Every day this season, our team shares who we believe has the best chance to leave the yard. From one-off plays to core parts of daily stacks, we hope this fun article will help you build winning lineups along the way.
Today’s Picks
James: Whit Merrifield – “Eli Morgan isn’t seeing positive results in his first stint in the majors with an ERA of 8.44 over five starts and 21 innings. Over those 21 innings, Morgan has allowed eight home runs already with six of those eight coming to right-handed hitters. In fact, righties are hitting about .129 points higher than lefties, with RHB at .364 and slugging .800 in this smaller data set. So what isn’t working? Well, Morgan throws a 4-seam fastball 50% of the time and it only averages out around 89.9 MPH and it doesn’t move a whole lot. Add in the fact that any form of breaking stuff he has tried to throw is being slugged at a 1.167+ slugging percentage. Morgan is also allowing a massive 40% fly-ball rate on batted balls. Merrifield isn’t known for his power bat, but I want contact most of all in this matchup and Merrifield offers that.”
Note: There is a chance for rain in Cleveland and on the chance this game gets PPD, I will shift this to Bryce Harper as my second favorite pick.
Zach: Gavin Sheets – “Spenser Watkins has only pitched six innings in the majors and we really don’t know what kind of pitcher he is going to be. With that being said based on his minor league numbers, I don’t think he is going to be a good pitcher as he has struggled at the Triple-A level, especially with the long ball. Watkins had an HR/9 rate of 2.58 in his 76.2 innings in Triple-A in 2019 and an HR/9 rate of 1.65 in his 32.2 innings this season. Those numbers put the White Sox on top of my radar to go home run hunting. Sheets is my favorite of the Sox hitters as the hard-hitting rookie has started his career off excellent. Sheets is slugging .636 with an ISO of .364 and three home runs in his 11 games.”
Jared: Marcus Semien – “Not only is he having one heck of a start to his 2021 season as the starting 2B for the AL All Star team, but he faces a lefty in Rich Hill who is struggling in more ways than one right now. In his last month of action, Hill is not averaging even 5 IP/GS, has a 50.7% fly ball rate, a very low 7.1% whiff rate and 19.7 degree launch angle average. That’s equated to 6 HR – one for each barrel given up in that time (better than 1 per start). When I look at how well Semien’s hitting the ball this year, and his extreme fly ball bias, I want to ride that train. He has a very solid .255 ISO and .529 SLG against LHP this year (111 PA), should lead off once again, and is second to Vladdy in terms of exit velocity on the Jays over the last week (94.7 mph vs 97.7 for Vladdy Jr). Semien’s also hitting a ton of fly balls (28.2 degree launch angle), so there’s plenty of HR potential for a fly ball pitcher facing a fly ball hitter in a nice hitting environment.”
Overall Standings
| James | 19 |
| Zach | 16 |
| Jared | 28 |
