Fantasy baseball streaming starting pitchers: Dustin May surging, Jack Perkins in the rotation

Welcome to your fantasy baseball starting pitcher happy place. This is a new column for me this year that will combine a few things I’ve done in the past. In this article, every Monday, you’ll not only get a list of my favorite streaming starting pitchers for the whole week, but underneath that, you’ll get a breakdown of a few pitchers who are making interesting changes to their pitch mix. Today I covered Dustin May, Roki Sasaki, Jack Perkins, and Shane Drohan.

It’s a little bit of rankings and a little bit of analysis, and hopefully a lot of help for your teams.

As far as which pitchers on this list you’ll want to stream, your decisions will change based on your league type and settings. Since I’m listing starters for all week, I’m not going to be able to give a detailed analysis for each one; I’ll highlight the matchup and some quick thoughts. As is usual with my articles, a streaming starter pitcher is rostered in less than 40% of Yahoo formats, so just keep that in mind as we’re going through because I won’t be mentioning pitchers who are rostered in more leagues than that, and I also won’t be mentioning pitchers who I would not start in any format.

Check out this week’s MLB Power Rankings!

Starting Pitcher Streamers of the Week

There are not a lot of games on Monday, and a few of them feature aces, so this is a brutal day for streaming. Mason Englert has been stretched out by the Rays and is operating as a bulk reliever. That makes him a bit intriguing against a mediocre Boston offense.

Dustin May has made some changes to his pitch mix, which I wrote about below. I’m also a fan of what Troy Melton is doing in Detroit, even if the strikeouts haven’t been there. J.T.Ginn and Walbert Urena are cruising of late, so you’re going to pitch them, but Urena gets a tougher matchup here against Houston, and Ginn is pitching in Sacramento, which always makes me nervous. We also get Andrew Alvarez against the Giants, who are maybe the worst offense in baseball; that could work in deeper formats.

Christian Scott probably needs to be rostered in more formats and gets a decent matchup here against a feisty Cardinals offense, but one I think he can handle. The same goes for Peter Lambert against an Angels offense without Jorge Soler. Jake Bennett is back up with the Red Sox and firmly on the streaming radar, but this one makes me nervous. Seth Lugo is in a decent spot against the Rangers, but they just got back Corey Seager and Wyatt Langford, so I might rather use Andre Pallante against a mediocre Mets offense.

Another pretty bad day for streaming. The Cardinals are apparently going to put Hunter Dobbins back in the rotation, which we like because he could honestly be their best starter.

Another day with no matchups I truly love. Tatsuya Imai has been better lately, but he’s still really just throwing two pitches, which makes me nervous. Zack Littell has been on a hot streak, but the talent is pretty average, so this feels like a ticking time bomb. I like Sean Manaea in a bulk relief role, but I hate this matchup, and Connor Prielipp needs to find something other than his really good slider if he wants to be a consistent MLB starter.

People gave up on Griffin Jax a bit too soon. I think this is a profile that can work as a starter. It’s a good matchup this week as well. Noah Cameron has also found his command of late and is on a hot stretch, while Gage Jump had two solid starts on the road this week. I hate that he pitches in Sacramento, but I think I have to go for it with week against the Rockies. Shane Drohan, who I covered below, intrigues me, but I don’t like this start.

Stephen Kolek is currently on the family medical emergency list, but he will be back for this start. He’s been pitching well of late, and so we’ll just hope he can keep it going.

Starting Pitcher Pitch Mix Changes

Dustin May – Cardinals (Cutter Usage)

A pitch mix change has unlocked a solid run of production for Dustin May. In his first three starts of the year, May threw almost 31% four-seam fastballs and just 11% cutters. He had a few terrible outings in that stretch and wasn’t missing bats at all with a 17% strikeout rate and 7.4% swinging strike rate to go along with a 9.45 ERA. Then, he made a shift. Over his next nine starts, he reduced his fastball usage to 24% and upped his cutter usage to 26%. Since then, May has a 3.38 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 23% strikeout rate, and nearly 11% swinging strike rate, so why is this working?

For starters, May’s cutter gives up far less hard contact. On the season, he has a 27% Ideal Contact Rate (ICR) and 3.8% barrel rate allowed compared to a 41.3% ICR and 6.8% barrel rate on the four-seamer. Because of May’s lower arm slot, his four-seamer also has below-average vertical movement and a lot more horizontal movement than normal. That is a problem for lefties because the four-seamer will tail out over the plate a bit more, kind of like a sinker. As a result, lefties hit May’s four-seamer harder and swing and miss less often. The cutter has been a pitch that he’s able to use 67% of the time early in counts to lefties and get ahead, which then sets up his sweeper, which actually has a 32% PutAway Rate to lefties this year (that measures how often a two-strike pitch results in a strikeout)

May has also used the cutter more against righties. In this nine-start stretch, he’s throwing the cutter 31% to lefties and 16.6% to righties, using it early in the count 76% of the time for righties. Despite it being an early-count pitch for righties, it actually has a 24% swinging strike rate over these last nine starts, likely because May is so sinker-four-seamer focused to righties that when he throws a cutter that’s four mph slower than his fastballs and with a different movement profile, hitters are lost. The addition of the cutter has also led to less hard contact on his four-seamer against righties and more swing and miss on the four-seamer since he’s locating it up in the zone 66% of the time. This may just be a hot stretch for May, but it’s founded in some pitch mix changes, so it’s something we can start to get behind.

Jack Perkins – Athletics (Slider Usage, Move to Rotation)

It seems that the Athletics are moving Jack Perkins back to the rotation. The 26-year-old was a starting pitching prospect for his entire minor league career with the Athletics, but he was moved to the bullpen last season to facilitate his promotion to the big leagues, and he looked good in that role, pitching to a 2.75 ERA with 19 strikeouts in 19.2 innings. This season, he seemed like a good bet to take over the Athletics’ closer role and recorded three saves before the wheels fell off. On Friday, he made his first traditional start of the season, allowing five runs on five hits in four innings against the Astros.

As a starter, Perkins threw 34.7% fastballs, which was down about 6% from his usage as a reliever, just because he needs to mix in more pitches. He maintained a 28% sweeper usage, which was around what he was doing as a reliever, and upped his cutter usage a bit, to nearly 11%. However, the big story is that Perkins busted out a harder, gyro slider for the first time this season and threw that nearly 15% of the time. His sweeper is 86 mph with 13.4 inches of horizontal movement and just 0.2 inches of drop. It has missed bats to both righties and lefties this season. It has actually given up less hard contact to lefties, so this appears to be a platoon-neutral pitch, considering he uses it 40% of the time in two-strike counts regardless of hitter handedness. The slider that he showed on Friday was 89.3 mph with about four inches of horizontal movement and just one inch of break. He didn’t throw a single one in two-strike counts and used it more as an early strike pitch, even though it’s still more of a whiff pitch than a called strike pitch.

That gyro slider appears to be a middle ground pitch between the sweeper and a cutter that’s 92.5 mph with no horizontal movement and 6.1 inches of rise. On the season, Perkins has commanded that cutter well with a 56% zone rate and 74% strike rate, but he doesn’t use it that often. If he’s going to handle starting lineups that have plenty of left-handed hitters, I think the cutter and gyro slider pairing is going to be crucial for him. The cutter finds the zone often, and the gyro slider can miss bats. He can then also mix in his four-seam fastball, which is not a great pitch for lefties because he has lots of horizontal break and below-average rise. I see how this CAN work, but it hasn’t yet, so we should just watch another start or two before we get ready to add Perkins.

Roki Sasaki – Dodgers (Fastball Shape, Slider Usage)

I’ve been hard on Roki Sasaki as a starter this year, and a big reason was that his best pitch was a splitter, which relied on him to get ahead with his four-seam fastball, yet his four-seam fastball didn’t miss bats and got hit hard. A shallow arsenal with a bad fastball is not a recipe for success. Yet, something interesting is happening over the last four starts.

At the beginning of the season, Sasaki’s four-seamer was 97 mph with 15.4 inches of vertical movement. He threw it up in the zone 42% of the time, and it posted just a 7.2% swinging strike rate with a 63% strike rate, 84.5 contact rate, and 47.5% ideal contact rate allowed. Over his last four starts, Sasaki’s four-seamer has been 97.6 mph with 17.1 inches of vertical movement. He has responses to the increase in vertical movement by throwing it up in the zone 52% of the time (and 57% in his last three starts). That has led to a 14% swinging strike rate, 77% strike rate, 76% contact rate, and 33% ideal contact rate allowed.

Does Roki Sasaki have a good fastball now? I’m not sure if it’s just due to a location change or he has really added vertical movement to his four-seamer, but that’s a huge change. He’s not only able to get ahead with his four-seamer, but he can actually get swinging strikes on it now, which sets up his splitter. What’s more, Sasaki has started to locate his slider better lately as well. In those last three starts, he has a nearly 61% strike rate on it and a 21% swinging strike rate, thanks to better command down in the strike zone. He has responded by using it 26% of the time over the last three starts and 33% of the time to righties. Yes, he may still be just a three-pitch pitcher, but all three of these pitches appear to be working now, and we love to see that.

Shane Drohan – Brewers (Sinker, Slider, and Cutter Usage, Move to the Rotation)

The only way the Red Sox trade with the Brewers this offseason that featured Kyle Harrison and Caleb Durbin could get worse is if Shane Drohan also emerged as a weapon for the Brewers. So far, he certainly has, pitching to a 3.11 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, and 24% strikeout rate in 37.2 innings. That success caused the Brewers to shift Drohan from his multi-inning relief role and move him into the rotation over the last two starts. Now, in 10.1 innings as a “starter,” he has allowed five runs on nine hits, but I think there is plenty of upside in this role, if the Brewers keep him there.

As a starter, we’ve seen a minor change in Drohan’s pitch mix. In his first 11 games, he led with his four-seamer 26.2 of the time, but also used his cutter 20%, his sinker 19%, and his slider 17%, among other pitches. In his last two starts, he’s kept the four-seam usage pretty consistent, but decreased his cutter usage to 3% while increasing his sinker to 31% sinker and his slider to 25%.

While the initial inclination is to believe this has to do with batter handedness, on the season, he uses his cutter 16.3% to righties and 14.4% to lefties, so it wouldn’t seem to make sense that he would just scrap it because he was facing more righties in a start. His slider was also a pitch he used almost exclusively to lefties early on, but he has thrown it to righties 15.6% and 19.4% of the time in his last two starts. He has saved it primarily for two-strike counts, using it there over 60% of the time on the season and recently, but the slider hasn’t really performed as a two-strike pitch to righties, with just a 14.3% PutAway Rate.

Drohan’s curve and four-seamer have been better as two-strike pitches against righties this season, which connects to the other changes. Drohan has upped his curveball usage to righties about 4% in his last two starts, mixing it in early in counts but also throwing it nearly 29% of the time in two-strike counts. He has a 57% strike rate and three strikeouts on it, so it’s been a solid complementary pitch. However, the four-seamer has an outrageous 36.8% swinging strike rate and 47.4% CSW in the last two starts. Yes, he faced the Rockies (in Coors, though) and the Giants, so we’re taking this with a grain of salt, but Drohan has thrown 35% sinkers to right-handers over those starts, up from 22% on the season. He keeps the sinker away to righties and is now throwing his four-seamer outside 37% of the time to righties and elevating it 84% (up from 66% on the year). By using sinkers early in the count to righties more often, he establishes a fastball movement pattern and location (middle-away) and then elevates the four-seamer over the top of that to get plenty of swings and misses. It’s a bit of a dangerous approach because his sinker doesn’t miss bats to righties and has given up a fair amount of hits, so I’d like to see him turn back to the cutter a bit, but if he doesn’t feel comfortable elevating the four-seamer inside to righties, then the cutter and four-seamer pairing won’t work as well.