May 2 Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Streamers and Teams to Target: Edward Cabrera, Peter Lambert, Tampa Bay Rays and More
A look at two stream-worthy starters on Thursday and a run-down of the teams to target with fantasy pitchers after a month-plus of baseball.
With only six games scheduled for Thursday, fantasy owners are short on streaming options. With that being the case and a new month upon us, it’s a good time to run through the teams that are best to target in fantasy right now and how that list has changed.
Some teams I have been mentioning here on a regular basis have played their way off the list: Minnesota has gone on a 10-game winning streak, and they are hitting like the 2023 version of the team rather than their moribund selves of the first two weeks.
Others have struggled recently and put themselves on the radar as teams to watch: The Braves and Cubs have gone from hot starts to struggling with the bats as April wore on, so we must fight between knowing what a team like Atlanta can do and understanding that they are struggling in some respects.
To help identify which teams currently compose “The List” of those to target, I used MLB.com’s batting stats and looked at both the full season and the past 15 days and counted how many times each team appeared in the bottom 10 in the following nine categories: runs, hits, doubles, home runs, strikeouts (top 10), batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS.
There is some overlap in those stats, but the group captures both volume and rate statistics and covers most major offensive categories. There’s not much here for advanced stats (though OPS is numbers-friendly), but any teams regularly showing up at the bottom of these categories probably aren’t hiding strong underlying numbers.
Teams to Target
Eleven teams stood out when tallying up the results. In alphabetical order:
- Chicago White Sox
- Cincinnati Reds
- Colorado Rockies
- Miami Marlins
- Oakland Athletics
- Pittsburgh Pirates
- Seattle Mariners
- St. Louis Cardinals
- Tampa Bay Rays
- Toronto Blue Jays
- Washington Nationals
There are some usual suspects, like the White Sox and Athletics, but there are also a few pretty big surprises in the Rays and Blue Jays, teams thought to be among the best offensively. These are the teams I will be targeting with fantasy pitchers for the next few weeks.
Pittsburgh, Miami, St. Louis, Oakland, Tampa Bay and Seattle stand out among the group. These teams show a combination of inability to make consistent contact, lack of power, and/or lack of run-producing talent.
The Detroit Tigers are an odd case: They rank in the bottom 10 in eight of the nine categories over the full season, but they are in that same group in ZERO stats over the last 15 days. I still see the Tigers as a team to target, but I will be cautious with them for the time being.
I mentioned Minnesota’s winning streak above; the offense has made a complete 180. They started the season in the bottom five in runs, home runs, batting average and other major stats, but they have been near the top of the league over the second half of April.
The White Sox are abysmal over the full season but have hit markedly better in the last two weeks. They are likely to stay one of the worst teams over the whole year, but small samples will throw things out of whack for short spurts, making it hard to know what’s real versus random.
The full results of the exercise are listed in a table at the bottom.
Thursday’s Streamers
Lastly, here are two probable starters who are facing each other and have good matchups:
Edward Cabrera, Miami Marlins vs. Colorado Rockies
The Rockies are a second-tier team to target, so on a day with so few games, Cabrera is a no-brainer streaming option. Colorado has been better than last season, but that’s not saying much. Even in the hitter-friendly confines of Coors Field, the Rockies are a middling offensive team at best.
In three starts spanning 15.1 innings, Cabrera has struck out 21 batters while walking just six. That ratio is enough to make him a viable streamer against many teams. He has had one good start, one OK start and one poor start, showing inconsistency as he holds a 5.28 ERA.
It’s a small sample, though, and Cabrera’s strikeout rate (over 31% this season) is more impactful than anything. Cabrera is a mid- to high-level streamer in this one.
Peter Lambert, Colorado Rockies @ Miami Marlins
Lambert has made one start this year along with seven appearances out of the bullpen. The start (April 21 against Seattle) was his worst outing of the year, as he gave up six runs in three innings and took the loss (though he struck out five).
He gets another start here against a Marlins team that has been among the worst offensive squads this season. Miami started the season 0-9 and currently sits at 8-24; Wednesday’s win moved them ahead of Colorado (eight wins vs. seven wins for the Rockies), but every other team in the National League has at least 14 victories.
Lambert is a low- to mid-level streamer at best because he will probably be limited to a short start. He hasn’t gone over three innings in any appearance, so Lambert’s ceiling is capped. The matchup is right to get him into your lineup, but temper expectations for the Colorado pitcher.
Bottom-10 Statistic Results
| Team | Full-Season Bottom 10s | 15-Day Bottom 10s |
| Atlanta Braves | 0 | 4 |
| Chicago Cubs | 0 | 5 |
| Chicago White Sox | 7 | 3 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 4 | 7 |
| Colorado Rockies | 4 | 5 |
| Detroit Tigers | 8 | 0 |
| Kansas City Royals | 1 | 3 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 2 | 1 |
| Miami Marlins | 8 | 6 |
| Oakland Athletics | 8 | 5 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 7 | 8 |
| San Diego Padres | 0 | 4 |
| San Francisco Giants | 2 | 3 |
| Seattle Mariners | 8 | 4 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 7 | 6 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 6 | 6 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 6 | 4 |
| Washington Nationals | 5 | 4 |
*Teams with two or less total bottom-10 appearances were excluded
#waivers #2024-fantasy-baseball
