STACK THE DECK – Thursday, May 18th

Welcome to this Thursday edition of Stack the Deck. There are a ton of quality arms on the docket this shortened league-wide travel day. We elected to target pitchers who have struggled with command, and thus find themselves in hitter-friendly counts for more often than their stuff allows them to pitch around. Once the list was narrowed by this criteria, we parlayed that information to target teams with poor bullpen quality. The logic is that lots of walks and deep counts gets to the bullpen that much faster. When stacking lineups to take shots in a GPP pool, you’ll want the stats to keep rolling in once “garbage time” hits (you know, after they chase the starter for 8 runs in 3 innings).

That said, here’s our top stacks for today.

Baltimore Orioles vs Jordan Zimmerman

Top Plays: Manny Machado, Chris Davis, Mark Trumbo, Adam Jones

Other Options: Seth Smith, Jonathan Schoop, Wellington Castillo

Jordan Zimmerman is a hot mess, and he’s giving it up to everyone. Righties are hitting .333 with 4 HR and lefties are .321 with 5 HR. He actually has the best control of the pitchers we are targeting, but he is still walking 7.5% of hitters. His biggest attraction for a stack option is his 27% line-drive rate and 48.1% fly ball rate. Hitters are making hard contact 42.3% of the time, and with all the fly balls, we like the boppers in the middle of the O’s order best. Once Zimmerman is out of the game, the Tigers will turn to the second worst bullpen in the game, with a combined 5.40 ERA.

Texas Rangers vs Nick Pivetta

Top Plays: Nomar Mazara, Elvis Andrus, Mike Napoli, Shin-soo Choo,

Other Options: Joey Gallo, Roughned Odor, Jonathan Lucroy

Nick Pivetta has pitched to soft contact 8.3% of the time this season. For the followers that aren’t math majors, that means 91.7% of the time, hitters are making solid contact. Surely his 27.8% HR/FB rate won’t continue, but Arlington isn’t the park to try to break that trend. Right-handed hitters are batting .405 with 5 HR in 42 AB against him this year. He’s walking 7.1% of hitters, but since that rate is higher than any minor-league rate he’s had since 2013, we expect a regression. When he exits, he’ll hand the ball off to a bullpen with a combined 4.68 ERA.

Philadelphia Phillies vs Martin Perez

Top Plays: Aaron Altherr, Tommy Joseph, Cesar Hernandez, Maikel Franco, Odubel Herrara

Other Options: Michael Saunders, Freddy Galvis, Daniel Nava

On the other side of the Phillies matchup, Martin Perez has allowed 16 BB in 29.1 IP at home this year and left-handed hitters (reverse split) are hitting .412 against him. Once he exits, the bullpen takes over trying to improve on their ERA just over 5. This should turn into a 6-hour slugfest.

Washington Nationals vs Tyler Glasnow

Top Plays: Bryce Harper, Ryan Zimmermann, Trea Turner, Anthony Rendon

Other Options: Matt Wieters, Daniel Murphy

Glasnow may have great stuff, but as long as he has no idea where it’s going, it’s going difficult to be effective. He’s issued 22 walks in 29.1 IP this year, and allowed a .316 average to LHH and .306 to RHH. The bullpen hasn’t been as bad as the others we’ve targeted, but has an ERA of 4.04, collectively.