It’s no April Fools! The Mariners are miles ahead of the league (well two games) with a 5-1 record and the Red Sox, Yankees, Braves and Cardinals are currently the cellar-dwellers.
Christian Yelich is on pace to hit a homerun in every game… literally, as he started the season off with one in each of his first four games and he is joined by Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger as the trio on pace for 162 dingers.
Light-hitting shortstop Trea Turner is only on pace for 81 home runs, but he is holding steady at a 162 steals pace through his first four games.
On the flipside, Diamondbacks hurlers Zack Greinke and Matt Koch have combined to allow eight home runs through 8.2 innings while over in the American League, teammates Chris Sale and Nathan Eovaldi have allowed a combined six home runs across 8.0 innings… ain’t baseball grand!
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Free Division Previews
AL West by Eric MacPherson
AL Central by Jake Hari
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EARLY SLATE
New York Yankees vs RHP Tyson Ross – 5.2 implied runs
Depending on your site of choice, we have four games going off between 1:05pm and 6:40pm ET. The Yankees, Cleveland and Cincinnati are continuing to embrace earlier “fan friendly” start times on Mondays-Thursday through the spring with their home games generally starting in the 6 o’clock hour.
Tonight we have RHP Tyson Ross heading into the Bronx to do battle with one of the most power packed lineups in the game. This will be the oft-injured Ross’s fifth team and he wasn’t terrible last season down the stretch as long reliever for the St. Louis Cardinals, making one start and then eight multi-inning appearances out of the bullpen which was nice to see considering he missed all but 13 games across the 2016 and 2017 seasons.
Now that we have that out of the way, over the last 872 batters he has faced since his back-to-back injury marred seasons, Ross has subpar strikeout, walk, and swinging strike rate numbers, and is bad against left-handed hitters in general. As a silver lining, the Yankeees only have two lefties, Brett Gardner and Greg Bird, however, in between that duo he will have to negotiate a gauntlet of Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton (DL), Luke Voit, Miguel Andujar and Gary Sanchez all of who boast hefty power numbers with isolated power ranging from .229 to .313… YIKES!
MAIN SLATE
Toronto Blue Jays vs RHP David Hess – 5.2 implied runs
Through three years of college ball at Tennessee Tech, Hess was solid working out of the bullpen and as a starter, which earned him a fifth round selection from the Baltimore Orioles in 2014. He was great in the low minors, but needed two seasons to “graduate” from Double-A ball and he should kick around the league for at least half a dozen years as a #4-#5 starter or long reliever.
However, on this iteration of the Orioles he has been slotted into the rotation with Alex Cobb on the shelf. He mostly relies on his low-90s fastball 55% of the time along with his slider 25% round things out with his changeup 10% and an occasional appearance from his sinker (less than two dozen times so we do not have a great read on that).
He has already made one appearance for Baltimore coming in for two innings of relief on Opening Day after fellow righty Andrew Cashner was only able to last four innings against the Yankees.
While there are strikeouts built in with Randall Grichuk, Teoscar Hernandez, Justin Smoak and Lourdes Gurriel with just an 8.4 SwStk% and a 8.1 BB% those are the hitters we will want to actually be targeting and we can round things out with a discounted Brandon Drury and Danny Jansen.
LATE SLATE
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim at RHP Felix Hernandez – 4.6 implied runs
Sadly, it looks like this is the end of the road for King Felix who unfortunately has spent his career with the Mariners who have the longest playoff appearance drought of all four major sports leagues last having made the playoffs in the 2001 season and he suffered the ignominy of working out of the bullpen down the stretch last year. Sadly his command along with his fastball have deserted him in the twilight of his career, so we will have to see if he can at least be competent at home where The King’s Court will be fervently cheering him on with every pitch.
If you want to see some lengthy BvP, then Mike Trout with his 31 for 83, .373/.419/1.178 slash line and eight home runs is a great place to start. Recent acquisition Justin Bour is a phenomenal hitter in lefty/righty matchups with a .376 wOBA and a .236 ISO over his last 685 plate appearances against opposite-handed pitchers. WE can fill things out with a discounted Kole Calhoun, a steady Andrelton Simmons and wild card Zack Cozart.
As always, you can reach out to me in Awesemo.com Premium Slack or on Twitter @EMacDFS if you have any questions.
Good Luck Gamers! ~ EMac
