Monday's Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Streamers: Jose Quintana, Cade Cavalli and More
Five starting pitchers in action on Monday who are widely available in fantasy leagues and have good matchups.
Another Monday; another work week. The only positive is that we are creeping closer to the NFL season, and with it, the MLB playoffs. I guess that's something, right?
Let's look at five starting pitchers in action on Monday who are widely available in fantasy leagues and have good matchups. Most stats are from MLB.com, as are the probable starters. The full streamer rankings are listed at the bottom.
Check out daily fantasy baseball projections at FantasySP all MLB season!
Cade Cavalli, Washington Nationals @ Kansas City Royals
Bailey Falter, Kansas City Royals vs. Washington Nationals
We'll start with a matchup of weak offenses, one of whom is fighting for the playoffs. Kansas City is four games back in the wild card, still within striking distance but needing to pick up more wins. The next six games will be huge, as they play three against Washington and three against the White Sox, two teams with a combined record of 90-145. They need to take advantage, as they follow that with 10 of their next 13 against Texas and Detroit (two series).
Cavalli made his MLB debut in 2022 before undergoing Tommy John surgery the next year and missing all of 2023 and 2024. He made his second big-league start last Wednesday, nearly three years after his initial appearance, and threw 4 1/3 scoreless innings against the A's. It's impossible to know what we'll get from Cavalli, but he did good strikeout work in the minors, and it's reasonable to expect that he can find success again.
Falter came over from Pittsburgh at the trade deadline, and his first outing for KC didn't go well: four innings, eight hits, seven runs, two walks, and two strikeouts in a loss to Boston. Luckily, the matchup is easier this time around. Over his career, Falter is good with walks but well below average with strikeouts, and he has been part of that very big group of guys who is a little below average overall and ends up on our streaming list often.
Cavalli and Falter are both low-to-mid-level streamers. Cavalli has some upside but no track record, and Falter has a track record, but it's not exciting. The matchups put them here.
Miles Mikolas, St. Louis Cardinals vs. Colorado Rockies
Mikolas is very good with walks; his 4.5% BB rate is close to half of league average. He doesn't strike out a lot of guys, though, sitting with a below-average 17.5% rate (and just 16% this year versus league average around 22.5%). Mikolas has been hit hard this season, giving up 122 hits in 111 innings. He has also been giving up too many home runs: despite a career rate of one homer allowed every 7.6 innings, his 2025 rate is one every 5.3 innings. That is a big part of his ERA ballooning over 5.00 for the second straight season.
The Rockies are the right team to face to turn his fortunes, particularly since this game is in St. Louis. Colorado is in the bottom 10 in runs, hits, home runs, walks, strikeouts (most), batting average, on-base percentage, and OPS. That's all despite half their games coming at Coors Field. There's a reason they are the worst team in baseball.
Mikolas is a low-to-mid-level streamer. I can't really trust Mikolas given his low level of play, but the matchup is impossible to ignore and makes him at least worth considering in a desperation situation.
Chris Paddack, Detroit Tigers @ Chicago White Sox
Paddack is another trade deadline mover, coming over from the Twins a short time before the actual deadline. He had a good first start for Detroit, beating the Diamondbacks, but then he lost to those same Twins last Tuesday when he allowed four runs in four innings. Paddack has been good with strikeouts in his career, but he is way down this season, nearly five percentage points below both his career rate and league average.
The White Sox had a nice run out of the All-Star break, but they have reverted back to their normal ways, going on a six-game losing streak before beating the Guardians yesterday. They averaged 3.8 runs per game during that streak, the same number they have averaged over the full season. This is a bottom-10 offensive group who is worth targeting every day.
Paddack is another low-to-mid-level streamer. The matchup is right, but Paddack's decreased work brings him down and makes him a hard guy to trust.
Jose Quintana, Milwaukee Brewers vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
Milwaukee continues to look like maybe the best team in baseball, five games ahead of any other team in the National League and with four more wins than Toronto, who leads the AL. Quintana is part of the success, both by superficial numbers (9-4 record, 3.57 ERA) and advanced stats (in terms of batted balls). His walk rate is up and strikeout rate way down, so the reckoning could be coming, but Quintana has kept pitching well.
The Pirates have scored the fewest runs in the league and hit the fewest home runs. Pittsburgh currently has 16 fewer home runs than the 29th-place Padres and is on pace for 113 homers. No team has been that low since the Tigers in 2022, when they hit 110. Last year's White Sox, maybe the worst team ever, hit 133. Home runs aren't the only measure of success, but it adds to Pittsburgh's bottom-10 performance across the board.
Quintana is another low-to-mid-level streamer. The matchup is right, but despite his good numbers, he doesn't strike many guys out, bringing down his fantasy value.
Monday's Streamer Rankings
- Bailey Falter, KC
- Cade Cavalli, WAS
- Miles Mikolas, STL
- Jose Quintana, MIL
- Chris Paddack, DET
