Bullish or Bearish – Sean Manaea
Sean Manaea
After a brief trip to the DL, Sean Manaea got back to work in Seattle. He then faced Boston on Saturday, a team that has been the best in the majors at avoiding strikeouts. That context is important when you see that he only struck out 3 in 5 innings this weekend, because Manaea has been hurling fire this year. His K/9 coming into Saturday’s game was 10.43 supported by a monstrous 14.2% Swinging Strike rate, up from an already impressive 11.8%.
Strike out rates like that provide the punch you need to take down the big one, but when you see a 5.22 BB/9, you should rightly be inclined to look elsewhere; unless you can find reason to believe in regression. With a track record of respectable control in minors, complimented by his 2.30 BB/9 rate in 145 innings in 2016, median projection systems put him at about a 3.18 BB/9, which is basically average. That would compliment his K/9 rate perfectly and together, these things could hint at a very high upside, realizable to some extent this year. Digging deeper, you can see that his massive uptick in swinging strike rate has been despite getting about 4% fewer swings outside of the strike zone. It appears that the issue with his control is his first strike percentage, which, coming into the Boston game, was at 56%, down from 65% last year. For reference, 60% is about league average, so Manaea went from well above average to a bit below it this year. Again, citing his track record thus far, it is far more likely that he fixes this, attacks hitters more early in counts, and we see his BB/9 rate regress towards league average.
Having a 3.75 FIP coming into Saturday with all of these numbers already considered, a correction to his walk rate could put that number down under 3.5, which would make him a massive bargain at his current pricing in the low 7000s. In the interest of narrowing your decision making filter for the best chance of the optimal outcome you are looking for, try to get him at home (Oakland’s home park suppresses homeruns and offense in general) and against a team that is below average against lefties.
I am BULLISH on Sean Manaea.
Have a question about some of the stats mentioned above? This article should help.
START WINNING
YOUR DRAFTKINGS COMPETITIONS
NFL & PGA Lineup Buildeer.
ONE MEMBERSHIP.
Join today and receive instant access to handpicked fantasy players for all NFL & PGA DraftKings Linesups. Start outscoring your competition and learn the strategies to become a daily fantasy guru.
