MLB

Fantasy Baseball Mailbag: Friday 6/3/16

Jim Sannes  —  @JimSannes Jun 3rd, 2016
After Julio Urias' slow start, is it time to drop him in season-long? That and more in today's fantasy baseball mailbag.

We're starting a new little diddy here on numberFire to try to help you navigate the ever-changing landscape that is fantasy baseball. It's not easy to keep up with all of the day-to-day fluctuations, so it can help to have someone to bounce ideas off of. That's what our daily mailbag will look to do.

Feel free to shoot us any questions you may have throughout the day on Twitter, and then we'll try to answer as many as we can in the form of a post. If you prefer, you can also send an email to Jim.Sannes@FanDuel.com. These questions can be anything fantasy baseball related. That means daily fantasy baseball, season-long, dynasty, and everything else are all in play.

Obviously, we won't be able to get to all questions because there's a lot to cover. For additional questions, be sure to check out our new MLB DFS tools along with our daily and season-long projections, which should help out more times than not.

Now, enough of that. Let's dig into today's mailbag and see what's popping in the world of fantasy baseball.

Boy, it has been tough sledding for Julio Urias to start his career. A 9.39 ERA isn't exactly the sparkling first two outings we were expecting. At the same time, I'd still be inclined to keep him for right now.

Urias' first start was nothing short of a train wreck, and it makes sense that you'd be down on him after that. But Thursday against the Chicago Cubs, Urias really wasn't awful. He had four strikeouts to only walk when facing a team that has a 12.4% walk rate against lefties and is fourth in wRC+. That isn't too shabby of an outing when you consider the competition, and his sample size of dominance in the minors is much greater than two difficult starts.

At Triple-A, Urias struck out 29.7% of the batters he faced this year while only walking 5.4%, numbers that you'd expect out of a big-time, full-blown stud. That doesn't just magically evaporate when he jumps up to the majors, and I'd be inclined to think that his next start would be much superior. If the Los Angeles Dodgers keep him in the rotation, that would come against the Colorado Rockies at home in Los Angeles, a situation in which he could most definitely succeed.

I would say, though, that the situation changes if Scott Kazmir is, indeed, on your waiver wire. Kazmir has more security in the rotation once the cavalcade of injured starters start to creep back into the picture, he won't be on as tight of a pitch count as Urias, and he has actually been pitching pretty well recently. His average fastball velocity jumped up during his May 9th start, and he has dropped his SIERA to 3.83 with a 28.0% strikeout rate over his past five starts. That'll play, and he shouldn't be on your waiver wire.

In your situation, Rod, I'd be willing to drop Urias with Kazmir being the replacement. However, I would generally prefer to hang onto Urias in most situations as things should be much better his next time out.

Before we dabble in Byung-Ho Park's ball-bashing ways, can we simply appreciate the fact that he has his own home run song?

Because of that, I'm going to hope you're correct in the assessment about Park's potential tonight. I'll take any excuse I can get to listen to that musical masterpiece. The odds of that certainly increase with the absolutely grotesque home/road splits of opposing starter Jake Odorizzi.

This has been an issue for Odorizzi ever since he started his career, and it still persists to today. Odorizzi's ERA at Tropicana Field for his career is a stout 2.88, but it jumps all the way to 4.71 -- almost two full runs higher -- when he's on the road. Part of that is certainly park factor, but he also sees a dip in strikeout rate, and his hard contact rate shoots up. For whatever reason, he simply cannot pitch outside of Tampa Bay, and we should be recognizing that when it comes to formulating DFS decisions.

The other perk of this is that Odorizzi also has reverese platoon splits and struggles against righties. His career strikeout rate when facing them is 18.7% compared to 25.0% against lefties, and although that gap has closed this year, it's still an issue for Odorizzi. Add in that righties have lit Odorizzi up with a 38.1% hard-hit rate, and you can see why Park would be an intriguing option for DFS. Shall we start the song in preparation?

Overall, Park has been struggling of late, and the Minnesota Twins' offense has greatly reduced potential with Miguel Sano on the disabled list. But looking at guys like Park, Brian Dozier, and Trevor Plouffe could be a bit of fun given Odorizzi's splits.

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