DFS Alerts
Hitting 97mph On His Sinker This Season
I’m worried about how deep Dustin May will go in the game, but that should help keep his ownership down. He threw six really strong innings against this Padres team last week and could do the same thing in this matchup tonight. Three of the biggest bats in this lineup are right-handed. May has a .206 wOBA with a .061 ISO against right-handed hitters since being called up last season. He mostly uses a sinker against righties and a cutter against lefties, and it’s been very efficient against right-handed hitters. This team has really struggled against sinkers and could be why May pitched so well against them last week.
Top Stack Option
The Washington Nationals make one of the top stack options on FD’s main slate today with Juan Soto leading the way. Soto has a .414 wOBA and a .300 ISO against right-handed pitching and he and his teammate Trea Turner are underpriced on FD and in an great position to put up some points against Wojciechowski.
Priortize Bats From This Offense
The Red Sox are one of my favorite offenses to target this afternoon in a matchup against Matt Shoemaker. The Toronto starter has not pitched a full season in four years thanks to various injuries, and I don’t see him making a massive leap forward at age 33. He has allowed a 22% line drive rate to LHBs for his career, making guys like Verdugo and Devers elite targets today. Verdugo is a great value if he is in the leadoff spot again, and I will have a lot of exposure to both players. Devers is off to a slow start this year, but he owns a career .407 wOBA and .278 ISO against RHP.
Other tagged players: Rafael Devers
Preferred SP2 Choice
Andrew Heaney isn’t going to be quite as chalky today as he was in his first two starts, but I will prioritize him as my preferred SP2 choice today. He has the platoon advantage against two of Texas’ biggest power hitters in Odor and Gallo, and the early returns are good for Heaney with above average strikeouts and a SIERA/xFIP in the mid threes. Texas’ new park is playing very favorably for pitchers, and that adds appeal to Heaney on this slate.
Clear Cut Top Arm
I do not expect any one hitter to be massive chalk today, and this is an interesting slate with a lot of talented pitchers taking the mound. However, a lot of them have difficult matchups, whereas Jacob deGrom gets to face the Marlins. Yes, the Marlins have been a great story in the early going, overcoming a COVID outbreak on the way to a 7-2 start, but this is still perhaps the least talented offense in the National League. deGrom was allowed to throw 104 pitches over six dominant innings in his last start, so he should be in for a full workload. With his safe floor and strikeout upside, I will prioritize him today.
Contrarian Play
No one likes to play the Colorado team outside of Coors, but Trevor Story and Nolen Arenado are two of the best hitters against right-handed pitching in baseball. With a chance to get them at low ownership, they are deserving of a look in a contrarian Colorado stack tonight. Story has a .283 ISO and .416 wOBA versus left-handed pitching and he can certainly gain you leverage on the field in tournaments tonight.
One of the top plays of the slate
Nelson Cruz is a notorious lefty masher and he shows no signs of slowing down this year. Against left-handed pitching, he has a .462 ISO and a .475 wOBA. He has had success in the past against Duffy as he hit 2 home runs off of him in the same game last year in KC.
Leadoff batter at a great price
Normally we don’t need to play catchers on FD, however Garver batting leadoff against Danny Duffy is just too good to pass up. Garver has a .373 ISO and .445 against left-handed pitching which makes Garver, Nelson Cruz, and Miguel Sano in a great spot for tonight’s game against KC.
Fantastic Matchup For This Star
I really, really, really like this spot. For his career, Anthony DeSclafani has held RHBs to a .280 wOBA, while he has allowed a .351 wOBA to LHBs. His walk rate is also twice as high against LHBs, while he allows hard contact at a 4% higher clip to lefties. As for Yelich, he is my favorite overall bat on this slate. Milwaukee star has been warming up at the plate over the last few games, with home runs in back-to-back contests (yes, one of them was a fluky inside the park job). He is taking better at-bats now, and he won’t be hitting .125 for long. The surge is coming, and my bold call is that he hits for the cycle tonight. Fire him up as an elite play in all formats, and get some Milwaukee stacks into your GPP builds.
Pounce On The Discount
Anderson is one of the lowest strikeout pitchers in baseball, and he has allowed hard contact at a 35%+ clip in four consecutive seasons. He does get a fair amount of ground balls, but that’s about the only good thing in his profile. This feels like a great spot to buy low on Eugenio Suarez. He has struggled to start the season, but he posted a .406 wOBA and .301 ISO against left-handed pitching a year ago, and he does just fine against righties once the bullpen gets involved.
Too Cheap on DK
Paddack appears to be every bit of the quality MLB pitcher that everyone thought he would be when he broke into the major leagues. He has shown impressive command for a young pitcher, and he was consistently solid throughout his rookie year with a 5.5% walk rate and a 26.9% strikeout rate. He has a 3.77 SIERA in his MLB sample size to go along with a swinging strike rate near 12%. It’s solid across the board. The one limitation is that the Padres are often careful with his pitch count, but that has little relevance on a slate that offers next to nothing for quality arms. Five or six innings of Paddack is good enough on a slate like this. He doesn’t have as good of a matchup as Kershaw, but he does benefit similarly from pitching in Petco Park. Paddack has walked just one batter over three starts this season. The command continues to be impeccable. As a nice bonus, he also faced this Arizona team three times last year — never allowing more than one run in any of those starts. I prefer him on DK where his price tag is shockingly affordable.
Still An Ace
Sure, he isn’t the same pitcher that he once was, but there simply aren’t any other quality aces on this slate. The back injury seems to be a non-issue at this point, as Kershaw looked fully healthy in his first start. He pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings with six strikeouts and no walks against the Diamondbacks, getting 11 ground balls to just three fly balls in that outing. I would expect the Dodgers to continue to be somewhat careful with him, but he should be allowed to approach 90-95 pitches tonight. That’s plenty of time for him to get the job done against a Giants offense that is about as underwhelming is it gets. They rank 20th in the league in team wOBA so far in 2020, and that’s even buoyed by playing a full series at Coors Field. Dodger Stadium remains a great place to pitch, particularly in night games. Kershaw has a great floor that towers over every other pitcher on this slate. That has value, even in tournaments. I can’t fade him given the context of this slate — and I will differentiate my GPP lineups with my bats.
Max Kepler has a .293 ISO vs RHP since last season
Jakob Junis struck out just two of the 18 batters he faced in his season debut, but his 9.4 SwStr% was only a few points lower than last year’s mark (9.8%). That’s not necessarily a great thing with an ERA and DRA above five last season along with a 90.1 mph aEV (.346 wOBA). The peripherals are generally around average (14.3 K-BB%), but Junis is otherwise a home run prone pitcher (63 last two seasons) despite pitching in a power suppressing environment. While Junis has somewhat of a platoon split (RHBs .326 wOBA, LHBs .352), Statcast closes the gap significantly by raising RHBs 26 points to create a nine point gap (LHBs .361). The Minnesota lineup is loaded with power. Would it shock people to know that Max Kepler (125 wRC+) has a higher ISO than Nelson Cruz (155 wRC+) against RHP since last season (.293 to .274)? Kepler is also $400 cheaper on FanDuel tonight and may be one of the top overall bats on the board.
Aaron Civale has a 14.1 SwStr% through two starts
Aaron Civale was a sure regression candidate from a .250 BABIP and 6.8 HR/FB last season. Instead, he decided to throw five different pitches in excess of 10% through two starts and has struck out 18 of his first 48 batters. The 14.1 SwStr% is over five points above last year’s mark (8.8%). Three of the five pitches (curveball, cutter, changeup) are above a 40% whiff rate according to Statcast. Amazingly, he’s already halfway to his 2019 HR total with two and the BABIP is .370. So there’s that regression for you. The White Sox have a team 120 wRC+ this year, so it’s not an easy spot for him in Chicago, but there are some strikeout for him in a lineup he’s already dominated once this year. Civale has held batters from either side of the plate below a .280 wOBA in his career and neither get to above .300 by xwOBA either. Despite the 12 game slate, the board is lacking in Ace level pitchers tonight, which makes Civale a solid buy at $9.3K on FanDuel tonight.
Griffin Canning can find value in $7.2K price tag on FanDuel
Griffin Canning has struck out 12 of the 45 batters he’s faced, while allowing four runs and as many walks over 10.2 innings, but that’s fairly impressive when you consider he’s faced the A’s and Astros. While his velocity has been down 1.3 mph in either start, he’s sustained his 13.8 SwStr% from last season quite well and his .284 wOBA this far is in line with his .299 mark last year. Canning generates a lot of contact in the air (37 GB%), which would have been a concern in Texas previously, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in the new retractable dome, which has played more fairly towards pitchers so far. The Texas offense has just a 76 wRC+ and 11 HR/FB this season. Canning doesn’t have much of a platoon split (38 points by wOBA, but just four by xwOBA) and the Rangers only really have one incredibly dangerous bat in their lineup. Canning may not be the top pitcher on the mound tonight, but is a more than reasonable mid-range gamble at $7.2K on FanDuel.