Javier Assad Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

With the Orioles potentially doing some weird piggybacking thing that may include Tyler Wells & Dean Kremer, Zack Greinke coming off the IL and Cody Morris facing just 13 batters in his major league debut, we’re down to just five potentially usable pitchers below $9K before even looking at them. And that list includes four rookies with six major league starts or less and Mike Minor. Projecting as the best value among all these arms, in fact, the second best projected value on either site overall, Javier Assad has struck out as many of the 46 batters he’s faced as he’s walked (six each). He’s allowed just a single barrel (2.9%) so far, but with a 90.9 mph EV and average ground ball rate, that certainly won’t last long. Assad had a 20.1 K-BB% in a small sample of 36.1 AAA innings, but is not a strongly regarded prospect at 25 years of age. Why does he project this well? Again, look at your options, but also because he’s facing the Reds (84 wRC+, 23.9 K% vs RHP) with pitcher friendly weather and umpiring expectations at Wrigley. If you need to drop down for an SP2 on DraftKings, he’s probably your best option, but may be a bit dicier on a single pitcher site (as is any sub-$9K arm tonight).

The second and third best projecting values among this group are Minor and Cody Morris. The former followed up his best start of the season in Washington with one of his worst against the Cardinals, striking out only a single batter. The Washington start was only his second Quality Start of the season, while his 5.98 ERA nearly matches his 5.96 FIP, but is well above a 4.33 xERA, as 20 of 26 barrels (9.3%) have left the yard. Not that any of it’s good, but that’s the price of playing baseball in Cincinnati. Minor has struck out just 17.4% of batters this season, but will enjoy the same conditions as Assad against the Cubs (94 wRC+, 23.6 K%, but 13.2 HR/FB vs LHP).

The latter (Morris), is a marginally regarded pitching prospect (40+ Future Value grade Fangraphs) less than two months away from his 26th birthday. He struck out 30 of 58 AAA batters this year with six walks and two home runs. He struck out three of 13 Mariners with two walks and a home run in his major league debut last week, but with just a 7.4 SwStr% and hasn’t faced more than 14 batters in any outing at any level of play all season.

Suddenly, Tommy Henry seems like the veteran with six starts, but the only one in which he struck out more than four batters was when he fanned seven of 22 Cardinals, which, as a LHP, is just one of those weird baseball things. The 5.0 K-BB% is unimpressive and the 6.1% Barrels/BBE with a below average ground ball rate and 91.1 mph EV won’t sustain. All non-FIP estimators exceed five, but at least we can be relatively sure the Diamondbacks will give him a normal workload in San Diego (100 wRC+, 20.4 K%, 8.9 HR/FB vs LHP).