Is it just me or does it feel like there is a significant (5+ innings) no-hit bid nightly lately? Maybe I can pluck some of those for Trolling the Wire and then if one of them happens to go the distance without allowing a hit then maybe we’d have a trade asset on our hands. It would probably have to be someone on the cusp of the hold list.
Heck, Francisco Liriano is a “name” guy and I was no more interested in him after his no-no than before. I offered advice to several tweeters and emailers not to take deals for Liriano post no-no. The Tuesday evening before he was set to pitch against my Tigers, I told my softball team in no uncertain words that he sucks.
“Don’t let a no-hitter fool you into believing he’s good,” I told them, “it takes more luck than skill to complete the feat especially against a lineup running as ineptly as the White Sox have been this year.” Liriano made me look smart by tanking and failing to make it through four innings. It doesn’t just go for Liriano, though.
If you didn’t believe in a pitcher’s skill and then he goes out and throws a no-hitter, nothing in his skill has really changed so don’t let a statistically oddity fool you. You should never really let any one game influence you too much one way or another, but sometimes the with all the hoopla that goes into a no-hitter, it is easy to fall victim. Same thing goes for cycles. When you really think about, cycles are a neat little thing, but there is nothing inherently great about them.
Let’s find our no-hit pitchers for the weekend:
SATURDAY:
Alex White (CLE v. SEA) – The rookie righty has captured some of Cleveland’s early season magic for himself with two solid starts to kick off his career. With 10 strikeouts in 12 innings and a 53% groundball rate, he is building a profile to believe in going forward. Make no mistake, though, this pick has a lot to do with his opponent. The Mariners have taken their .656 April OPS and made it worse posting a vomit-inducing, league-worst .549 mark in May thus far. White’s 95% LOB% won’t last, but Seattle might not get anybody on to even test the fluky rate.
Chris Narveson (MIL v. PIT) – Anyone perusing their league’s wavier wire might be wont to skip over Narveson as soon as they see the 4.38 ERA. In this pitching environment we’re dealing with right now, an owner may see him as run-of-the-mill junk. A deeper look at his gamelog shows that the ERA is pumped by one bad start. His April 25th outing where he allowed seven run in 2.3 innings or 37% of his earned runs. His ERA in the other six starts is 2.94. You can’t pick and choose which stats you want when playing fantasy baseball, but it does give a clearer picture of the pitcher to look game-by-game. Against a weak opponent, I’m very interested in a guy who is striking out nearly a batter an inning (8.5 K/9) and walking just three per game.
SUNDAY:
Kevin Correia (PIT @ MIL) – For as poor as Seattle is running, Milwaukee isn’t far behind with a team .566 OPS in May giving Correia a chance to keep his impressive, yet improbable, run going. I feel dirty just recommending someone with a sub-4.0 K/9, but he’s walking fewer than two per game and his groundball rate is over 50% on the year so there are some worthwhile skills within the profile. The Brewers have the third most strikeouts in the NL in May so maybe Correia can up his rate past four.
A lot of big arms are going on Sunday and the rest are unappealing so I’ll stick with the one pick.
Results for Week 6 and Week 7’s Monday-Friday picks coming up Sunday evening.
Baseball By Paul 