It’s a surprise to no one that, as we head into this weekend’s series, the Dodgers are tied for the best record in the National League. What was less expected was that the Royals would have the best record in the majors and that the Giants and Red Sox would be matching the Dodgers’ 16-9 mark after four weeks.
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The Royals and Giants have achieved their success primarily through the quality of their pitching, but both of their staffs will get tested this coming week. The Red Sox pitchers haven’t been slouches either (3.66 staff ERA), but they have also gotten a boost from the majors’ most potent offense, at least in terms of wOBA (.335). Boston’s batsmen and hurlers alike should benefit from their upcoming six-game schedule.
Let’s dig in to the particulars of these situations and several others!
1. Start your Red Sox!
While the Red Sox are not one of the dozen teams with a seven-game schedule, they still have one of the best schedules for hitters. They begin the week at home with three games against the Tigers, who sport a 4.53 ERA and a FIP and xFIP that are even higher. Then they travel to Baltimore for a weekend series (which includes a fourth game a week from Monday). The Orioles are in the middle of the pack for ERA (4.16), but that’s been skewed by John Means’ 1.50 mark, and the Red Sox won’t have to face him. That makes it a good week to start Enrique Hernández in mixed leagues with more than 12 teams and to activate Bobby Dalbec and Christian Arroyo (if healthy) in even deeper leagues.
It’s also not a bad set of assignments for the Red Sox’s starting pitchers, and that’s doubly true for Nick Pivetta. His reward for outdueling Jacob deGrom on Wednesday is to get a two-start week in which he will face the 29th- and 30th-ranked teams in wOBA. Pivetta might not even be plagued by walks against the Tigers and Orioles, who are among the four teams with the highest chase rate in the majors.
2. Which Giants starters are Coors-proof?
The Giants staff is one of only two (along with the Padres) to have a collective ERA below 3.oo, and they have even been good away from Oracle Park (3.57 ERA). Then again, Coors Field is not your ordinary road venue, and Aaron Sanchez, Alex Wood and Kevin Gausman draw starts there. Wood has been sensational in his three starts to date, but he has faced the Marlins twice and the Rockies once at Oracle Park. This will be, by far, his toughest matchup so far, so Wood is far from an automatic start. Gausman is closer to being a borderline call, but his fantasy managers should at least look at their alternatives.
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Things don’t necessarily get any easier with the Giants’ weekend series at home against the Padres. Anthony DeSclafani has built some impressive 2021 credentials that may have been aided by two home starts against the Rockies and a start at Miami. Both Wood and DeSclafani have been popular waiver targets lately, but it may make sense to let your recent additions sit on the bench for this scoring period.
3. Cleveland is a tougher opponent for pitchers than you might think
From the outset of this season, many of us in the fantasy community figured that Cleveland would be a great team to stream pitchers against. They lost Francisco Lindor and had question marks all over the diamond. They do enter this weekend with the majors’ fourth-lowest wOBA (.293), but much of that has to do with a .240 BABIP that hardly seems deserved. Cleveland has actually been one of the best power-hitting teams, ranking third in ISO and barrel rate.
That means that the four Royals starters who will toe the slab against Cleveland may have trouble keeping their momentum going. Jake Junis, Mike Minor, Brady Singer and ERA leader Danny Duffy (0.39) could run into trouble this week. As good as Duffy has been, his fly-ball tendencies could be a poor fit against the powerful Cleveland lineup, and called-strike specialist Singer may not get many strikeouts against a lineup filled with aggressive hitters. Junis, who also gets a second start against the White Sox, is the closest thing the Royals have to a must-start pitcher for this week.
After winding up their road trip in Kansas City, Cleveland returns home for three games against the Reds. The caution that should apply to starting Minor, Singer and Duffy also applies to Luis Castillo and Wade Miley. Tyler Mahle is slated to start the Sunday finale, and his performance so far — punctuated by his most recent outing at the Dodgers (5 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 5 K) — renders him as a must-start option.
4. Not everyone can take advantage of the Twins’ good matchups
We could argue that the Twins’ matchups are every bit as favorable as the Red Sox’s. They, too, get a three-game series against the Tigers, which is preceded by four home games against the Rangers. It’s a good week to give Luis Arraez a try, even in 12-team mixed leagues, and to give some deeper league consideration to Willians Astudillo, Mitch Garver and Alex Kirilloff, especially if the latter two show signs of heating up over the weekend.
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At least on paper, these should be good matchups for the Twins’ pitchers, too. However, Kenta Maeda and Matt Shoemaker have been too erratic to trust against any opponent, and J.A. Happ has been effective, but it’s hard to trust that he will continue to be with a 7.1 percent SwStr%. Both he and Maeda are scheduled to face both the Rangers and Tigers, but as tempting as it might be to start them, the better move is to leave them on your bench.
5. How many games is too few for Yermín Mercedes?
The White Sox and Reds are the only teams with five-game schedules, as each has a three-game series preceded by a two-game series with each other. That pair of contests will take place in Cincinnati, where the White Sox will lose their DH slot. Through the White Sox’s first 23 games, Mercedes has been their designated hitter 18 times. He has started a game in the field exactly once, when he played first base at Cleveland on April 20.
This raises the possibility that Mercedes will start only three games this week, and four games is probably a best-case scenario. Through four weeks of the season, he ranks as a Top 50 hitter in standard 5×5 Roto formats. That puts him roughly in the same neighborhood as Randy Arozarena and Matt Olson, who are hovering in the same vicinity in Roto value and who were also drafted among the Top 50 hitters in many leagues. Even if you are skeptical that Mercedes will finish the season as a Top 50 hitter, it’s hard to ignore the appeal of his consistent production so far. He has gone hitless in only two of the games he has started.
Even so, I can’t imagine starting Olson or Arozarena in any mixed league with 15 or fewer teams if I thought they may only play three games. If I can’t extend the benefit of the doubt for them, I’m certainly not going to do it for Mercedes. If you start him, you do so at your own risk.
6. Everything is conspiring against the D-backs’ hitters.
The Diamondbacks have been hanging tough in the NL West, and their offense deserves the credit, as they rank eighth in the majors in wOBA (.318) and fifth in ISO (.178). Carson Kelly has been just about unstoppable, even as opposing pitchers have been giving him fewer offerings in the strike zone over the past two weeks (37.8 percent Zone%, as compared to 45.0 percent over the first two weeks). He has worked himself into must-start status for now.
As for the rest of the lineup, it’s a highly questionable proposition to start them this week. The D-backs have three-game road series against the Marlins and Mets, who feature two of the best pitching staffs in the majors. They have the misfortune of drawing Miami’s Big Three of Sandy Alcantara, Pablo López and Trevor Rogers, followed by David Peterson and deGrom. (The Mets’ starter for the Sunday game is currently TBD.) It also doesn’t help that the Diamondbacks hitters will be contending with these pitchers in parks that are not conducive to offense. If this weren’t bad enough, it could be an especially difficult start to the week, as the D-backs’ hitters try to adjust from the relatively thin air of their home park (they are currently playing a four-game home series against the Rockies) to the potentially denser air of Miami.
Despite their collective success, several of the D-backs’ regulars, like Asdrúbal Cabrera, Nick Ahmed and Pavin Smith, are strictly deep-league options. Yet even in those formats, it should be worth your while to look for alternatives. Eduardo Escobar and David Peralta may normally have appeal in 12-team mixed leagues, but for this week, they should only be starting in mixed leagues with more than 15 teams.
Note: 2021 season-to-date stats are for games played through Wednesday, April 28.
Statistical credits: FanGraphs, Baseball-Reference
(Top photo: Billie Weiss/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images)
