Week 14 of Streamer Tidd-Bits is here! As we enter the first full week of July, I’ve noticed that our YTD stats for our two sets of recommendations are getting interesting. Despite having the much better YTD record, our cumulative matchup-based stats, namely the ERA and WHIP, are now worse than our merit-based ones. June in particular was very harsh for our matchup-based results, and that seems to follow the same narrative that we are seeing in MLB. Our merit-based adds over that same time have had their fair share of rocky starts, but the bad lines we’ve had there are just bad, and not blow-up-bad like some of our streamer recommendations have been. Although the overall sample is still relatively small, it appears that when the pitching environment is more favorable the preferred strategy is to attack single start streamers, but when hitting starts to wake up it may be wiser to go with the underlying skills (if you have to choose one or the other). Writing that out seems like it’s an obvious take, but it’s interesting to see our results follow that narrative thus far.

Since I’ve babbled on for long enough already, here is a quick recap of our next round of starters to review. We split both recommendations 1-1, with the merit-based results (to no surprise) being better overall. Drew Thorpe has been able to navigate around walk issues to be an effective starter early in his major league career, but going forward (until his walk rate improves) I still only trust him in the right matchups. Hogan Harris was ok, but his low strikeout total and poor ratios prevented us from sweeping our most recent merit-based results. Our lone matchup-based win, Slade Cecconi, only got that win thanks to his seven strikeouts against the As. His counterpart, Dakota Hudson, really fell on his face in a favorable matchup against the White Sox. He just didn’t pitch well at all, as evident by the five walks he allowed over five innings.

6/17 – 6/23 Merit Based Results:

Hogan Harris: 3 GS, 14.3 IP, 19 H, 7 ER, 5 BB, 8 Ks, 4.40 ERA, 1.67 WHIP, 1 Win

Grade: Loss

Drew Thorpe: 2 GS, 12.0 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 5 BB, 9 Ks, 1.50 ERA, 0.75 WHIP, 2 Wins

Grade: Win

Year-to-date Merit Based stats: 52 GS, 271.7 IP, 285 H, 135 ER, 94 BB, 184 Ks, 4.47 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 13 Wins

Year-to-date Merit Based record (W-L-N/A): 7-13-2

6/24 – 6/30 Matchup Based Results:

Slade Cecconi vs OAK: 4.0 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 7 Ks, 6.75 ERA, 1.75 WHIP, No Decision

Grade: Win (7 Ks)

Dakota Hudson @ CHW: 5.0 IP, 6 H, 5 ER, 5 BB, 3 Ks, 9.00 ERA, 2.20 WHIP, Loss

Grade: Loss

Year-to-date Matchup Based stats: 25 GS, 124.3 IP, 132 H, 67 ER, 44 BB, 109 Ks, 4.85 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, 2 Wins

Year-to-date Matchup Based record (W-L-N/A): 12-11-1

Note: Unless otherwise specified, all stats referenced in this article are through 7/4, and all players are rostered in 30% or fewer of NFBC Main Event leagues.

Merit Based Adds

Andre Pallante STL, 25% Rostered – I have typically tried to avoid re-nominating a player if their previous recommendation hasn’t been reviewed yet (at least for merit-based ones), but there’s a first time for everything. Since I first nominated Andre Pallante as a merit-based add for the week of 6/24 – 6/30, he has had two terrific starts (fingers crossed for a win next week). In those two starts Pallante has 10 strikeouts and four walks over 12.3 innings pitched, and most importantly a 0.73 ERA and 0.97 WHIP. Over this same two-week period his SIERA and xFIP are both under 4.00, but his 6.1% SwStr% is admittedly very poor. However, there isn’t much to choose from out there in the Main Event’s streets so I think this may just be a case of riding out a hot streak while you can.

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