Fantasy Baseball Advice: Undervalued Starting Pitchers Week 9

In this piece, RotoBaller will highlight a selection of starting pitchers owned in less than 50% of both CBS and Yahoo leagues that have favorable matchups in the upcoming week. Whether you’re suffering from injuries, poor performance, or your league’s fantasy baseball waiver wire is barren, these undervalued pitchers could prove useful in the days ahead.

Ricky Nolasco

CBS Ownership: 35%, Yahoo Ownership: 8%

Called up to fill in for the injured David Price, Odorizzi is a talented former first-round pick with a low-90’s fastball and plus curve. In eight starts at Triple-A Durham the righthander put up a 3.83 ERA and 47/15 K/BB ratio over 44.2 innings, and was generally OK in his Rays’ debut verus Toronto last week, allowing three runs in five innings with six strikeouts and a walk. Odorizzi’s upside is hugely eclipsed by his mound opponent Fernandez, but pitch-count restrictions still hinder the talented rookie and thus make Odorizzi a good play on Monday. Besides, if Odorizzi loses to the Fish he’ll still always be able to say he was traded for both Zach Greinke and James Shields.

5/27: Jhoulys Chacin (COL) vs. Bud Norris (HOU)

CBS Ownership: 40%, Yahoo Ownership: 23%

Both Chacin and Norris have had similar seasons, as outside of two poor starts each they’ve kept their team alive in every other game they’ve appeared in. Both have been knocked around in their careers by their respective opponents’ current batters, but Chacin’s sample size – while uglier - is smaller. In that case, this one comes down to who pitches for the better team, and with the Astros playing historically bad baseball, it’s clear that Chacin makes for the better option next week.

5/30: Ricky Nolasco (MIA) vs. Matt Moore (TB)

CBS Ownership: 33%, Yahoo Ownership: 13%

First thing’s first: on paper this isn’t a great matchup- we get that. But Nolasco is having a quietly effective campaign for Miami and is coming off his best start of the season- a dominant 8 IP, 1 ER, 11 K effort versus Arizona. There’s no sane reason to expect Miami to win this baseball game, but Nolasco could help in multiple categories if you’re in a pinch.

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