Prime-Time First TD Bets — Monday Night Football, Week 16
Alex Christenson
Baseball lends itself to numerical intrigue — there have long been bountiful statistics surrounding the game, and in today’s analytics heavy version of the game, there are more numbers than ever before. Knowing what numbers are meaningful and from which actionable information can be ascertained can make all the difference. The margins have never been thinner, and the impact of every discernible edge has never been more pronounced.
Here are some of the numbers that jump out at me when taking a look at Tuesday’s slate.
1. .081, 29%
Those are the Orioles’ ISO and K%, respectively. I have a feeling we are going to be featuring the Orioles in this section quite a bit, as striking out a lot (second most) while not hitting for any power (lowest ISO in MLB) is an attention getting combo when it comes to using pitchers against them. To recap, they were absolutely destroyed by Nasty Nestor Cortes Jr., who piled up 12 Ks in only 5 innings of work against them Sunday, and then were made to look fairly silly again by Frankie Montas Monday.
So, you would of course expect that the next pitcher they face with any talent at all would be priced into oblivion, but luckily for us that next pitcher is Cole Irvin, who got blown up by the Phillies in his first start and was able to bounce back against the Rays, going 6.1 and striking out a pair while walking none. He’s only $6,300, and it’s weird to say that he’s in a get right spot coming off a win against a tough Rays team, but from a fantasy perspective, that’s exactly what this is. The Baltimore “Get Right” Orioles are in town and Cole Irvin will be looking to take full advantage. I’ll be prioritizing him as a value play to get up to some expensive bats and SP1 options.
Takeaway — Cole Irvin is your value guy, if you have the guts to roll with him.
2. .450
No one will ever be surprised at positive offensive numbers coming from the Rockies, that is what they should do given the hitting environment at Coors. It’s not just to be dismissed though, and the Rockies are in fact leading the league in slugging percentage with that whopping .450 number you see above.
Not only are they tearing the cover off the ball, they get a home matchup with Kyle Gibson Tuesday, which should make just about anyone salivate even further. While Gibson was uncharacteristically dominant in his first start of the season against the A’s, he came back down to earth in a big way and struggled against the Marlins in his second turn failing to get through 5 innings and giving up plenty of baserunners and hard contact in the meantime. Given that Gibson is not an overpowering pitcher and will sit around 90-92, with likely less movement on his off-speed offerings, it looks like the Rockies offense should be able to tee off with ease and continue to boost their league-leading slugging.
Takeaway — Roster Rockies hitters at home. Duh.
3. 92 and 16%
Robbie Ray’s four-seam velocity and K%, respectively. Both of these are problematic for Ray, with a full 2 MPH dip from his average four-seam velocity last season, and the K rate being almost precisely half of what it was in 2021. Small sample size of course with only two games worth of data, but these are no small dips. While Ray could of course just be building up after a short spring like many are, we’ll want to watch his performance closely. If the lack of velocity is once again an issue, I suspect the lack of strikeouts will be one as well.
The trouble with a pitcher like Ray is that if he isn’t striking people out, he runs into a lot of hard contact, and that has also been the case so far this season, with a 52.5% hard contact rate and a 15% barrel rate, both of which are well above his career baselines even prior to his magnificent 2021. On the plus side, he does get a desirable matchup with the Rangers not having a ton of dangerous bats, and if the stuff shows up in the form of velocity and movement in a way that it hasn’t so far this season, he could have an outlier positive performance.
Takeaway — Ultimate Robbie Ray GPP spot, probably overpriced for his results so far this season, ownership should be quite low, could have a massive spike in performance now that he’s had a couple starts to build up his arm.
4. 0
Joe Musgrove has precisely zero walks through two starts. 45 batters faced, 14 Ks, zero walks. It doesn’t seem particularly likely that he’ll buck that trend this evening either, with a punchless Reds team that he should have no problem attacking. Last night we targeted Frankie Montas, a talented pitcher in a great spot who was severely underpriced on DK and were rewarded with an acceptably successful outing. While Musgrove at $8,600 isn’t quite as bad as Montas’ pricing Monday, the reality is he should probably be closer to $10K against this Reds lineup and given the form he’s in as well as the overall talent level.
Takeaway — Musgrove is likely your SP1 or 2, depending on roster construction.
5. 47.8% and 32.2%
Corbin Burnes’ first-pitch strike rate and CSW% through two starts. While the CSW is actually right in line with what we’d expect, the FPS% is way, way low and something that we would expect to regress as he gets more of a sample built up, and today’s matchup with the lowly Pirates should be an excellent opportunity for Burnes to be ultra-aggressive, likely resulting in more efficiency than certainly his first outing of the season.
While there are other options at lower prices that we also like, Burnes is clearly the class of the slate, offering equal measure of floor and ceiling at his $10,500 DK price. While we can never quite expect a 30 DK point outing, it is well within the range of possible outcomes, and he should also receive enough run support that he should be in line for a win here as well.
Takeaway — If Musgrove isn’t your SP1, Burnes is.
6. .188
Surprisingly, the Angels are second in MLB in ISO. Framber Valdez is also uncharacteristically walking far more batters than we would expect, with a 15.4% BB rate through two starts (and also only a 23% K rate). I’m not saying he is all of a sudden a gas can. Far from it. But if the Angels get Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon back in the lineup, especially having already seen Valdez on opening night, we should see some fireworks.
We do need the caveat that if one or both of Trout and Rendon are not in the lineup (especially both) we need to take this ISO number with a grain of salt, as the two most impactful bats would be Shohei Ohtani and Jared Walsh, both of whom hit left handed and are not in a particularly good matchup with Valdez.
Takeaway — If Trout and Rendon are back, might be worth taking a shot on a presumably low-rostered Angels stack.
7. 4.5%
This is Joan Adon’s SwStr%, and it is low, actually the second lowest in all of baseball (Zack Greinke wins this “prize”). He’s also had far more issues with walks at the higher levels of the minor leagues and in the majors, and while facing the Diamondbacks should be enough to help him improve on both fronts, walking a lot of people and not missing bats is a recipe for getting blown up no matter who you are facing.
Takeaway — I’m not saying you should stack Diamondbacks, but if there were ever an opportunity to stack up some Diamondbacks, they are relatively cheap and should be able to put the bat on the ball plenty, and likely with some extra baserunners due to Adon’s issues with walks.
