DFS Alerts
Too Many Strikeouts To Ignore
There is a lot of good pitching on tonight’s slate, but 2020 Trevor Bauer is on another level with a 43.6% K rate through his first four starts. Even if and when that comes down significantly, he still retains the highest upside of any pitcher on this slate. His salary is excessive enough on FD and Yahoo that he’s not a necessity, but he is not priced up enough for his ceiling on DK.
The Upside in in the Matchup
Arizona has been disappointing this season, but with they’re in a great spot to do well tonight. Ryan Castellani is the number 21 prospect in the Rockies organization. He has a 6.26 xFIP with a 1.94 WHIP and a 2.91 HR/9 in 43.1 innings in AAA last season. He had some decent strikeout numbers, but overall, he doesn’t look like he’s ready for the big-league level. Calhoun is the only hitter on this roster with an ISO over .200 against right-handed pitching this season. Since the start of the 2019 season, Calhoun, Marte, Marte, Peralta, Walker, and Escobar all have an ISO over .195 against righties. This team has upside, and I think they’re one of the top stacks on this slate.
Other tagged players: David Peralta, Starling Marte, Ketel Marte, Christian Walker
No Strikeout Downside
Since the start of 2019, Brett Anderson has a 13.3% strikeout rate with a 52.6% groundball rate against right-handed hitters. He also has a 31.4% hard to soft contact ratio against right-handed hitters. Castellanos, Suarez, Davidson (small sample size), and Ervin have really good numbers against left-handed pitching. The Reds have a 4.5 implied team total, which is the fifth highest on the slate. I’m hoping they come in a little lower owned, and if you’re playing on DraftKings or Yahoo, I don’t mind throwing in Casali.
Other tagged players: Nick Castellanos, Eugenio Suarez, Phillip Ervin Not The Same Offense
A lot of people are going to pay up for Trevor Bauer, and while I do think he’s the top option on this slate, I think Kenta Maeda is a really strong option as well. This is not the same Cleveland team we’ve seen for years, and they’ve really struggled to start the season. They rank in the bottom five in wOBA, wRC+, and ISO against right-handed pitching this season. The projected lineup has seven guys with strikeout rates over 20% against right-handed pitching this season. Maeda has a 28.7% strikeout rate with a 15.4% swinging strike rate on the season. He’s coming off a gem of a start and has pitched really well all year.
Love The Upside In This Matchup
The Rangers have really struggled at the plate this season, and Luzardo is one of the cheapest pitchers on the slate. The Rangers rank 24th in team wOBA, 19th in ISO, and 27th in wRC+ against left-handed pitching this season. Luzardo has a 13.6% swinging strike rate on the season and offers some really strong upside in tournaments. He threw five really strong innings against this team earlier this season, and he’s coming off his best start of the season. I like his chances to build off of that start and pitch really well against Texas tonight.
Target This Struggling Starter
Justin Dunn has been #bad this season, allowing five homers and 11 walks in just 15 innings so far. I’m fine with a full Rangers stack if you wanted to just load up on bats against Dunn, but I have genuine concerns about the bottom half of this Texas lineup where I’d much prefer doing a mini stack centered around a few of Joey Gallo, Rougned Odor, Danny Santana and Shin-Soo Choo. Gallo is my primary target here as he held a team-high .315 ISO against right-handed pitching last season, but the three also all had ISOs of over .200 as well and are firmly in-play against Dunn.
Cheap Bats In Prime Spot Again Debuting Rookie
I didn’t expect myself to like the Blue Jays as much as I did at first glance, but they will be facing rookie Josh Fleming, who is a low strikeout pitcher. There should be plenty of contact here against Fleming. What really appeals to me are their price tags. Ignoring Cavan Biggio, who is going to lose the platoon advantage against Fleming anyway, nobody in the expected starting lineup is more than $3,900 on DraftKings or $3,200 on FanDuel. Brandon Drury is essentially free across the industry, while Danny Jansen is dirt cheap and could hit in the 3-hole. Randal Grichuk has also been on fire with six homers in his last nine games, and remains cheap atop this Blue Jays lineup. Aside from Grichuk and Jansen, Teoscar Hernandez (.246 ISO vs lefties) and Lourdes Gurriel (.364 ISO vs lefties) would be targets of mine in a Blue Jays stack. I do worry how much of a groundball pitcher Fleming was in the Minors as that could kill rallies, but the Blue Jays are just so cheap I love them all in GPPs.
Righties In Power Spot
It’s not a huge sample but Daniel Ponce de Leon has shown signs of being a reverse splits pitcher, meaning he’s struggled more against right-handed batters than lefties. In his time in the Majors, Ponce de Leon has allowed a .310 wOBA to rightes and seven homers compared to a .261 wBOA and three homers to lefties. The Reds have a lot of lefties in their starting lineup (Votto, Winker, Moustakas, Akiyama, Galvis, Barnhart) so the full stack is a little concerning for me. The case for the full Reds stack is that Ponce de Leon’s biggest weakness so far has been walks, so if you want to just load up on Reds and hope for walks, steals, runs and then a big blast off the bat of Eugenio Suarez or Nick Castellanos, I’m all for it. Suarez and Casty would be my main targets on the Reds given their right-handedness and their power upside, as they both had ISOs over .200+ last season against right-handed power.
Way Ahead Of The Pack
Darvish is the top pitcher on this Sunday slate, and it’s not really even that close in my opinion. His stats this year are sparkling with 29% strikeouts and 4% walks, and this continues the improvement in command that we saw from him in 2019. His xFIP is under 3.00 for the year, and he has electric swing and miss stuff. The White Sox are locked in offensively right now, but this is where the Cubs need their ace to be a stopper as they look to avoid the sweep. Give me all the Darvish this afternoon as the top ace on the board, especially since Carrasco is battling command issues these days.
Sunday's Top Bat
Any time the Red Sox are facing a mediocre lefty, you have to give Martinez serious consideration for this nod. While Wade LeBlanc is not necessarily a gas can, he is merely an average pitcher at best. Martinez is hitting .315 in his career against LHP with a .412 wOBA and .291 ISO. He has also shown signs of warming up, as he hit a home run on Friday and reached base three times on Saturday.
Great Stack Option Against Boyd
Many people still think of Matt Boyd as a better pitcher than he really is. With the amount of home runs he gives up, Ramirez and his teammates are primed for a big night. Although Ramirez disappointed last night, I’m going right back to Ramirez and expect a big outing from him.
Prime Hitting Conditions At Wrigley
We are set up for prime hitting conditions at Wrigley on Saturday night. The current forecast is calling for game time temps near 83-degrees with 9 mph winds blowing out to left field. Per WeatherEdge, similar conditions in 151 other games have resulted in a ridiculous 45.5% increase in HRs and 25.5% increase in total runs. The Cubs draw the much better matchup against Reynaldo Lopez and figure to be relatively chalky but still make for a fine tournament stack. The White Sox figure to be much lower owned against Kyle Hendricks but should also benefit from the hitting conditions and are the team with more power – they are my favorite contrarian stack of the night.
Other tagged players: Jose Abreu, Eloy Jimenez, Yoan Moncada, Javier Baez, Anthony Rizzo, Yasmani Grandal, Luis Robert
Plenty Of Intrigue
Injuries have plagued the start of Triston McKenzie’s professional baseball career but he’s still an intriguing prospect at just 23 years old. McKenzie hasn’t pitched competitively since 2018 when he posted a 2.68 ERA (3.92 xFIP) and a 24% strikeout rate over 90.2 IP in AA. There’s a lot of unknown surrounding McKenzie but he’s reached 5 IP in intrasquad games at Cleveland’s secondary training site and should be ready to go against a whiff heavy Tigers lineup that has averaged a 25.6% strikeout rate against RHP since the start of the 2019 season.
The Giants have a 20.8 HR/FB and 19.3 K% vs LHP
Robbie Ray is up 1.6 miles per hour from last season, more in line with his 2018 velocity. Yet, he’s down 2.8 points to a 10.8 SwStr% and his K-BB has gone from 20.2% last year to just 6.5% this year. And somehow, his contact profile has gotten even worse. He’s generated just 10 ground balls in five starts and almost as many Barrels (eight)! His average exit velocity is up three miles per hour to 91.9. All of his estimators are above six, including a ghastly 10.74 DRA. The Giants have actually punished LHPs to the tune of a 124 wRC+ and 20.8 HR/FB with just a 19.3 K%. The lineup features many cheap lefty mashers, including Austin Slater (.409 wOBA, .255 ISO in 114 PAs vs LHP since last season). Slater is in the leadoff spot with a 198 overall wRC+ this year, costing just $2.8K on FanDuel.
Mike Trout (.379 ISO vs RHP since 2019) is in a smash spot against Mike Fiers
Mike Fiers made it through a full season with a .256 BABIP and 78.5 LOB% despite a 16.7 K% last season generating a 3.90 ERA more than a run below his estimators. While he has a history of out-performing his FIP by nearly half a run, this was ridiculous. In 2020, his K-BB has been further cut in half to 4.5% with just a 5.1 SwStr%. Fiers is generating just one-third of his contact on the ground and it seems his results have caught up with the peripherals. His 5.96 ERA matches his 5.95 SIERA and 6.10 xERA. A 9.03 DRA is even more frightening. The Angels have had their problems as a team, but hitting RHP isn’t one of them (119 wRC+, 11.1 K-BB%, 16.6 HR/FB). Fiers has been hit harder by RHBs since 2019 (.321 wOBA, .190 ISO), which does him no favors against the core of this lineup in Mike Trout (.449 wRC+, .379 ISO vs RHP since last season) and Anthony Rendon (.415 wOBA, .271 ISO). Trout is expensive ($4.5K on FanDuel), but with a 162 wRC+ and 18.8% Barrels/BBE this year, he may be the top overall bat on the slate with this matchup.