DFS Alerts
Bauer in an good spot against the Tigers today.
Bauer feels the safest to me today as he gets to go against Detroit. The Tigers ranked 1st last season with almost a 27% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching. It’s an elite matchup for him.
Eric Hosmer (illness) scratched Saturday; Ty France replaces
Hosmer has been scratched from the San Diego Padres original confirmed lineup and will not start in Saturday’s matchup against the Arizona Diamondbacks due to an illness. He’ll be replaced in the lineup by Ty France, who will now play first base and slot directly into Hosmer’s vacated fifth spot in the order. Meaning, the remainder of the Padres lineup will stay intact offensively as they face off against left-hander Robbie Ray at home this evening.
As reported by: the San Diego Padres via Twitter Other tagged players: Ty France
Stephen Strasburg (hand) scratched Saturday; Erick Fedde will start
Manager Dave Martinez disclosed to reporters during his afternoon media availability that Strasburg has a nerve issue with his right hand, and he hopes it is only a day-to-day situation after Strasburg received treatment for the aforementioned ailment. In his absence, right-hander Erick Fedde will receive the starting nod against the New York Yankees on Saturday evening. With Fedde being a clear and obvious downgrade from Strasburg, the Yankees hitters become much more appealing options on tonight’s abbreviated two-game slate.
As reported by: Jesse Dougherty via Twitter Other tagged players: Erick Fedde Isiah Kiner-Falefa (hamstring) scratched Saturday; Ronald Guzman replaces
Kiner-Falefa has been scratched from the Texas Rangers original confirmed lineup and will not start in Saturday’s matchup against the Colorado Rockies due to left hamstring tightness. He’ll be replaced in the lineup by Ronald Guzman, who will now play first base and slot directly into Kiner-Falefa’s vacated eighth spot in the order, sliding Todd Frazier over to third base defensively. Meaning, the remainder of the Rangers lineup will stay intact offensively as they face off against right-hander John Gray at home this afternoon.
As reported by: John Blake via Twitter Chalk Stack
If you’re ever wondering which team is going to be the chalkiest stack all you have to do is look to see who is playing against the Orioles. Sure, it helps that the Red Sox are one of the best offenses in baseball but Baltimore’s starting rotation and bullpen is one of the worst in the league making them a prime target for opposing hitters. J.D. Martinez was Friday’s highest owned player and didn’t disappoint with a 25 DK pt performance. He is the centerpiece of BOS stacks, followed by Benintendi, Devers, and Moreland. Benintendi disappointed on Opening Night but is still way too cheap for the matchup. With Xander Bogaerts surprisingly out of the lineup, Jose Peraza will hit 5th following his huge four-hit performance on Friday – he’s another excellent way to get exposure to Saturday’s top offense for cheap.
Other tagged players: Andrew Benintendi, Rafael Devers, Mitch Moreland, Jose Peraza
New Role With More Upside
The Red Sox will not be the same offense in 2020 without Mookie Betts, but all judgment gets put aside when the Orioles are the opponent. It will be interesting to see where ownership goes with these hitters after they paid off as chalk last night. Jose Peraza was even a chalky option on DK despite hitting ninth — and he got there with a solid game. Andrew Benintendi makes sense as a value play as the new leadoff hitter for the team. He should score plenty of runs this season, might get five at bats, and owns a career .352 wOBA against RHP. Therefore, he is my preferred point per dollar target as a core option.
Intriguing DFS Upside
Analysis coming soon.Lance McCullers has shown us just enough in his brief career that we can see tangible upside with him. After all, he has a 26.6% strikeout rate and a 12% swinging-strike rate in 450 career major league innings. The unknown lies in the fact that he missed the entire 2019 season due to Tommy John surgery. The shorter season and the late start should benefit him tremendously, and he had a ton of positive things to say in camp. Throw in a matchup against a Seattle offense that might be one of the worst in baseball this year, and there are all sorts of reasons to be excited with McCullers. I do think that the Astros will be a bit cautious with his pitch count, as they were with Verlander on Friday, but five or six innings might be enough for McCullers to pay off a reasonable price tag. Given the limited upside with some of the other mid-range arms, I’m certainly a buyer on McCullers today. He is playable in all formats but is especially viable in GPPs.
Power + Speed
Let me preface my love for a Braves stack by saying that I am 100% biased against Steven Matz. Matz undeniably had an excellent second half of the 2019 season, posting a 3.49 ERA over his last 10 starts. Furthermore, he’s actually had notable success against the Braves with a 2.94 ERA over 13 starts. You know what I say to that? Who cares! The reason why I will almost always have some exposure against Matz when he toes the rubber is his career 16% HR-to-flyball-ratio and 1.52 HR/9. Oh, it also helps that he has been below average in terms of stolen base prevention every year since 2016. For those not up to date with advanced metrics, all of that was a fancy way of saying Matz allows A LOT of HRs and also a fair amount of stolen bases. Both of those are things we want to chase for fantasy and both are things the Braves lineup is constructed to take advantage of.
Other tagged players: Ozzie Albies, Marcell Ozuna, Austin Riley Elite Top End Arm
When healthy, Darvish has always been one of the highest upside pitchers in baseball. The strikeout upside has always been there, but injuries and command woes have held him back. The good news is that he put both of those issues in the rearview mirror in the second half of 2019, and he likely would have been the talk of the National League if it wasn’t for Jack Flaherty and his dominant second half. Opponents hit just .199 against Darvish after the All-Star break in 2019, and he posted a ridiculous 37.8% strikeout rate with a 2.2% walk rate. That walk rate is most impressive for a pitcher who has struggled with command as much as Darvish has throughout his career. He is a legitimate Cy Young contender at this rate, and Kyle Hendricks mowed down these Brewers last night. Now, I will caution against reacting to a one-game sample, especially since the wind will not be blowing in at Wrigley Field this afternoon. However, few pitchers can match the upside that Darvish has on this slate, and he’s clearly the highest ceiling option that we have available.
NIce Value At This Salary
This Houston lineup just keeps coming at you, and this is even without Yordan Alvarez in the lineup right now. Bregman, Brantley, and Gurriel had strikeout rates under 13% against RHP a year ago, and the wOBA/ISO/OPS numbers are off the charts good for almost everyone in the lineup. Now, they might not be as good without the ability to bang trash cans in 2020, but I digress. All are elite plays individually or as part of a Houston stack. On a points per dollar basis, Brantley is my favorite. He carries reasonable price tags of $2,900 on FD and $4,000 on DK, and he should be hitting cleanup on a squad with a team total over six.
Elite Splits Vs RHP
Assuming the Giants don’t play any more games, Jeff Samardzija should get the ball today. We all know by now that Samardzija has had fairly wide splits for his career. He allowed a massive hard-hit rate over 40% to LHBs a year ago, and he has had issues getting lefties out throughout his days in major league baseball. That’s not good when the Dodgers are the opponent. Muncy and Bellinger were going to be primary targets on Friday until the Giants swapped in a left-hander for Samardzija (and then Muncy went ahead and homered twice to troll everyone – pour one out if you originally had Muncy on Friday but then changed your mind). As far as stats go, Bellinger had a .328 ISO and .435 wOBA against RHP a year ago, while Muncy had a .267 ISO and .379 wOBA. Those numbers are pretty darn good. I have tagged Muncy as the core play for positional reasons, but both are fine options.
Chasing Strikeout Upside At Low Ownership
Via PlateIQ, of the teams on both FD and DK main slates, the Rangers’ projected lineup had the highest 2019 strikeout rate (24.7%) against the handedness of today’s opposing pitcher. We saw German Marquez post a solid line with 6 strikeouts against the Rangers last night and this could be a sneaky spot to use Jon Gray in large-field tournaments. Gray has flashed big time strikeout upside in the past and it would be unsurprising to see a spiked performance in a favorable matchup on Saturday.
Attacking A Revamped Lineup
I am interested in seeing exactly how owned Yu Darvish will be across the industry. Darvish is priced as SP3 on FanDuel but I fully expect SP ownership to be focused in on Luis Castillo and Mike Clevinger there. Yu will obviously be higher owned on sites that require multiple SP but I am still not expecting an overwhelming amount of ownership on DraftKings where he’s priced as SP1 at $10,500. All of that to say – if you agree with me that Darvish’s ownership could settle in around the 20% range, that’s ultimately too low for a pitcher in a strong strikeout matchup. The soft tossing Kyle Hendricks showed how many holes there are in Milwaukee’s revamped lineup by racking up 9 Ks en route to an Opening Day CGSO. Unsurprisingly, replacing the likes of Mike Moustakas and Yasmani Grandal with Justin Smoak and Omar Narvaez is going to lead to not only reduced production but an increase in strikeouts. The Brewers may be a sneaky team to attack with opposing SP until the field adapts to their new lineup.
Cheap Stack In Great Hitting Environment
Any time I can find a 4-man stack on FanDuel for under $10k total that contains hitters from the top half of an order, it will pique my interest. The Orioles only have a 4.1 implied run total, but there are actually 7 other teams who have a worse implied run total, many of which have a higher cumulative stack price tag. Eovaldi is tough of righties, but quite weak against lefties, and especially in a great hitting environment at Fenway Park, I’m willing to take a shot on these dirt cheap lefty Orioles bats at very low ownership.
Other tagged players: Austin Hays, Chris Davis, Hanser Alberto
Cheap Stack Against Overrated Pitcher
Madison Bumgarner isn’t an awful pitcher, but nowhere near the caliber he once was. The Padres lineup offers a good deal of power from the right side and a 5-man stack will cost only $18k-$19k and fill some middle infielder positions with Tatis, Profar, & France. Outside of Machado, none of the Padres bats look to garner much more than 5% ownership, especially in a traditionally pitcher-friendly ballpark. One of my favorite “vomit” stacks of the night, a good pairing to go along with expensive high-upside arms.
Other tagged players: Wil Myers, Ty France, Jurickson Profar, Fernando Tatis