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Fantasy Baseball Two-Start Pitchers: 6/11 – 6/17

Fantasy Baseball Two-Start Pitchers: 6/11 – 6/17

Week 11, the official halfway point of the Fantasy Baseball season, is nearly upon us, however, things are nowhere close to getting stale. Not only do we have a two-start pitching slate that features some talented arms in flux (Patrick Corbin, Dylan Bundy, and Jon Gray), we’ve got one that also reintroduces Madison Bumgarner into the mix. Setting your weekly lineups may seem like a pretty mundane procedure this far into the year, but it’s just the calm before the storm. Injuries, call-ups, and the trade deadline loom, so don’t get complacent. Or do whatever you want and use this article as your safety net – that’s cool too.

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Don’t Think Twice

Aaron Nola (6/12 vs. COL, 6/17 @MIL)
Lance McCullers (6/12 @OAK, 6/17 @KC)
Carlos Carrasco (6/11 @CWS, 6/16 vs. MIN)
Mike Foltynewicz (6/12 vs. NYM, 6/17 vs. SD)
Eduardo Rodriguez (6/12 @BAL, 6/17 @SEA)

Widely-Owned Options

Patrick Corbin (6/11 vs. PIT, 6/16 vs. NYM)
His last start against San Francisco was crucial for two reasons. Firstly, it was a great outing. Corbin allowed only four hits over 6.1 innings and struck out seven. However, maybe more important, was the lefty’s fastball effectiveness. Corbin had seen an over 2 mph drop in his four-seamer’s average velocity from April to May, with the 28-year-old sitting below 90 mph on a few occasions. It ticked back up to 91.4 mph on Tuesday – the highest it’s been in a start since April 28th. For a guy with the lengthy injury history of Corbin, it’s quite the sigh of relief.

Jose Quintana (6/11 @MIL, 6/17 @STL)
You can only face the teams you’re scheduled to play, so you might as well take advantage of any easy patches of the schedule. That’s exactly what Quintana has done across his last two outings. Not only do the Mets and Phillies sit 30th and 28th in wRC+ against LHPs for the entire season, they’re also both in the midst of horrendous showings on offense in general over the last 30 days. In any case, Quintana owners will surely take 16 strikeouts in 11.2 innings. Plus, the matchup luck isn’t over quite yet. Milwaukee actually sits in between New York and Philadelphia in team wRC+ versus lefties with a lowly mark of 81, not to mention that Quintana is drawing two starts away from Wrigley in Week 11. His ERA on the road in 2018? 2.62.

Dylan Bundy (6/11 vs. BOS, 6/17 vs. MIA)
By wOBA, Bundy has quite the diametrically opposed schedule next week as Boston leads the league in wOBA against RHPs (.355), while Miami sits next to last (.288). Yet, that’s pretty much a microcosm of Bundy’s 2018 campaign: the good with the bad. Would I be excited to use a pitcher surrendering 1.90 home runs per nine against the Red Sox? Of course not. Still, it’s difficult to ignore the two-start strikeout upside of a man setting down 27.5% of the batters he faces. With three straight quality starts to his name, I’ll give Bundy the benefit of the doubt in Week 11.

Jack Flaherty (6/11 vs. SD, 6/17 vs. CHC)
Obviously there’s some trepidation with any pitcher that just got roughed up by the Marlins, but, in the case of Flaherty, I think the ceiling wins out. In his three prior starts to Wednesday night’s massacre, the 22-year-old pitched to a 2.41 ERA with a 22:3 K/BB ratio. Pair that level of production with his top prospect moniker and, all of a sudden, I’m in a forgiving mood. Also, he gets to face the Padres next week. That, by itself, is almost enough justification to play Flaherty.

Madison Bumgarner (6/11 @MIA, 6/16 @LAD)
I’m a little on the fence with how to feel about Tuesday night’s return for the former World Series MVP. On the one hand, the surface numbers didn’t come out terrible, especially considering Arizona came into the night with a league-leading .216 ISO against LHPs – Bumgarner threw 82 pitches over six innings of two-run ball, striking out three in the process. On the other, the velocity on his cutter left a lot to be desired. Bumgarner threw the offering 25 times, actually managing seven swings-and-misses, yet only clocking in at a meager 85.7 mph. It’s clearly something to monitor over the next few weeks, but not enough to bench the veteran in the meantime.

Jon Gray (6/12 @PHI, 6/17 @TEX)
You’d be hard-pressed to find an unluckier pitcher in 2018 than Gray. Well, I guess limiting it to this year is unfair, as even just getting drafted by the Rockies is a tough break for a pitcher, but I digress. Among 91 qualified pitchers, only two have more than a full negative run’s difference between their FIP and ERA: Gray and Ian Kennedy – who stands with the second-worst differential at -1.01. Gray’s is over two-times as large, with his 3.13 FIP dwarfed by a massive 5.66 ERA. Specific to Coors Field, Gray’s ERA sits at 6.45. Thankfully, he’ll get out on the road for both starts in Week 11 and square off with hapless offenses in Philadelphia and Texas. This should be the week his luck turns.

Tanner Roark (6/12 @NYY, 6/17 @TOR)
It can be scary sending a two-start pitcher into Yankee Stadium, yet here’s where Roark’s high-floor comes into play. Over his past 10 starts, Roark has a 3.39 ERA with a 4.11 FIP – not great, but not awful, especially if you buy into the righty’s hard contact suppression being virtually ignored by the FIP calculations. That 3.39 ERA isn’t being buoyed by a couple of shut down starts, either. Only twice in those 10 outings did Roark allow more than three earned runs and not once did that number climb above four. He simply doesn’t blow-up. Add that safety to a start against Toronto – the American League’s worst team by wOBA the past 30 days – and you’ve got a decent two-start candidate.

In the Danger Zone

Daniel Mengden (6/12 vs. HOU, 6/17 vs. LAA)
Even in a vacuum, it’s an uphill climb for Mengden to reach fantasy relevance. Yes, it is true that the RHP is currently the 121st most valuable player in standard Yahoo! leagues, but it took an otherworldly stretch of pitching to make even that ranking happen. Prior to getting roughed up by the Rangers on Wednesday, Mengden had recorded a sterling (and highly unsustainable) 2.27 ERA across his previous 10 starts. If that can’t get you into the Top 100, it says something substantial about a player’s ceiling. It’s not even as if Mengden is a bad pitcher, his game just isn’t built for the purposes of fantasy. Mengden has the league’s eighth-highest zone rate at 47.7% – he is constantly throwing pitches in the strike zone. However, unlike James Paxton or Max Scherzer, who also live on throwing strikes, Mengden doesn’t have swing-and-miss stuff. His K/9 is the seventh-lowest in baseball at 5.86 and he’s the only pitcher inside that bottom-10 with an ERA below 4.00. Contact is generally the enemy. I’m not saying Mengden won’t have moments this season, yet, to rely on him consistently is a mistake.

Jake Odorizzi (6/12 @DET, 6/17 @CLE)
Here we go again. I think I’ve made myself pretty clear on where I stand with Odorizzi and why that’s the case. If you’d like to catch up, may I suggest reading this or this. Anyway, let’s rehash all this for a moment. I don’t think Jake Odorizzi is worth the risk, especially in a two-start week. He’s essentially a slightly less poor man’s Ian Kennedy – there’s a bit of strikeout upside, but the question will always be whether or not he can keep the ball in the park long enough for that upside to pay off. With Cleveland posting a .204 ISO with just a 19.6% strikeout rate over the last 30 days, I’d suggest not playing the Odorizzi lottery against them. Not to mention in their last meeting, Odorizzi struggled to the tune of seven earned runs in 3.2 innings.

Trevor Williams (6/11 @ARI, 6/17 vs. CIN)
The matchups aren’t actually all that bad on paper for Williams next week. The Diamondbacks have MLB’s lowest wOBA against right-handed pitching and the Reds aren’t exactly terrifying outside of Great American Ball Park. Still, what exactly is the benefit to starting Williams in Week 11? What does he actually do well? Sure, he strung together some decent outings at the start of the season to pad his stats, but, over his last six outings, Williams has surrendered at least four earned runs five times. Even if you don’t like cherry-picking from his recent outings, the 26-year-old has struck out five opponents or fewer in 11 of his 13 starts for the entire year. Specifically, he can’t strike out LHBs. With a 9.2% strikeout rate within the split, Williams possesses the lowest qualified mark in all of baseball. Considering Cincinnati is one of only five teams with over 1,000 left-handed plate appearances versus right-handed pitching, that fact will present a problem in the coming days.

Streamers Under 50%

Clay Buchholz (6/12 vs. PIT, 6/17 vs. NYM)
CC Sabathia (6/12 vs. WAS, 6/17 vs. TB)

Imagine finding these two on the waiver wire in 2010, right? I’m not quite sure how long it’s going to last, but you can’t completely write off what Buchholz has managed to do in Arizona the past month. Despite a BABIP and strand rate that are sure to regress, five earned runs in 24 innings is still a 1.88 ERA any way you slice it. The fact he’s struck out 16 men in his last two starts doesn’t hurt, either. The bottom line is I think the current archetype of how Buchholz is pitching can be trusted in certain spots and at certain levels of desperation. I mean, he’s got a 50% fly ball rate. In the wrong setting, that can go terribly for a pitcher. However, if you were to ask me two things I would greatly appreciate from an extreme fly ball pitcher (aside from strikeouts), I would reply with a low walk rate and a good home ball park. Buchholz has walked only three since returning to the bigs and the humidor has turned Chase Field into a pitcher’s haven. Also, specific to Week 11, both the Pirates and the Mets rank in the bottom third of the league in home runs over the last 30 days. I think Buchholz is viable, just don’t get too attached.

Streamers Under 25%

Sam Gaviglio (6/11 @TB, 6/17 vs. WAS)
Chris Stratton (6/12 @MIA, 6/17 @LAD)

Gaviglio has sort of been the best part of being a Blue Jays fan for the last month, though that might say a lot more about the team itself than the 28-year-old RHP. It’s easy to dismiss Gaviglio as none of his stuff really jumps off the page, yet it’s undeniable that he’s pitched exceedingly well over his first four starts in Toronto – of note, holding the mighty Yankees scoreless for seven frames on Wednesday. Gaviglio relies on deception and movement to get the job done and, if his 54.4% groundball rate is any indication, his sinker has been fantastic as of late. He’s also racked up his fair share of strikeouts to RHBs, retiring 29.7% of the 64 he’s faced in 2018 on strikes, however, I feel like that’s nothing more than small sample noise. Really, between the lack of velocity and inducing of soft contact, Kyle Hendricks is the best case scenario. Still, unlike Hendricks in 2016, who had an amazing defense behind him to back an absurd BABIP, Gavigilo’s .224 mark looks out of place in front of a Jays squad that sits 29th in defensive fWAR. He not sexy by any means, but I’d encourage those in deeper formats to give Gaviglio a look.

Not Unless You’re Desperate

Mike Leake
Jordan Lyles
Wade LeBlanc
Lucas Giolito
Jason Vargas
Blaine Hardy
Wei-Yin Chen
Elieser Hernandez
Hector Santiago

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Garion Thorne is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Garion, check out his archive and follow him @GarionThorne.

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