Welcome to David Mendelson’s Weekly Starting Pitcher Streamers for the week of May 9 – May 12.
We’re back and already in Week 6! This season seems to be flying by, even if baseballs aren’t necessarily flying off bats. We’ve seen record low offensive numbers in terms of batting average, strikeout rates, hits per game, and more. While offense continues to struggle in the colder months, pitching has continued to THRIVE. It’s making this article’s hit rate (pun intended), to be a lot higher. Let’s keep the party rocking going into this week!
Sometimes, your draft doesn’t work out how you intended it to. Whether it be injuries, lack of performance, or maybe your draft was just awful. At some point, you’re going to need to pick up pitchers off the waiver wire and stream them (in other words pick them up for a start or two). This becomes crucial as hitting on the right pitchers consistently will help your ratios, while also potentially beating an opponent for those that play in H2H formats.
So how do we determine which pitchers to stream? Well, there are a lot of ways but I’ve found a few ways to be most effective. This can include looking at the trends of the opposing teams over recent periods of time, how they’re faring against certain handiness, and of course, how that streaming pitcher is currently performing.
I’m here to try and help you narrow it down to five names from all games Monday – Thursday every week, my goal all season being to provide you with the BEST pitching streamers each week to hopefully help you when you’re in a pinch. It’s important to remember that I won’t always be right (no one is), but I hope to provide you with winning streamers more often than not. The criteria for being in this article? The pitcher must be rostered in 50% or less of leagues on FantasyPros (the site being referenced for these articles).
This article will go out every Sunday morning so make sure to make necessary adjustments with postponements, starts skipped, IL stints, etc affecting the projected pitcher starting. The hope for these articles is to keep having more data that we can build off of as the season moves along.
With that being said, here are some factors that go into my streaming picks:
Percentage Rostered – Pitcher must be rostered in 50% or fewer according to FantasyPros to qualify for this article.
wRC+ of Opposing Team – wRC+ or Weighed Runs Created Plus, takes the statistic Runs Created and adjusts that number to account for important external factors — like ballpark or era. It’s adjusted, so a wRC+ of 100 is league average and 150 would be 50 percent above league average. This is one of my favorite stats to look at when picking not just pitching, but hitting as well.
Home/Road ERA Splits – How a pitcher does at home versus how they do on the road. The biggest example of this is someone like German Marquez and how he pitches on the road compared to at Coors Field.
Other Analytics – Things like a pitcher’s swinging strike rate, K-BB ratios, ISO, & OPS are some of the other data that get considered for each player.
Let’s take a look at my top pitching streamers for this week.
Top Pitching Streamers 5/9 – 5/12
Corey Kluber (49% Rostered) Monday @LAA – Kluber pitched a gem in his last start, throwing six innings of scoreless baseball. In that start, he allowed only four baserunners while striking out seven. He got 10 whiffs on just 64 pitches (15.6 SwStr rate). He has a 2.36 ERA on the season and has only given up more than two earned runs in one outing this season.
While the Angels are in the middle of the pack in terms of offensive statistics, they are striking out nearly 26% of the time against RHP since the end of April. Kluber is coming in hot and deserves your trust in this start.
Brad Keller (27% Rostered) Tuesday @TEX – The good? Brad Keller has a 1.74 ERA, a 0.84 WHIP, and has gone at least six innings in four of his five starts this season. The bad? Keller has only 19 K’s in 31 IP with his expected stats showing regression is coming. Still, Keller’s slider has remained excellent and been a great primary pitch for him leading to this success.
Texas has a putrid wRC+ of 63 against RHP since April 23rd, with many of their hitters hitting in the low .200’s. Their team collectively is hitting .198 with a 0.95 ISO. I’d give Keller the nod in his start against the Rangers.
Madison Bumgarner (LHP) (30% Rostered) Tuesday vs MIA – The first image that may come to your mind about Bumgarner is his awkward exchange with umpire Dan Bellino feeling his fingers and looking into his eyes. I promise you that there is more to MadBum than that. While the strikeout stuff hasn’t been there (15 K’s in 24 IP), he hasn’t given up more than 1 ER in any outing this season. That includes against offenses like the San Diego Padres, New York Mets, & St. Louis Cardinals.
Bumgarner faces the same Miami Marlins where his outing was cut short in his last start. The Marlins rank in the bottom ten against LHP in wRC+, ISO, wOBA, and are the worst in K’s against LHP striking out over 31% of the time over the last two weeks. Bumgarner is a great streamer.
Tyler Anderson (LHP) (18% Rostered) Wednesday @PIT – Tyler Anderson is a hard pitcher to trust, even with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Anderson is known for having decent stretches in his career, followed by major blow-up games that absolutely destroy your ratios. While that day may still come at some point, I don’t think it’ll be in this start.
The Pirates have a 43 wRC+ against LHP over the last two weeks, and Anderson has so far shown the ability to maintain elite average exit velocity and hard-hit rates against him. For a Pittsburgh team that is batting collectively under .150 over this time period against LHP, I like Anderson in this start.
Mitch Keller (3% Rostered) Thursday vs CIN – When in doubt, start your pitchers against the woeful three-win Cincinnati Reds. Keller may have a 5.32 ERA, but he actually has a 2.68 xERA. Furthermore, Keller’s hard-hit percentage is down and K rate is up from the last two seasons, with the increased velocity being a big part of his mini-turnaround.
The Reds offense is scoring the least runs per game of any major league team this season while being in the bottom third of every offensive statistic. We’re all in on both Keller’s for this upcoming week!
Make sure to follow me on Twitter @DMendy02 and tag me if I helped you strike gold with one of these pitching streamers. Good luck!