FantasyDraft MLB Expert Survey: Tuesday, August 27th
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.
Tuesday, August 27th
Who is your favorite hitter for cash games?
Notorious: Mookie Betts
CheeseIsGood: Mookie Betts
meansy53: Mookie Betts
boggslite: Mookie Betts
Who is your favorite hitter for tournaments?
Notorious: Aaron Judge
CheeseIsGood: Anthony Rendon
meansy53: Cody Bellinger
boggslite: Juan Soto
Who is your favorite pitcher for cash games?
Notorious: Luis Castillo
CheeseIsGood: Luis Castillo
meansy53: Luis Castillo
boggslite: Luis Castillo
Who is your favorite pitcher for tournaments?
Notorious: Yu Darvish
CheeseIsGood: Yu Darvish
meansy53: Justin Verlander
boggslite: Justin Verlander
Who is your favorite cheap pitcher for cash games?
Notorious: Adrian Houser
CheeseIsGood: Adrian Houser
meansy53: Adrian Houser
boggslite: Masahiro Tanaka
Who is your favorite cheap pitcher for tournaments?
Notorious: Adrian Houser
CheeseIsGood: Drew Smyly
meansy53: Drew Smyly
boggslite: Adrian Houser
Who is your favorite salary saver on the board?
Notorious: Khris Davis
CheeseIsGood: Khris Davis
meansy53: Khris Davis
boggslite: Khris Davis
Who is your top contrarian play on the board?
Notorious: Freddie Freeman
CheeseIsGood: Eugenio Suarez
meansy53: Ronald Acuna
boggslite: Matt Carpenter
Which player are you most afraid of having little to no exposure to?
Notorious: Charlie Morton
CheeseIsGood: Jose Abreu
meansy53: Charlie Morton
boggslite: Mike Trout
Which high-priced pitcher will you have little to no exposure to in tournaments?
Notorious: Charlie Morton
CheeseIsGood: Charlie Morton
meansy53: Charlie Morton
boggslite: Charlie Morton
Which high-priced hitter will you have little to no exposure to in tournaments?
Notorious: Cody Bellinger
CheeseIsGood: George Springer
meansy53: Jose Altuve
boggslite: Jon Berti
What’s your sneaky home run call of the day?
Notorious: Khris Davis
CheeseIsGood: Rafael Ortega
meansy53: Justin Upton
boggslite: Matt Olson
What’s your favorite overall team stack?
Notorious: BOS
CheeseIsGood: BOS
meansy53: BOS
boggslite: BOS
What’s your favorite sneaky team stack?
Notorious: OAK
CheeseIsGood: ATL
meansy53: LAD
boggslite: ATL
Which useful trend or statistic stuck out most during your research?
Notorious: The A’s are a team that is built to hit fly-balls, so I always give them a manual boost when they are facing a pitcher that relies on a high ground ball rate (Brad Keller last night). They face another low-strikeout, high ground ball rate pitcher tonight in Mike Montgomery. He has struggled against batters from both sides of the plate and he has struggled to contain runners. They’ll also get to face a tired Royals’ bullpen, making them one of the top stacks once again.
CheeseIsGood: There is a ton of great pitching, but two skills sets are jumping off the page, especially with their recent numbers. Justin Verlander has a ridiculous 43.7% K rate, including seven straight double-digit strikeout games. Meanwhile, Yu Darvish has a 71:2 K:BB ratio over his last nine starts. Stop and read that again. 71 strikeouts and 2 walks. WHAT?
meansy53: Here are the numbers Adrian Houser has posted in 186 plate appearances versus righties: .264 wOBA, .106 ISO, 23.7% K%, 5.4% BB%, 67.4% GB%, 18.6% LD%, 14% FB%, 30.2% Hard%. That is elite stuff versus righties, and none of the three projected lefties in the lineup (Fowler, Edman, Carpenter) have an ISO above .180 against RHP.
boggslite: Current active SEA hitters have combined for a 25.3% strikeout rate over the last 30 days, which trails only DET in that category. Adding to that, not a single batter in their current projected lineup has fared well against splitters, which is Tanaka’s main pitch.
What is your hot take of the day?
Notorious: Yu Darvish strikes out 12 batters in six innings and doesn’t issue a single walk against the Mets.
CheeseIsGood: Though the Coors Field game ends 11-8, neither team is in the top five offenses tonight. The Nationals, Dodgers, Braves, Yankees and Indians all top 12 runs.
meansy53: Cody Bellinger hits three dongs.
boggslite: Mookie Betts hits for the cycle.
Who is your top overall pitcher (when considering price, matchup, projected ownership, etc.) on the board and why?
Notorious: Yu Darvish – This hinges on a low ownership projection. We have no shortage of aces on the mound tonight, so I expect Darvish to fly under the radar. He is priced under $10,000 on both FanDuel and DraftKings, even though he’s been one of the best pitchers in baseball since the All-Star break. In his last five starts, he has allowed a total of zero walks while striking out 44 batters during that stretch. He’s much tougher on righties than he is on lefties and New York has seven right-handed hitters in their projected lineup. You can’t ask for a better spot for Darvish, especially if it comes at low ownership.
CheeseIsGood: Yu Darvish – He’s allowed some home runs, but with this many strikeouts and no walks, and I do mean NO walks, whoop-dee-doo on the home runs. He has not walked a single batter in his last five starts, and only two in his last nine, and his strikeout rate has increased over this time span. It’s just otherworldy, and because the start of his season his still dragging down his numbers, he’s not even one of the most expensive pitchers on this slate.
meansy53: Luis Castillo – There are a number of guys I could put here on such a loaded pitching slate, but I am going with Castillo against the Marlins. Castillo’s one main weakness this season has been walks (9.7% BB%), so the matchup here could not get much better. Against RHP this season, the Marlins have the second-lowest BB% in the league at 6.6%. A plethora of other things are in his corner too. For one, they strike out a ton (sixth-highest K% against RHP; 24.9%). They are also either last or second to last versus RHP in wRC+, wOBA, and ISO. Almost the entire lineup has a groundball lean, and Castillo gets 60% groundballs to righties and 50.3% to lefties. Oh, and he also gets a huge positive park shift in his favor. He is a viable option in all formats across the industry tonight.
boggslite: Justin Verlander – Anytime you can get the best pitcher in baseball at lower than expected ownership, it creates a massive opportunity, especially in tournaments. With several great options to choose from tonight in various pitching tiers, I don’t expect Verlander to be very highly owned. A matchup against a potent Rays offense may seem risky, but Verlander has been matchup proof this year, and I expect him to be worth every penny in a playoff-type atmosphere in Houston tonight.
Who is your top overall hitter (when considering price, matchup, projected ownership, etc.) on the board and why?
Notorious: Mookie Betts – My goal tonight is to get an ace and to play as many Red Sox hitters as possible. They are one of the best offenses in baseball, especially when it comes to putting the ball in play. When it comes to Coors Field, that’s really half the battle. This is a spacious ballpark (leads to more doubles and triples) and the altitude helps with home runs. The icing on the cake is that they are facing a rookie pitcher in Rico Garcia, who had a strikeout rate of only 17% at the Triple-A level this season. Baseball is a volatile sport that can be tough to predict on a nightly basis, but it’s hard to see the Red Sox struggling in this one.
CheeseIsGood: Mookie Betts – There are so many ways to go tonight that it’s not going to be anything close to a must play to jam in all these Boston bats in tournaments, but it does qualify as overthinking it not to get at least one of these big Red Sox bats in cash games. There is some unknown around Colorado rookie Rico Garcia, as well as who else might pitch in this game, so I’ll just take the most well-rounded skill set in the Boston lineup to start with. Mookie Betts doesn’t strikeout, he takes walks, he has speed and power, he hits righties and lefties and he’s at the top of the lineup for the highest projected offense on the slate in the best ballpark in the league.
meansy53: Cody Bellinger – You almost always get depressed ownership on Bellinger and the Dodgers when it’s a full slate that has Coors Field on it and they are playing on the West Coast. Opposing pitcher Cal Quantrill has been elite against righties this season while being absolutely hopeless against lefties. That does not bode well for him against this Dodgers lineup. Bellinger obviously leads the way with his .452 wOBA, .349 ISO, low strikeouts, and high walks against RHP. With ownership unlikely to be any concern at all tonight, I love Bellinger and the rest of the Dodger lefties as a way to swerve off of the Coors Field chalk.
boggslite: Mookie Betts – He hasn’t quite been as good as his remarkable season last year, but Betts is my top option to pay up for tonight. Leading off in Coors Field, Betts’ rare combination of speed and power plays perfectly in the spacious dimensions of this field. With Boston currently sitting outside playoff contention, expect a big performance from Betts and the rest of Boston tonight against an unproven righty.
| Meet the Experts | Content Posting Times |