MLB Daily Notes - May 18
A daily automated report of what happened yesterday in Major League Baseball, along with other recent trends and further analysis
Check out yesterday’s box scores here
The Daily Notes are the flagship resource of MLB Data Warehouse. Every morning, Jon breaks down the current goings on in the fantasy baseball world, and an automated daily report gets you up to date on key stats and trends. Become a paid subscriber at MLB Data Warehouse to get this unlocked in your inbox every morning!
Good day! It’s a Monday, and I paid even less attention to baseball over the weekend than normal.
But I’ll pick out five pitchers and five hitters to take a look at based on weekend performances.
Roki Sasaki - 7 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 8 SO, 0 BB
It was the Angels. So throw some grains of salt on that. HOWEVER, Roki wasn’t able to do this against anybody even in the minors last year. He looks like a different guy lately.
Look at his numbers over the last five starts:
The most important thing we see is that 5% BB%. He has begun to throw strikes, and that was always the first step we needed to see to start to believe in the guy.
He has double-digit whiffs in four straight. The fastball still hasn’t been great, but it’s been a ton better lately. It has a 48% Strike% in May (3 starts), and that has unlocked extra goodness from his splitter, which has an 18% SwStr% and a shockingly low 35% Ball% in these last three.
It was surprising to a lot of people that the Dodgers entered the year confident in Sasaki as a starter. But maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that they’ve been able to help him improve. The guy does have wicked arm skill, as we’ve always known. The raw materials are there, and we might be seeing a breakout before our eyes.
We’d feel a lot better about it if this elite start was against someone other than the Angels, but I’m thinking Sasaki should be owned everywhere just in case this stuff is for real. With Snell out for a long time, he’s not leaving this rotation unless things fall apart for him again. And even then, they’ve given him a long leash, and this good run of starts makes it even longer if he does struggle a bit the next few times.
Davis Martin - 6 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 7 SO, 0 BB
I think I talked about him quickly yesterday. But if you missed that, he dominated the Cubs on Saturday. Most of his success so far this year had been against pretty weak opponents, but this was a statement start against the Cubbies; one of the league’s best offenses.
It all looks extremely good for Martin. You love a guy with 23% k-bb% AND A .301 xwOBA. The guy is a must-start dude right now. I still have to mention the luck. A 6% HR/FB% and 11% RISP H% are very fortunte marks that can’t continue. But the K-BB% and weak contact generation will ease the pain of that regression.
Kai-Wei Teng: 5 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 7 SO, 4 BB
The Astros got this guy from the Giants for cheap this offseason. He had some gaudy minor league numbers, but the stuff didn’t look to be able to translate to the Majors.
He’s thrown 63 and 76 pitches his last two, so he’s still not going deep into games, but he’s more than just an opener/reliever now. The numbers on the year:
Nothing blows you away here. I’m not going to tell anybody to add this guy in a standard league. But he’s been better than expected with a 3.57 JA SIERA and a nice 1.71 WHIP+. He doesn’t get hit very hard with the sweeper, and he can mix in some curves and changeups to keep guys off balance.
I think the fastballs will be a problem. The four-seamer has been pretty awful so far, and that’s a big issue. But shout out to Teng, he’s a reasonable add in 15-teamers or deeper if you’re looking for starting pitching.