DFS Alerts

Torched By Lefties

Taijuan Walker has been torched by lefties this season, allowing a .987 OPS compared to a .547 OPS to righties. Six of his eight homers have also been at the hands of lefties. This makes it a prime spot for Bryce Harper, but I also love including Didi Gregorius and Jay Bruce in a Phillies mini stack to take advantage of these splits. Andrew Knapp and Roman Quinn are also lefties lower in the order if you wanted to roll out the full lefties Phillies stack, and I’m not opposed to it as Knapp and Quinn should be relatively unowned.

Season Numbers Are Deceiving

Urquidy has only made three starts this season and his season numbers don’t look great (15.6 K%, 9.4 BB%) but he’s coming off a start where he fanned seven Rangers over seven innings. He had a solid 24 K% last season so I do expect positive strikeout regression coming in these final two starts. The only thing holding me back from advocating harder for him on this slate is the Diamondbacks rank just 25th in K% against right-handed pitching, so this is a very good contact-hitting team. I think he’s interesting in GPPs, as he’s better than his season numbers suggest.

Season Numbers Are Deceiving

Urquidy has only made three starts this season and his season numbers don’t look great (15.6 K%, 9.4 BB%) but he’s coming off a start where he fanned seven Rangers over seven innings. He had a solid 24 K% last season so I do expect positive strikeout regression coming in these final two starts. The only thing holding me back from advocating harder for him on this slate is the Diamondbacks rank just 25th in K% against right-handed pitching, so this is a very good contact-hitting team. I think he’s interesting as an SP2 in GPPs as he’s better than his season numbers appear.

Lefty Masher Alert

I don’t really want to pick on Boyd with a Cleveland stack as I consider Boyd one of the better pitchers on this slate, but the guy is uber home run prone and is likely going to give up a dong (or two or three) today while he strikes out those who aren’t donging. I feel like you can pretty much target any right-handed bat against him and just hope for a homer, as he’s allowed 12 of his 13 home runs this season to righties. Jordan Luplow is my favorite one-off option here as he does have two career homers off Boyd and wide splits against lefties. He is a pinch-hit risk but he’s also dirt cheap and you just need a homer from him to more than pay off his salary.

The Rangers have just a 63 wRC+ vs RHP

Jaime Barria has just a 10.2 K-BB% through 24 innings, but just a 3.38 ERA due to a 6.3 HR/FB and .239 BABIP. With an 87.1 mph EV, Barria has allowed two HRs, but not a single Barrel yet. While the 2.51 ERA is even more impressive, it’s not sustainable. His SIERA and xFIP are more than a run and a half higher than actual results. The Rangers have absolutely no offense (63 wRC+, 25 K%, 10.5 HR/FB vs RHP), which could make Barria a viable alternative to higher priced pitching for Coors stackers tonight. Ronald Guzman (110 wRC+) is the only batter in the projected lineup above a 100 wRC+ over the last 30 days. He’s also just one of two batters in the projected lineup above a .300 wOBA against RHP this year. Barria costs just $5.8K and while he hasn’t completed the six innings necessary for a Quality Start all season, he’s thrown 86 and 85 pitches over his last two starts and could get there tonight against the Rangers. Barria costs just $5.8K on FanDuel.

Adrian Houser offers low priced run prevention

Adrian Houser generates lots of weak (86.3 mph EV) ground balls (61.4%), but with just a 9.3 K-BB%. That generates a 4.58 xERA via Statcast, which is in line with all of his other estimators (all below five), which also all well below his 5.40 ERA. Houser has allowed a .329 BABIP and 23.1 HR/FB, stranding just 62.5% of his runners. None of it makes much sense. He’s allowed just eight Barrels on the year and has a 20.7 LD%. He hasn’t been good, but he may be much closer to average than actual results give him credit for. The Royals have just an 89 wRC+ and 17.2 K-BB% vs RHP. Houser has a large split since last season (over 100 points by wOBA and 70 points by ISO), something the Royals have no ability to take any advantage of as their only decent hitters are RH. There are no LH batters in tonight’s lineup above a .322 wOBA or .173 ISO against RHP since last season and there are only four total. Houser doesn’t have a lot of strikeout upside, but this is a matchup that caters to his strengths at a price tag on FanDuel ($5.7K) that will allow players to roster high end Dodger bats at Coors.

Cheap and Low Owned Rays with a Park upgrade

A nice park upgrade tonight for the Rays against Alex Cobb who is allowing 47+% hard contact to both sides of the plate this year per PlateIQ. Cobb has given up at least four runs in three of his last four starts which has me eying the Rays as an ownership/price play on both sites tonight to fit in great bats elsewhere.

Indians Stack at low Ownership

Fulmer’s stay in this game looks to be a short one as he has had one reasonably good “opening” start this year while having three games that saw him leave the game with negative fantasy points. The Indians are going overlooked with the huge total in Coors and should be able to feast on the bullpen once Fulmer leaves the game after a few innings in which I think the Indians get out to an early lead.

A .400+ wOBA vs RHP and just $3.5K at Coors

Ryan Castellani has walked 10 of his last 43 batters, striking out just five with three HRs allowed. He has just a 3.5 K-BB% with a 90.4 mph EV on the season. Somehow, he’s allowed just 6.1% Barrels/BBE despite just a 36.4 GB%. That’s nine HRs on just six Barrels. None of it really makes any sense and if we want to throw in more confusion, how about a 10.4 SwStr% to go with his 16 K%. One thing we do know for sure is that the Dodgers have an almost unprecedented implied run line of eight tonight! They Yankees are the only other team on the board to even reach six. Batters from either side of the plate are above a .340 wOBA & xwOBA and .260 ISO against Castellani. Players may want to build their lineups around Dodgers before even considering pitching. The top Dodger bats are generally above $4K on FanDuel tonight, but Will Smith (.404 wOBA, .384 ISO career vs RHP) is still just $3.5K. He has a 208 wRC+ over the last 30 days and is barreling 13.5% of his contact this year.

We don’t see 8 run totals very often in MLB and with the Dodgers being expensive along with a 12 game slate it’s going to keep ownership somewhat in check. Aiming for the middle and bottom of the order along with filling the Catcher position makes sense to be unique from the rest of the Dodger stacks out there.

LHBs have a .418 xwOBA against Alex Cobb this year

Alex Cobb has just a 16.6 K% and while 52.7% of his contact has been on the ground, it’s also been at a 90.8 mph average exit velocity, generating 10.6% Barrels/BBE. As a result, while his 5.03 ERA is within a half run of a 4.67 SIERA, his 7.18 DRA is the second worst mark on the board. Since returning from an injury that made him miss almost all of the 2019 season, LHBs have a .348 wOBA and .418 xwOBA against Cobb. The Rays don’t always have the most stable lineup, but Brandon Lowe can generally be penciled in near the top against RHP. He owns a .367 wOBA and .265 ISO vs RHP since last season. In 2020, he’s barreled 19.5% of his contact. Lowe may be one of the top bats on the board outside Coors and costs less than $4K on FanDuel tonight.

Tyler Glasnow has the top strikeout rate on the slate (37.4%) by a wide margin

Tyler Glasnow has a 37.4 K% that’s easily best on the board. He’s occasionally struggled with control (9.7 BB%), but has walked no more than one batter in three of his last four starts. He also has a bit of a contact problem (90.3 mph EV), but has allowed just eight Barrels with as many HRs. The exit velocity doesn’t matter as much when barely half the batters you face are making contact in fair territory. The Orioles have a 103 wRC+ vs RHP, but have been falling off (62 wRC+, 19.6 K-BB% last seven days). Less than half the projected lineup for the Orioles are above an 80 wRC+ over the last 30 days. Batters from either side of the plate are below a .300 wOBA against Glasnow since 2019. With Zach Plesac in the unfamiliar role of being the highest priced pitcher on FanDuel, Glasnow is a high upside alternative for $300 less.

Alex Wood to start for the Dodgers on Friday

The Dodgers are still expected to treat this as a bullpen game, so don’t expect more than 2-3 innings from Wood. He’s pitching in Coors tonight, so he’s not a recommended option anyway. This is good news for Nolan Arenado, Trevor Story and the rest of the Rockies RHs.

RHBs are above a .500 wOBA, .400 ISO against Michael Fulmer this year

Michael Fulmer set a season high with 17 batters faced, but also tied a season high with five runs allowed and still hasn’t recorded a fourth inning out through eight starts. He has a 9.27 ERA, 6.3 K-BB% and 91.7 mph EV through 22.1 innings. Estimators range from a 5.52 SIERA to an 8.81 DRA. The Indians walk a lot (11.4%), but do little else vs RHP (88 wRC+). Fulmer missed last season and has only faced 49 RHBs this year, but they own a .594 wOBA (.558 xwOBA) and .432 ISO against him (LHBs .345 wOBA, .324 xwOBA). Franmil Reyes is the RH power bat in this lineup against RHP (.343 wOBA, .258 ISO since 2019). The good news is that he costs less than $3K on FanDuel and his 92.5 mph EV is tops in the projected lineup. He’s also likely to have several opportunities to drive runs in tonight. The bad news is that he’ll only face Fulmer twice at most, but the Detroit bullpen (6.22 ERA, 5.37 FIP last 30 days) is nothing to fear.

Mile High Upside

On the Rockies’ current homestand, none of the first seven games have featured more than 12 runs. None have gone over the listed Vegas total. Expect that to change tonight with two underwhelming pitchers on the mound, but will GPP ownership be lower than normal as a result of the recent duds at Coors? If so, this is a great night to load up in tournaments. If not, I’ll still be loading up. The Colorado bats are a bit cheaper and check in as the slightly better stack for me against this hybrid Alex Wood / bullpen game, but you really can’t go wrong with exposure to this game.