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There have been a bevy of great pitching performances over the last few days, but if you have glanced at Tuesday's MLB schedule, you probably aren't expecting more of the same.
Sure, the showdown between Noah Syndergaard and Jake Arrieta should be fascinating, though both pitchers enter tonight's fray at something less than peak form. If you aren't planning on watching that matchup, you might be taking a peek at the Nationals-Dodgers tilt, which features the major-league debut of fast-rising pitching prospect Reynaldo Lopez.
While I'll check in on these games, I plan on doing a lot of channel flipping. There are few pitchers among the remaining 13 games who haven't been drawing much Fantasy interest, but there are a half-dozen starters who could be on interesting trajectories. For each of them, Tuesday night could be the start of something worth paying attention to in Fantasy, and I don't want to miss it.
Maybe the likes of Vance Worley, Nathan Eovaldi and Brian Flynn will be every bit as uninspiring as many owners would expect them to be. If you do tire of watching the Cubs' and Mets' aces or the Nationals' phenom, here's what to watch for in some of the other contests.
Vance Worley will be filling the Orioles' vacant No. 5 starter slot when he goes up against the Yankees, and if he performs well, it could be more than just a spot start. He is having a nice season being used almost exclusively out of the bullpen, but I wouldn't dismiss his stats as something he can't replicate as a starter. In terms of peripherals and a 2.85 ERA, Worley had a similar performance two seasons ago with the Pirates, and all but one of his 18 appearances were as a member of the rotation.
Worley will need to throw strikes a little more frequently to match that season's 1.21 WHIP, but if he was capable of it in 2014, just maybe he can pull it off in 2016. If he does, Worley should be targeted by owners in all deeper mixed and AL-only leagues. As of now, he is owned in a total of 1 percent of CBSSports.com leagues.
Two months into this season, Nathan Eovaldi was riding high. By the end of May, he had completed an eight-game run that produced a 2.94 ERA, and his ownership rate peaked at 85 percent. Six starts and 12 home runs later, Eovaldi found himself unowned in a majority of CBSSports.com leagues and booted from the Yankees' rotation.
Eovaldi hopes to make a triumphant return against Worley and the Orioles, and his splitter will be a key to whether or not he succeeds. He seemed on the verge of a breakout last season when he integrated the pitch into his arsenal, and it helped him to get grounders at a high rate early on this year. Since his June 3 start against these same Orioles, Eovaldi has lost more than an inch of horizontal movement on his splitter, as compared to his 22 previous starts dating back to last summer (per TexasLeaguers.com).
There is no reason to expect that Eovaldi will turn things around in this particular start, but in looking back at his past year or so of performances, I am more encouraged by the 22 starts with a high ground ball rate than the past nine appearances.
Right around this time last season, Zack Godley was drawing some attention by putting together three straight impressive starts in his first tour of the majors. His cutter looked like a serious weapon, as he induced 20 swings and misses on that pitch alone over those three starts, according to BrooksBaseball.net.
Godley has made only two starts so far this year, but he has totaled only five cutter whiffs between them. Then again, between those starts and four relief appearances, Godley has amassed only 15 1/3 innings, so it wouldn't take much to turn his cutter whiff and strikeout rates around. Facing the Blue Jays on Tuesday is probably not the remedy for what ails Godley, but if he has a decent start, it could bode well for the upcoming schedule.
Nearly all of the hyped pitching prospects have fallen short of our expectations, but Cody Reed has taken disappointment to a a new level. He isn't winless in five starts just because the Reds' offense has let him down. Reed has been awful, allowing 36 hits and nine home runs in 24 2/3 innings.
Still, Reed had shown a formidable skill set since coming over to the Reds' organization as part of the haul for sending Johnny Cueto to the Royals. His control certainly hasn't been as sharp since arriving in the big leagues, but his biggest problem has been allowing hard contact at an obscene 42.5 percent rate (per FanGraphs). To his credit, Reed has struck out 10.6 batters per nine innings and coaxed whiffs at an 11 percent rate. His 62 percent strikes-thrown rate isn't great, but it's respectable.
So Reed has some of his prior skill set in place already, and he hasn't had any especially easy matchups yet. The Braves, whom Reed will face on Tuesday, will clearly be his weakest opponent to date. Handling them could be the first step towards a substantially better second half.
Brian Flynn, like Worley, is being given a chance to show that his good bullpen work can carry over into a starting role. After missing nearly all of the 2015 season with a torn lat, Flynn has returned in 2016 with a different mix of pitches in his arsenal than when he pitched for the Marlins, using his sinker and slider more. The former has allowed him to be a more effective ground ball pitcher, while the latter has enhanced his whiff rate.
Maybe those rates have improved because he is working in shorter relief stints, but at minimum, the dramatic increase in the vertical movement of his sinker is an encouraging sign. I'm interested to see how he fares against the Indians, who enter Tuesday's contest with the seventh-lowest ground ball rate in the majors.
I do not expect to see many ground balls during Dillon Overton's start against the Astros. In opposing Dallas Keuchel, there may not be a bigger discrepancy between starting pitchers in their ground ball tendencies this year. In his last start against the Giants, Overton allowed 16 hit balls, and not a single one was a grounder. If for no other reason, this could be fun to watch, just to see the contrast with Keuchel.
Overton is now 2 for 2 in bad starts with the Athletics, but he actually seems like the sort of pitcher who would fare well at O.co Coliseum. He pitches to contact, but throws strikes, and his flyball tendencies should be a good match for his home park. His prior two opponents, the Angels and Giants, are far worse power-hitting teams than the Astros, so this could go very badly. At least the game will be in Oakland, and if Overton can keep the ball in the park, he could be intriguing in deeper leagues. The poor outfield defense behind him will also limit his upside.
