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Jarred_Cosart_Astros_in_May_2014

FANTASY BASEBALL – Weekend SP Streams: Jarred Cosart


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*Garion gives his stream picks throughout the week on the Binary Baseball YouTube page*

Saturday, April 11th (Yahoo Ownership)

  1. Jarred Cosart (5%) vs. TB
  2. Dillon Gee (4%) @ATL
  3. Jimmy Nelson (3%) vs. PIT
  4. Aaron Sanchez (19%) @BAL
  5. Adam Warren (4%) vs. BOS

I’ve written about Jarred Cosart a few times and, honestly, not a lot has changed since the most recent occasion (barring his involvement in a gambling scandal of indecipherable severity). Cosart is almost a carbon copy of teammate, and Opening Day starter, Henderson Alvarez – an eye-raising 93.6 mph average fastball velocity may look nice on a radar gun, but it doesn’t translate as you might think to the strikeout total, with the former Astro’s 5.74 K/9 placing him 12th lowest of all pitchers to qualify in 2014. This is the key distinction in the usage of Cosart. While the young right-hander’s 54.2% groundball rate (8th highest in baseball last season) and directly connected 0.45 HR/9 (4th lowest) are beneficial in season-long fantasy formats, this is a case where a stream play does not translate to DFS with the compilation of strikeouts far too important. Yet, the suppression of extra base hits is a skill, albeit one that’s value is hard to derive instantaneously. Towards the end of 2014, culminating in his second last start, Cosart pitched to a 2.18 ERA across 53.2 innings and eight starts. That’s impressive. Unfortunately for the Marlin, his Achilles heel, control, bit him hard in his final outing, as he surrendered eight free passes to the Nationals. Now, during that initial eight game stretch, Cosart was walking just 2.01 opponents per nine, a far cry from a career rate that, even factoring in that run, sits at 4.04. Mitigating walks will be the most important factor Saturday, when facing a Rays squad that have struggled to a .202 average through their first three games, but registered a league-best 14.3% walk rate. Without pitcher assistance, Tampa will be hard pressed to score. Hopefully Cosart isn’t in a helpful mood.

Sunday, April 12th

  1. Bartolo Colon (29%) @ATL
  2. C.J. Wilson (33%) vs. KC
  3. Jesse Hahn (47%) vs. SEA
  4. Colby Lewis (2%) vs. HOU
  5. Jordan Lyles (2%) vs. CHC

The basis of FIP is an attempt to understand how a pitcher would fare if he were to receive league-average results for every ball the opposition puts into play. It’s a ploy to emphasize the factors that separate the league’s best – generally just an ability to either induce weak contact or, most desirably, avoid contact all together. Really, it’s a simple game. Hitters are trying to put the ball in play, pitchers are tying to prevent it, which is why it’s so difficult to understand why Bartolo Colon can continue to be successful. Colon led baseball in three categories last season: fastball usage at 82.6%, universally regarded as the sport’s easiest pitch to hit, something that’s made more apparent by the soon to be 42 year-old’s league-high 87.9% contact rate and league-worst 5.6% swinging strike rate. So yes, Colon is subject to the possible negative effects of BABIP, HR/FB ratio, and just poor fielding in general, yet pitching to contact does have a singular, important advantage – the stabilization of a pitch count. The right-hander averaged the fourth fewest pitches per plate appearance in 2014 at 3.56, a figure which trailed only Jon Niese, Tim Hudson, and the aforementioned Alvarez. This commitment to working quickly is a huge reason Colon hasn’t posted a BB/9 above 1.40 since 2011, just another way the veteran suppresses opposing offenses, forcing them to string multiple hits together to do damage. Look for Colon to build off an impressive Opening Day outing against Washington with another solid start against Atlanta, who, again, were projected to have the league’s lowest season run total by Clay Davenport. Who knows? Keeping it in the National League East, Colon might carry over the strikeout success from his first start too.



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