Johnny Cueto (SP, SFG) - Week 19 Waiver Wire Pickups

BALLER MOVE: Add in leagues of 10+ teams

ROSTERED IN: 29% of leagues

ANALYSIS: Cueto is in the midst of a nice bounce-back year on the mound following disappointing campaigns in 2019 and 2020. He's currently 7-5 with a 3.84 ERA, 1.249 WHIP and 21.1 percent strikeout rate over 93 2/3 innings of work. Cueto finished the month of July going 1-2 with a 4.39 ERA over five starts, but despite that he saw an uptick in strikeouts as he recorded a 26.9 percent strikeout rate.

He'll start things off this week with a rematch with Arizona, as he has already faced the Diamondbacks on the road twice this year and has gone 0-1 with an 8.10 ERA and 1.70 WHIP over 10 innings of work. Arizona has been hitting well over their last 10 games, slashing .258/.349/.451 and averaging 4.7 runs per game over that span. That doesn't bode well for Cueto in this matchup, and while it hasn't worked out for him yet, theoretically he should see a small boost thanks to the Diamondbacks struggles against right-handed pitching this year, where they're slashing .228/.303/.362.

He'll close out the week going against another hot-hitting team in Milwaukee, as the Brewers are slashing .283/.356/.444 and averaging 6.2 runs per game over their last 10 games. While that obviously doesn't look great, there are a few points in Cueto's favor against Milwaukee. First, the Brewers are hitting worse this season against right-handers (.226/.314/.385) than against left-handers (.233/.326/.403). They've also hit significantly worse this year playing at home (.218/.311/.378) than on the road (.237/.323/.400). To top it all off, they have the sixth-highest strikeout rate in the majors at 25.6 percent.

That Diamondbacks outing could be another rough one for Cueto, but Arizona has been inconsistent enough all year long that Cueto could finally get a breakthrough against them this week. Despite leading the NL Central and being one of the hotter hitting teams in the league recently, Milwaukee could prove to be a sneaky good matchup for Cueto.

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