After hitting the minors for a good while, Joe Ross returned to the Nationals rotation in the heavy rain and produced a sterling 8.0 IP, 1 ER, 5 Hits, 0 BBs, 6 Ks line against the Mariners on Tuesday night. The main complaints about Ross have been surrounding his questionable Fastball command and lack of a proper third pitch. Seeing this line will make you think it's been fixed and Ross is en route to an incredible 2017 campaign. Yeah...not really. I watched a heavy amount of this start and there was plenty of great luck going Ross' way, like groundballs on poor pitches resulting in double plays, bad Sliders that were swung through purely on being vastly different than what was expected, and a Changeup that induced little confidence. Sure, it was raining a bit and this may have been a cause for some of his struggles, but outside of a good handful of well executed pitches, I didn't see the polish I was hoping to find from Ross in this outing. I think he should still be owned in all 12 teamers, but I'd sell if someone is buying.
Let’s see how every other SP did yesterday:
No comment on Bergman’s negative game score?
Thanks for catching that! Not sure how it got removed from the post, but I actually came up with another eye-rolling term because of that start. It’s there now!
Looks as if Bergman’s WHERST of 26 bests Cain’s 25 from 5 May. http://www.dfsgold.com/mlb/worst-pitcher-daily-fantasy-scores-2017-draftkings
Ha, thanks for getting to the bottom of that!
Kinda amazed how perfectly the acronym worked.
I think Cobb did rather well after allowing two solo shots from Maybin and Trout in the first inning. He was a bit unlucky since he let two runners on base and was replaced by Farquhar who allowed the 2 ER. Kevin Cash tends to let his starting pitchers roll on for too long even they obviously look out of gas because he doesn’t trust any of the relief pitchers not named Colome, and it’s resulting in a negative way for fantasy owners owning Rays pitchers.
He also had ball four against Maybin called as strike three…
I really just don’t see Cobb being a guy I’m excited to own, which means in most cases I’d rather use his spot as a streaming option.
Yeah I agree with that. Would you trade him for Taijuan Walker?
Yep, I’d rather have Walker.
Nobody is buying (or paying) Ervin Santana as a top 5 SP or comparing him to Kershaw except for you that I have heard. Why not celebrate his success to the season and acknowledge that he has been good? Nobody is looking to deal Kershaw, Sale or Scherzer for him. Who is buying into him? There are a bunch of people that have missed out on some great starts.
I mean, well of course he’s been good! I feel like it’s important for me to keep expectations in check when I do these roundups instead of telling you guys what you already know.
The Kershaw reference was to articulate *why* we don’t expect it to continue and also to remind everyone what the proper benchmarks are when I recite stats like LOB rate and BABIP – knowing that around .250 BABIP and 80% LOB is elite is helpful even when not having a discussion about Santana.
I’ve been in many leagues where people see runs like Santana and suddenly he’s their favorite pitcher on the team and he’s totally having that breakout season and they’ll ride it for the entire season. My job here is to let you know when that is happening and when it isn’t.
I don’t think I ever said you should be getting to get a Top 5 arm. What I’m suggesting is if someone is selling a Top 30 arm – Severino, Wood, Stroman, Nola – for Santana, I would be buying.
Well someone in my league traded Strasburg and Cruz for him and Jones, so some less experienced people may buy into him as an ace.
Wow, that’s a huge overpay.
This is what I’m talking about.
ROS: Monty or Ross? You have Ross above Monty in rankings but now you’ve seen Ross pitch.
It’s pretty close, honestly. Ross’ upside is a tinge better, but I think Monty is a better pitcher overall.
Monty is safer, Ross if you need a more upside heavy pick.
Similar to what you said about Carrasco, Cobb in his last TWO starts has been brought out for an extra inning to face the order a 4th time. Yesterday it was in the 8th where after 7.1 innings of 2 run ball, he gave up singles to Trout and Pujols before the bullpen came in and let them score. Bad managing to let him face Trout and Pu a 4th time. Cobb isn’t elite without his changeup, but he’d be a solid #4 type guy if Cash was a better manager.
Aw man, while I was writing someone else also talked about Cobb. Too much Cobb. Sorry.
Ha, all good!
Not again! OK Santana’s last five starts have been: 0 ER, 5 ER, 0 ER, 6 ER, 0 ER. But why conveniently end there?
Santana’s last forty-seven starts have been: 0 ER, 5 ER, 0 ER, 6 ER, 0 ER, 1ER, 1ER, 0ER, 0ER, 1ER, 2ER, 2ER, 0ER, 1ER, 3ER, 2ER, 6ER, 1ER, 0ER, 2ER, 1ER, 2ER, 1ER, 3ER, 0ER, 2ER, 1ER, 2ER, 5ER, 5ER, 5ER, 3ER, 6ER, 2ER, 1ER, 3ER, 2ER, 3ER, 2ER, 0ER, 2ER, 1ER, 1ER, 2ER, 2ER, 1ER, 0ER.
We see he’s currently in a stretch of 2 clunkers in his last 4 games. Prior to that he went 24 straight starts with only 1 clunker. Before that stretch he had a 4 clunkers in a 5 start stretch, after a 14 start stretch with no clunkers.
Let’s say he goes on another bad stretch of 4 clunkers in 5 games, fine all the naysayer sabermetric slaves get to jump for joy and say “see I told you so,”and then when he goes on another 43 game stretch with only 3 clunkers they get to go “don’t buy it he’s going to crash xFIPBABIPfart” 40 times.
Yes his BABIP and LOB% are unsustainably low/high right now (0.136 and 91.5%, respectively), so there is certainly some regression coming, but not enough to label him as a top 75 pitcher and not enough to warrant this perpetual disrespect! No one thinks he’s better than Kershaw, but he’s certainly better than the discredit he’s been getting for the past year and a half. He’s clearly doing SOMETHING to consistently outperform his “peripherals” if he’s been doing it for 300+ innings now.
He’s generating more soft contact than he ever has, up to 23.4% from 19% last year and 16.4% career average. This goes along with his LD% which is down to 14.4% from 21.7% last year and a 20.1% career average. While he doesn’t strike a ton of guys out, he gets them when it counts. Minnesota has a very good defense. This enables Santana to tailor his approach on the mound to nibble and pitch more to induced soft contact most of the time, and rely on the great defense behind him to make the play. But when he’s got runners on or it’s later in the game he can dial it up a bit.
I suppose if you can get a top 20 guy for Santana then sure, but calling Santana a top 75 guy is so insulting. Especially with how volatile and hard it’s been to come by good, relatively consistent pitching this year. Who would you sell Santana for that will be better or more consistent if you can’t get a top 20 guy?
This poor man. He could cure cancer tomorrow and people would still say “yeah, but he didn’t cure AIDS, and his xFIP says he is actually the cause of the current Ebola outbreak in the Congo”.
This crusade won’t end until we get just one “Aces gonna ace” for Ervin!
And why would I give him that?
I think that’s exactly the point I’m trying to make. He’s not an ace, he’s a good pitcher who’s on a once-in-a-career run. His crazy good stats so far have acted like one, but it’s not something we should expect.
I’m not saying drop Santana. I’m not saying he’s bad. I’m not saying he shouldn’t be rostered through 2017. No one is saying these things.
I’m saying that he’s playing over his head and there will be people thinking that he’s a definitive Top 30 arm this year. His stock is SUPER high and there are plenty of reasons why he won’t be close to the guy he has been thus far.
It’s my job here to let people know when guys are overperforming, noting which performances are most likely to be repeated and which are going to be in flux.
I think we’re somewhat on the same page with Santana, but as another commenter already mentioned, Santana is warranting a price that doesn’t speak to what we should actually expect from his ROS.
I feel bad that I made you write this long piece describing why Santana is worth it on your team. Of course he is! We just need to not have the expectation that he will continue near where he is right now. There’s just so much telling us that he’s pitching above his head.
One last point that I’ll make here:
When his LOB and BABIP rates normalize, you can’t expect everything else to stay the same. It means more laborious innings, shorter games, more at-bats, which means more chances to walk batters. It all goes downhill when those numbers.
I think I’ve spent enough time articulating how I feel about Santana and made it clear why I feel the way I do and I’d be surprised if this changes at some point this year. If you don’t agree, that’s fine, but there isn’t much else to talk about here.
Best streamer for tomorrow: Clevinger, Wacha, Robbie Ray, The Dirty Cheerleader, or Tyler Anderson?
And who would be your next two?
Any from those you would avoid?
I think I’d avoid Wacha there and be okay starting the rest.
I’d be hesitant to start Ray if I couldn’t afford a terrible WHIP, and Tyler Anderson could be surprisingly good given his last three outings.