Money Matchups, May 19th
Analyzing the best hitter and pitcher matchups on this Monday night slate.
Trying a little something new here today! A lot of the algorithm/projection stuff centers around how certain players match up with other players. So that’s the focus here. I’m looking for the best (and worst, I guess) matchups on the board tonight through the tools I provide to everybody. Let’s have at it.
Cristopher Sanchez vs. Rockies
The breakout is fully on for Sanchez. He has ramped up the fastball velo this year (94.6 → 95.6) and has taken the strikeout rate to the next level (20.3% → 28.4%). Those two big improvements come without him giving up much at all of the thing he did best last year - ground ball generation. Sanchez has all three of my favorite things working.
→ Strikeouts (28.4%)
→ Managing Walks (9.3%)
→ Getting Ground Balls (55.5%)
But he has to deal with Coors Field tonight. And no matter how bad the Rockies’ lineup gets, they’re still always an above-average unit at home. The reason for that is how well balls in the air perform in Coors Field.
2024-2025 SLG on Line Drives & Fly Balls by Park
COORS FIELD .913
Baltimore .891
Arizona .884
Los Angeles (LAD) .882
New York (NYY) .880
The elevation makes no difference on ground balls. So we have Sanchez naturally avoiding most of the disadvantages that come with the park.
And then there’s this Rockies lineup, which bleeds strikeouts. I mean they let Merrill Kelly rack up 11 strikeouts against them yesterday.
If we look into the advanced matchups algorithm, the picture becomes even prettier for Sanchez. These Rockies have not seen a ton of stuff like what Sanchez has to offer (he’s a very unique arm with the left-handed power sinker). That itself is a good thing for Sanchez - the unknown and unseen. But when the Rockies’ bats have seen similar pitches, they’ve done nothing with them.
Sanchez is on an extra day’s rest after getting pushed back yesterday. He’s averaged 90 pitches in his last three outings and went up to 98 last time out. So he’s in great shape to throw 90+ pitches against this Rockies lineup. If we look at every SP who has thrown at least 90 pitches against the Rockies in Coors Field this year:
We have five of the eight pitchers above six strikeouts. The three that were under seven were three of the lowest K% pitchers in the league. Nobody would have ever expected a big K game from those guys. So it feels like a pretty great spot for Sanchez to get deep into the game and pile up the strikeouts. One way to play that out:
Sanchez 6+ Strikeouts -160
Sanchez Over 17.5 Outs -140
Parlayed: +116
Baltimore LHB vs. Quinn Priester
Since last season, Quinn Priester has thrown 691 pitches against left-handed Major League hitters. He has given up a .906 OPS to them. His WHIP+ against lefties is 2.86. That’s a horrifying number.
WHIP+ is a measure of total bases allowed per inning. You can read about it here.
We talked about Jackson Holliday’s improvements in the daily notes this morning. He’s been crushing righties all year. He is a much better hitter this year as compared to last, at least against righties. Holliday is +800 for a dinger tonight, and the model likes that a lot, giving it a +4.5% bet value. The EV is positive here. Homer props over a 3.5% value has a +6.5% ROI this year. Over 4% is 16%.
But that’s not all! Ryan O’Hearn has himself an .808 OPS with a .460 SLG against righties dating back to last year. And when you zoom into just 2025, the numbers are elite with a .941 OPS and a .545 SLG on an 18% K% and an 11.3% Brl%.
He joins Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson as best matchups qualifiers:
Those are four names I’d target. I like Holliday for a dinger, and O’Hearn for over 1.5 total bases (+165).
Or if you’re not into the betting angles of all of this, you can just make sure you’re starting these Orioles lefties where applicable.
We have a few more matchups to get to, but first, you’ll have to become a paid subscriber if you aren’t already!