FantasyDraft MLB Expert Survey: Thursday, August 15th
Want to know who Notorious is definitely paying up for in MLB DFS today? Wondering which value play STLCardinals84 is eyeing most? You’re in luck. Our daily fantasy baseball analysts will answer a handful of questions to help you make crucial lineup building decisions for tonight’s contests. NOTE: Surveys for early slates will be posted when there are four or more early games.
Thursday, August 15th
Who is your favorite hitter for cash games?
STLCardinals84: Gary Sanchez
meansy53: Gary Sanchez
Pepsi7: Max Kepler
stevietpfl: Max Kepler
Who is your favorite hitter for tournaments?
STLCardinals84: George Springer
meansy53: Aristides Aquino
Pepsi7: Nick Castellanos
stevietpfl: Aaron Judge
Who is your favorite pitcher for cash games?
STLCardinals84: Sonny Gray
meansy53: Yu Darvish
Pepsi7: Yu Darvish
stevietpfl: Yu Darvish
Who is your favorite pitcher for tournaments?
STLCardinals84: Yu Darvish
meansy53: Yu Darvish
Pepsi7: Yu Darvish
stevietpfl: Yu Darvish
Who is your favorite cheap pitcher for cash games?
STLCardinals84: Aaron Sanchez
meansy53: Aaron Sanchez
Pepsi7: Aaron Sanchez
stevietpfl: Alex Young
Who is your favorite cheap pitcher for tournaments?
STLCardinals84: Aaron Sanchez
meansy53: Dereck Rodriguez
Pepsi7: Dereck Rodriguez
stevietpfl: Alex Young
Who is your favorite salary saver on the board?
STLCardinals84: Marwin Gonzalez
meansy53: Marwin Gonzalez
Pepsi7: Marwin Gonzalez
stevietpfl: Marwin Gonzalez
Who is your top contrarian play on the board?
STLCardinals84: Michael Conforto
meansy53: Jose Abreu
Pepsi7: Matt Olson
stevietpfl: Matt Olson
Which player are you most afraid of having little to no exposure to?
STLCardinals84: Yordan Alvarez
meansy53: Yordan Alvarez
Pepsi7: Mike Trout
stevietpfl: Yordan Alvarez
Which high-priced pitcher will you have little to no exposure to in tournaments?
STLCardinals84: Mike Fiers
meansy53: Mike Fiers
Pepsi7: Mike Fiers
stevietpfl: Mike Fiers
Which high-priced hitter will you have little to no exposure to in tournaments?
STLCardinals84: Ronald Acuna
meansy53: Willie Calhoun
Pepsi7: Ronald Acuna
stevietpfl: Ronald Acuna Jr.
What’s your sneaky home run call of the day?
STLCardinals84: Evan Longoria
meansy53: Jose Abreu
Pepsi7: Nick Castellanos
stevietpfl: David Peralta
What’s your favorite overall team stack?
STLCardinals84: MIN
meansy53: MIN
Pepsi7: MIN
stevietpfl: MIN
What’s your favorite sneaky team stack?
STLCardinals84: TEX
meansy53: CIN
Pepsi7: LAA
stevietpfl: MIN
Which useful trend or statistic stuck out most during your research?
STLCardinals84: The Cubs are 41-19 at home and 23-37 on the road this season. That’s 22 over .500 at home and 14 under .500 on the road — a 36 game swing that is quite shocking. They continue to struggle currently and are facing a sweep at the hands of the Phillies tonight.
meansy53: Here is the line Yu Darvish has posted over his past 10 starts: 59.2 IP, 33.2% K%, 12.1% SwStr%, 3% BB%, 2.92 SIERA, 45.1% GB%, 29.2% Hard%.
Pepsi7: The Minnesota Twins have clobbered right-handed pitching all season long, ranking in the top five in most relevant categories, including first overall in ISO.
stevietpfl: Aaron Sanchez has only allowed one run while striking out 12 hitters in 11 innings since joing Houston. In those two starts, he has five walks and low BABIP (.000 and .231).
What is your hot take of the day?
STLCardinals84: The Twins/Rangers game goes for 18 runs with six total home runs hit between the two teams.
meansy53: The Reds send Michael Wacha to the showers before he can get out of the second inning.
Pepsi7: Pedro Payano does not last long, as the Twins score 10 runs by the 5th inning.
stevietpfl: The Reds score 10+ runs with at least 4 home runs.
Who is your top overall pitcher (when considering price, matchup, projected ownership, etc.) on the board and why?
STLCardinals84: Sonny Gray – It’s a really close call between Gray and Darvish at the top tonight, and you really can’t go wrong either way. I’ve tagged both as elite GPP options, especially since Darvish has shown much better command of late. However, I’ll side with Gray as the slightly safer option, especially since he is the one pitching at home. Since the beginning of July, Gray has posted a 1.59 ERA over seven starts, and he has faced some dangerous offenses in that stretch — two starts against the Cubs, one start against Atlanta, one start against Milwaukee, and even a start at Coors Field. Gray owns a 28% strikeout rate for the year and draws a reasonable matchup against a Cardinals offense that has underwhelmed all year. Fire him up with confidence this evening.
meansy53: Yu Darvish – As you can see a few questions up, Yu has been lights out lately after a slow start to the year. A lot of it has to do with his control. In his first 13 starts, he walked at least three batters (topping out at seven in one of them) in 10 of those starts. In the most recent 11 starts, he has walked a max of two batters (in only two of the starts) and has six starts with no walks issued at all. Throw in elite strikeouts and a tremendous batted ball profile, and it’s pretty clear that he is in great form right now. The matchup isn’t ideal against the Phillies in a great hitting park like Citizens Bank, but the Phillies themselves might be a little bit better by name compared to the numbers. Against RHP this season, they are actually bottom 10 in all of wRC+, wOBA, and ISO. With someone like Andrew Heaney popping more in projection models, there is a good chance you get Yu at an attackable ownership number tonight.
Pepsi7: Yu Darvish – Boy, how things have changed. Yu Darvish was off to a very slow start to begin the 2019 season and now he has turned the corner in a big way, generating dominate numbers in his last 10 starts, registering a strikeout rate over 33% and just a 3% walk rate, which is incredible, especially for a picther who has struggled with control. The matchup for the Chicago Cubs right-hander is neutral, but the Philadelphia Phillies better hitters are right-handed, and Darvish has excelled versus righties ths year, posting a 34.1% strikeout rate. Considering the lack of options on this short slate, Darvish instantly becomes my top option in all formats this evening.
stevietpfl: Yu Darvish – After struggling with walks in the first part of the season, Darvish has looked like the dominate pitcher we once knew him as. I’m not going to argue Gray or Darvish today, they’re both in a tier of their own today as far as I’m concerned. Over his last 30 days, Darvish has a 13.8% swinging strike rate with a 34.5% strikeout rate. He is also ahead of hitters at a 64% rate, which is 10.8% higher than it’s been over the last year. With him pitching ahead in counts, he’s completely changed how he was pitching earlier this season. He’s the top arm for me, and he’s going to continue to be a guy I use down the stretch.
Who is your top overall hitter (when considering price, matchup, projected ownership, etc.) on the board and why?
STLCardinals84: George Springer – Mike Fiers has really good surface numbers this season, but he has gotten extraordinarily lucky by pitching to an opposing BABIP around .240. While that is somewhat expected for a pitcher with fly ball ways like Fiers, it’s unreasonable to expect the good fortune at that level. The power bats for the Astros match up very well against Fiers, who is allowing hard contact roughly 37-38% of the time to hitters from each side of the plate. Yordan Alvarez is obviously a great option, but he’s extermely expensive on every site now. I’ll side with Springer as my elite GPP option of the night, and it’s a near certainty that one of these Houston power bats is able to take Fiers deep.
meansy53: Aristides Aquino – Hopefully we are now at the point where DFS owners are getting scared by the expensive price tag despite the fact that this guy dongs every night. Will the absurdity of what he is doing stop soon? Yes. Is there a pretty good chance he can keep it going tonight because he is facing Michael Wacha? Yes. Wacha has been so bad this season that the Cardinals are looking for every reason to get him out of their rotation, even skipping his last start thanks to an accommodating schedule. The one thing Wacha has been able to do this season is induce groundballs to righties. What does Aquino’s batted ball profile look like so far this season in a small sample against RHP? Oh, just 50% hard contact and 66.7% flyballs. I love him as a one-off tonight and, at this point, can’t imagine leaving him out of any Reds stacks.
Pepsi7: Max Kepler – It is yet another night where I do not see a “Must Play” bat, but if I have to pick one, I will give the edge to Max Kepler. The Minnesota Twins will face a rookie right-handed pitcher, making them the top offense on the night. On the season, Kepler continues to rake agaisnt righties, producing a .367 wOBA and a .302 ISO. I am perfectly fine fading anyone in GPPs, but Kepler will be a staple in my cash game builds.
stevietpfl: Aaron Judge – I’m going down on this ship yet again. Yesterday I wrote up Vogelbach as my top play, and he hit his first home run in a week. I’m hoping to keep that momentum going with Aaron Judge. I really like the Yankees as a pivot off the Twins and will have just as much of New York in my lineups. Plutko has a .277 ISO with a 18.5% strikeout rate against right-handed hitters this season. He also is allowing 37.6% hard contact on 51.5% fly balls. This matchup is made for big time power hitters, and that’s exactly what the Yankees have. Again, I like the Twins more, but don’t sleep on the Yankees tonight.
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