Cleveland Indians Shane “Don’t Call Me Justin” Bieber baffled the Tampa Bay Rays Tuesday in 6-2/3 of shutout ball. Chris picks him as a prime streaming option this weekend facing the Detroit Tigers on Sunday.
Fantasy baseball owners, this is the place where you come to get the Straight Cheese on less than desirable, questionably talented, less than 50% owned starting pitchers you can use for a spot start. Streaming pitchers is necessary to get those all-important counting stats for your roto league without drop-kicking your ratio stats into submission.
Before we dive into the dumpster looking for week 24 streaming starting pitchers, let’s take a look back at my picks from last week.
Week 23 Review
Warning: the summary below may be disturbing to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.
| Name | Date | GS | IP | ER | H | BB | K | Dec | ERA | WHIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthony DeSclafini CIN | 9/7 vs SDP | 1 | 4.00 | 4 | 8 | 0 | 3 | – | 9.00 | 2.00 |
| Vince Velasquez PHI | 9/9 @ NYM | 1 | 4.00 | 5 | 7 | 1 | 4 | L | 11.25 | 2.00 |
| Trevor Cahill OAK | 9/9 vs TEX | 1 | 2.67 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 1 | – | 10.13 | 3.00 |
| Total for Week | 3 | 10.67 | 12 | 17 | 7 | 8 | 1-2 | 10.13 | 2.25 | |
| Running Total | 67 | 381.67 | 150 | 330 | 127 | 370 | 31-16 | 3.54 | 1.20 |
Wow and I thought the week before last was bad. Utter failure all the way around. I think what we are witnessing is some tragic regression with the Stream-O-Matic 2000. The July and August success was too much to sustain. Well, there is only one thing to do: PANIC! I’m giving you my last four pitchers to stream this week in a dire attempt to bring my September numbers back to something close to respectable.
Week 24 Streaming Starting Pitchers
The pitchers are listed in order of appearance as of Wednesday Friday (The Padres reshuffled their starting pitchers after this article posted on Thursday). Ownership info from Yahoo! (Y) and ESPN (E) and all 2018 stats are through Tuesday, September 11th.
LHP Eric Lauer, SDP
Owned Y2%/E2% · vs Texas Rangers – Friday Saturday, September 15th
Listen, there is a reason Lauer is sitting out on your waiver wire. He’s struggling a bit in his rookie season. Struggling to the tune of a 4.80 era (4.51 xFIP), 1.62 whip, 19.5 k% and 8.00 k/9 in 95 2/3 innings.
So why am I bringing him up here? Well, he’s facing the Rangers. I’ve been screaming from the mountaintops all season about the benefits of streaming against the Rangers when on the road. Against LHP on the road they have a 0.270 wOBA (29th), a 0.109 iso (29th) and strike out 26.1% of the time (last in mlb). I’m the least confident in Lauer of the four pitchers I’m suggesting this week but I’m tossing the dice a bit in hopes of avoiding snake eyes.
RHP Vince Velasquez, PHI
Owned Y39%/E30% · vs Miami Marlins – Saturday, September 15th
Vince was not kind to me last week when I targeted him on the road versus the Mets. I’m willing to forgive and forget this weekend as he faces the Marlins at home. He comes into the matchup with a 4.30 era (4.06 xFIP), 1.28 whip, 26.0 k% and 9.91 k/9 in 138 innings. The Marlins come in with a 0.298 wOBA (23rd), 0.144 iso (26th) and striking out 24.6% of the time (23rd). I’m looking (hoping) that Vince rebounds this weekend in this favorable matchup.
LHP Robbie Erlin, SDP
Owned Y3%/E1% · vs Texas Rangers – Sunday Friday, September 14th
Take everything I said about the Rangers on the road versus southpaws and apply to Erlin’s matchup on Friday. The difference is that Erlin has something Lauer didn’t: better home splits. Overall Lauer has a 4.42 era (3.47 xFIP), 1.14 whip, 20.0 k% and 7.21 k/9 in 93 2/3 innings. At home his numbers look like this: 2.92 era (3.54 xFIP), 0.95 whip, 19.8 k% and 6.75 k/9 in 49 1/3 innings. The strikeouts go down but the free swinging Rangers should give him a bump in that department.
RHP Shane Bieber, CLE
Owned Y37%/E41% · vs Detroit Tigers – Sunday, September 16th
Shane “Don’t Call Me Justin” Bieber currently has a 4.32 era (3.27 xFIP), 1.33 whip, 25.1 k% and 9.55 k/9 in 98 innings. Even with the high era and whip you can make the argument for rostering him for his strikeouts. His reasonable 3.27 xFIP (or what I like to call “true era”) indicates that he may have been unlucky and could be due for better days. Well, his last outing may be an indication that those better days are here. On Tuesday he baffled the Rays to the tune of 11 strikeouts, 3 hits and 3 walks in 6 2/3 innings of shutout ball.
This weekend he faces the Tigers and their 0.286 wOBA (last in mlb), 0.136 iso (28th) and 24.6 k% (22nd). Roll Bieber out there and thank me later.
Remember, these suggestions aren’t ludicrous. They’re @Roto_Chris.