughly 90% of leagues. The real reason you are reading about Duffy right here is his matchup with Detroit. But before we get into that I would like to point out that his away numbers are “better.” His road ERA sits at 4.29 with a 1.37 WHIP but what really jumps up, raises its hand and says, “check me out” is his 25.2 K% (compared to 18.0 K% at home).

About those Tigers… at home versus LHP they have a 0.271 wOBA (worst in MLB), 0.137 ISO (27th in MLB) and a 25.8 K% (26^th). They’re bad at hitting a baseball and we can take advantage.

LHP Gio Gonzalez, MIL
Owned Y13%|E8% · vs. Texas Rangers – Friday, August 9

Double G has a 3.48 ERA, 1.16 WHIP and has struck out 22.0% of the batters he’s faced in his 8 starts this season. In a running theme this week his home/away splits are in our favor. In his 3 home starts he’s struck out 32.8% of the batters while putting up a 3.24 ERA and 0.78 WHIP.

The Rangers versus LHP on the road have a 0.301 wOBA (21^st), 0.179 ISO (12^th) and a 29.5 K% (29^th). Those numbers combined with Gio’s solid numbers indicate we need to stream him.

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.

RHP Dinelson Lamet, SDP
Owned Y16%|E6% – @ Mariners (Tue Aug 6) & vs. Rockies (Sun Aug 11)

Lamet has a 5.09 ERA, 1.39 WHIP and a nice 29.1 K% in his 5 starts since returning from Tommy John surgery. While the sample size is small the talent is there. He was moving his way up through the minors until he blew out his elbow in spring training last season.

• Mariners vs RHP at home: 0.312 wOBA (22^nd), 0.174 (23^rd) and a 26.9 K% (30^th)
• Rockies vs RHP on the road: 0.282 wOBA (29^th), 0.149 ISO (27^th) and a 26.0 K% (26^th)

These two teams are just the kind of matchup we need to exploit for two starts next week. Neither should give Lamet much trouble.

Streaming Starting Pitchers Week 17 & 18 Review

Since I was on vacation last week we’ll be looking back at the pitchers i recommended in both week 17 and week 18.

Thankfully (perhaps) Barria’s start was bumped up and he missed facing the Orioles… as for the rest…

I have to keep repeating over and over to myself advice the great Cory Schwartz preaches… “Don’t confuse the outcome with the decision.”

Here’s a look back at the two start pitcher I recommended back in Week 17.

** Lauer’s second start was negated when he went on bereavement leave that week.

And Week 18.

Thankfully Marco showed up with two dominating starts to make us forget about Lauer’s disappointing one.