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Chris Meaney
Bettings
The argument for Burnes vs. Eflin here is one of usage. The matchup is pristine for both of these guys — Oakland strikes out a little more and has the lowest batting average in the league against RHP (only .220!), while Chicago walks a little bit less and strikes out almost as much as Oakland (25.3% vs 23.4%). Park factors are fairly equal as well, but I’ll give a slight edge to Burnes on the basis of Oakland’s only real power threat Brent Rooker being fairly neutralized by Baltimore’s expanded territory in LF. More than anything else though, the Orioles are simply willing to ride their horse longer than the Rays are. Burnes has thrown 90-plus pitches in each of his last 4 starts, and the only one in which he threw fewer was opening day against the Angels where he struck out 11 on only 82 pitches. We’ve yet to see a similarly dominant strikeout performance from Burnes, but we may get one again against this terrible A’s team that also just lost their best hitter in Zack Gelof to the IL.
I’m also putting Burnes ahead of both Gallen and Aaron Nola due to the matchup. I’m sure there are plenty of iterations of this slate wherein both of those guys could go out and dominate the Padres and Mariners respectively, but on a risk-adjusted basis I have Burnes well ahead of both of them.
We are going to ride the roller coaster again here with Gil, who has been electric at times with his strikeout ability but also struggled with walks and general inefficiency. If he can save himself from himself, opponents actually haven’t been able to do much damage, as he’s only allowed 8 hits all season and no more than 3 in any one game. The Brewers are pretty middle of the road with regard to both walking and striking out, so there’s not a particularly juicy matchup for Gil to exploit, but there’s not much threat of danger either, and perhaps that’s what Gil needs most.
If he can be aggressive in the zone and find his rhythm early, we might see him both make it through 6 innings and strike out double digits, both of which would be firsts for him this season. I also don’t suspect he’ll be particularly popular with the Nola, Gallen, Burnes, Eflin quartet garnering plenty of ownership, and Gil being just pricy enough to not be getting a true discount. Will the GPP scores like him as much as I do? Can’t wait to find out!
Always a little bit dicey recommending a guy who has a WHIP approaching 2.00 on the season, but Sandoval also has had stretches where he puts everything together and looks unhittable, striking out everything in his path. You can’t say that about most guys in the $7K range most nights, and tonight is no exception. His opponent adds to that thesis, as the Twins are very prone to both hitting for power and striking out and do so in almost equal measure against LHP.
That leads to an extremely volatile scenario with Sandoval, who is either really good or really bad and has no happy medium facing a Twins offense where you never know if you’re going to get the good version of the Twins or the evil one. I thought of that joke while typing the previous sentence, so I apologize if the delivery sucks, but I’m not rewriting it for the sake of aesthetics. You get what’s going on here.
If you’re going to deploy Sandoval as part of a 3-max, I would highly encourage Twins stacks in one of your other lineups.
Quinn Priester is essentially a 2-pitch pitcher (75% of his offerings are 4-seamer or curve), and he has not shown any ability to strike out major league hitters, either this season or last. His main calling card against all competition, both major league and major league, is that he limits walks, but in this case that may not actually be so good for his overall profile. Given how little he strikes hitters out, he could probably afford to live a little more outside the zone and get some more chases for his efforts.
His opponent also won’t be doing him any favors. The Giants are in the bottom third of the league in swings outside the zone, so generally will only swing at the hittable pitches Priester throws. They’ll also be virtually unowned because no one will be going out of their way to roster a platoon-heavy team in a pitchers park on a 13 game slate. For that reason, the GPP scores should agree with me that the Giants are a tremendous low-rostered stacking opportunity.
I have two daughters, one 4.5 and the other 14 months. The 4.5-year-old is a phenomenally healthy eater, has loved broccoli since she was old enough to chew food, and is 90th percentile everything. The 14-month-old eats very little and only really likes junk food. Sometimes, I’ll convince my 4.5-year-old that she really wants chicken strips, which she’ll take a small bite of before leaving them on the table, only to be noticed by my 14-month-old, who, eagerly coveting junk food, will forget about how she doesn’t like eating for the moment. I have taken to calling these sacrificial chicken strips.
I tell that story not just because I needed to make up for the poorly crafted “evil Twin” joke earlier, but because a sacrificial chicken strip is exactly what Ross Stripling will be against this Orioles behemoth. He’s not walking anyone, he’s not striking anyone out, and he has a swinging strike rate of only 7.5% which is even less than Priester. You put that out there against this Orioles lineup and the outcome could get ugly quick. The Orioles will no doubt be popular, but they are expensive enough that they should top out in the mid-teens instead of the 20s, which to me is a tolerable amount of rostership even on a large slate.
But but but… you said to roster Sandoval???
Yeah, see that’s the thing about extremely volatile situations, both of the loud outcomes that are plausible, are in fact plausible, and probably more so than the public or even most sharps are accounting for. Could Sandoval go 6 clean innings and strike out 8? Of course. Could the Twins hit 4 homers in the first 3 innings and put up 12 runs on the night? Almost equally as likely. When the least likely outcome is a middling result for either pitcher or stack, you’ll want to be invested in both in different lineups. It’s like playing the VIX instead of QQQ or UPRO for those of you that do finance things.
