DFS Alerts

Top Monday Bat

The Nationals are highly motivated to win games this week, and this is certainly a winnable matchup tonight against Zach Eflin and the Phillies. Eflin has been pitching well in September with a 1.19 ERA in four starts (including two against the Braves), but he only has 18 strikeouts in 22 2/3 innings in those outings. Largely, his success has hinged upon favorable BABIP luck. I’m not banking on this being any sort of long-term trend. Eflin is a decent major league pitcher, but he has not evolved into the ace that many people expected a few years back. As always, I will prioritize lefty bats against Eflin. He has allowed a .350 wOBA and 41% hard hit rate to lefties this year, and he has always struggled more against hitters from that side. That immediately vaults Juan Soto and his .417 wOBA and .309 ISO against RHP to the top of the list. He is my favorite overall bat on this slate, especially when you consider his OBP skills (17.5% BB rate vs. RHP).

The Ace on a Thin Slate

In terms of talent and the “this game matters” factor, there’s nowhere to look other than to Corbin as the top arm on tonight’s slate. After a mediocre start to the year, Corbin has posted a 1.95 ERA in July, a 2.78 ERA in August, and a 2.74 ERA in September. His 28.4% strikeout rate is the highest you will find on the slate, and he had his wipeout slider working to perfection in his last start against the Cardinals. Given the importance of this game, with the Nationals now tied with the Brewers for the top Wild Card spot in the National League, it would be foolish to consider anyone else as the top arm. Now, his walks are a little too high for an ace, but that’s a bit nit picky. With the Phillies fading from the race, Corbin makes sense if you have the salary to spend, and he’s one of the only safe options on this slate.

Examining end of season team and pitcher motivations (Part II)

An important aspect to remember as we embark on the last week of the regular season is team motivation. We can’t just assume a pitcher is set for his normal workload. Teams generally fall into one of four categories when it comes to pitcher workload management this time of year: getting pitchers ready for the post-season, still playing for a post-season spot, more cautiously managing the workload of younger pitchers or those with recent injuries, all systems go. A short five game slate allows us to examine all 10 pitchers tonight and see what category they fall into.

Blake Snell could fall into a couple of categories. The Rays are tied for the second wild card, but has thrown just two major league innings since July 21st. He can’t possibly be considered for a normal workload and is far too expensive for anything but. Similarly, Jhoulys Chacin has not faced more than 15 batters in an outing for the Red Sox.

Chandler Shepherd, Caleb Smith and Alex Young are all in their first full season. Shepherd hasn’t reached 120 innings on the year, but has been limited to four innings (19 batters) or less in all three major league outings. Smith is above 150 innings for the first time in his professional career and hasn’t necessarily been more limited, but has just a 21 K%, 6.08 ERA, 6.03 FIP and .342 xwOBA over the last 30 days. Alex Young is right around his workload for the last three seasons. He’s interesting due to a 12.7 SwStr% with a .308 xwOBA and 6.5% Barrels/BBE, but his estimators are all well above his ERA due to a .245 BABIP and more than 20% of his runs being unearned.

Clay Buchholz is not young and does have a favorable matchup (Orioles 85 wRC+ vs RHP), but he has been injured and bad (13.6 K%, ERA & estimators all above five, .366 xwOBA, 12.3% Barrels/BBE). The Orioles also pounded him for seven runs and two HRs in his last start.

Examining end of season team and pitcher motivations (Part I)

An important aspect to remember as we embark on the last week of the regular season is team motivation. We can’t just assume a pitcher is set for his normal workload. Teams generally fall into one of four categories when it comes to pitcher workload management this time of year: getting pitchers ready for the post-season, still playing for a post-season spot, more cautiously managing the workload of younger pitchers or those with recent injuries, all systems go. A short five game slate allows us to examine all 10 pitchers tonight and see what category they fall into.

Looking towards the post-season: This is an easy one because the answer is nobody! The Cardinals are the only team in action tonight who have already clinched a post-season berth, but still have a magic number of four to clinch the division. It’s not out of reach for the Brewers.

Still playing for something: This is a bit trickier because teams like the Phillies (Zach Eflin) and Mets (Steven Matz) have absolutely no margin for error. This is not necessarily a positive in terms of choosing your daily fantasy pitcher because these pitchers are likely to have the shortest leash should something go wrong. Matz has been excellent at home (1.84 ERA, .282 xwOBA, 3.19 FIP, 3.67 xFIP) and is in a great spot against the Marlins (79 wRC+ vs LHP). He costs just $7.6K on DraftKings and should be fine here.

The Nationals (Patrick Corbin) are very close to locked in for a wild card spot, but we’re not sure which one. Corbin is second on the board with a 28.4 K%, .301 xwOBA and 3.87 ERA, but first with a 3.08 DRA. He may be the top overall arm on the board and should probably be treated as much. Adam Wainwright is in a similar situation, but he’s a low upside arm with a 14.8 K% over the last 30 days and has just a 7.2 SwStr% on the season with non-FIP estimators well above his ERA.

Affordable Power Hunting

The Blue Jays have six batters in their projected lineup with an ISO above .200 against right-handed pitching, and they most of them are priced down across the industry. Baltimore is sending Chandler Shepard to the mound, backed up by a bullpen that has been one of the worst in the league all season long. Shepard is a minor league journeyman who hasn’t been anything more than average at Triple-A. If Billy McKinney finds his way to the top of the lineup, he’ll be a strong value in all formats on all sites, and even if lower in the lineup, his fly ball power makes him a viable tournament play.

Not Much To Choose From

After Patrick Corbin up top tonight, the pitching gets dicey in a hurry. The one spot that looks like a strong value for SP2 on DK/FDRFT is Steven Matz at home against the Marlins. The weather may end up getting in the way here, but as long as this game is going to start, he’s affordable enough to play even with delay risk. Matz is an average strikeout pitcher at 22.2% for the season with good control, and other than his Coors Field start last week, he had gone seven straight outings allowing two runs or less. While the overall K% of the Marlins is not extreme against lefties, they still have quite a few high strikeout bats and a lot of low power, ground ball hitters.

Scarce Tournament Options

Tournament pitching options are scarce on Monday’s small 5-game slate but it does seem like we’ll get to play around with ownership a bit. Steven Matz and Patrick Corbin are going to be extremely chalky which should result in every other pitching option seeing relatively low ownership. Of the remaining options, Smith is my favorite due to his skill-set and strikeout upside that he has shown at various times this season.

High Leverage, Low Upside

It’s almost laughable how bad the Marlins lineup is at this point of the season with their two best hitters Brian Anderson and Garrett Cooper out. Still, despite how terrible Miami is offensively, we have to remember how volatile baseball is. Steven Matz may legitimately see ownership north of 50% in GPPs on multi-SP sites which makes stacking against him a strong game theory approach despite how poor the Marlins are offensively. If you don’t want to get this ugly, stacking the Phillies against Patrick Corbin is a similar strategy with more capable hitters going up against a better pitcher.

Opener Allowing a Lot of Hard Contact

Jhoulys Chacin is listed as Boston’s “Opener” for Monday’s game but Rays hitters could see him a couple of times as Chacin threw 72 pitches in his last outing. Out of all pitchers that have thrown at least 95 IP this season, Chacin owns the third highest hard-hit rate (47%), which is tops on the slate by a wide margin. While this game is taking place in the pitcher friendly Tropicana, there aren’t many good hitting environments on Monday’s small slate which helps negate the poor context a bit.

Yarbrough in a nice spot vs. depleted Red Sox order

Since July 1st, Ryan Yarbrough has posted an impressive 3.08 ERA, 3.02 FIP, 0.89 WHIP, 21.2% K-BB and just a 25% hard contact rate. He’s also posted just a .248 xwOBA allowed and 82.2 MPH aEV over that span. You’d have been wise to avoid starters against the Red Sox throughout the year, but today they will be without Mookie Betts and Andrew Benintendi and their lineup isn’t looking like much of a threat. Their lineup today will have just 2 batters who have an xwOBA vs. LHP greater than .320 this year. If Yarbrough can deal with JD Martinez and Xander Bogaerts, he should have no problem with the rest of the order as they are mostly replacement level hitters. Eliminated from playoff contention Friday night, the Red Sox have just a 3.79 implied total for this afternoon’s game that honestly seems a bit high.

Logan Webb has allowed a .379 xwOBA over the past 30 days

22 year old Logan Webb has had a bit of a rough time since being called up as he’s posted a 6.51 ERA over 27 and 2/3 innings. He does have a 4.01 xFIP and 4.61 SIERA and a not-terrible 10.9% K-BB that indicates the ERA is likely a bit inflated. Though he also has a .353 xwOBA allowed (and a .379 xwOBA over the past 30 days) so he isn’t fooling too many batters either. The Braves are missing a few of their best hitters but still have a solid 5.50 implied total and their lineup has some nice value plays as well. Freddie Freeman (.419 xwOBA vs. RHP this year), Matt Joyce (.370), Nick Markakis (.370), Dansby Swanson (.340), Tyler Flowers (.308), Adeiny Hechavarria (.294) and Austin Riley (.285) are all in play. Freeman, Joyce and Markakis all have a xwOBA over .400 over the past 2 weeks. Swanson and Hechavarria are batting 1-2 in the order and are both $4k or less on Draftkings and $2.7k or less on Fanduel. Markakis, Joyce and Flowers are all below $3.9k on Draftkings and $2.9k on Fanduel. Billy Hamilton is also an option for GPPs, as he has stolen base upside and is near minimum price on both sites.

Twins once again have highest total on the slate

The Twins get another nice matchup today, this time versus Jorge Lopez. Lopez has posted a 5.93 ERA / 5.16 FIP with a 1.72 HR/9, 1.45 WHIP, 12.8% K-BB and 9% SwStr. Lopez has some ugly Statcast numbers, including an 11.4% barrel rate, 90.3 MPH aEV and .418 xwOBACON that are among the worst qualified starters in the league. Lopez has been a bit more vulnerable vs. lefties (.369 xwOBA allowed vs. LHB, .341 xwOBA allowed vs. RHB in his career) but can be targeted from both sides of the plate this afternoon. Nelson Cruz (.402 xwOBA vs. RHP this year), LaMonte Wade (.389), Jorge Polanco (.354), Miguel Sano (.350), Luis Arraez (.346), Mitch Garver (.340), Jake Cave (.336), Eddie Rosario (.323) and Marwin Gonzalez (.312) are all potential options in the Twins’ order. Mitch Garver has been on fire with a .524 xwOBA over the past 2 weeks. Arraez stands out as a nice value at just $4k on Draftkings and likely leading off. Cave, Gonzalez and Wade are all $3.7k or less on DK and a cheap way to get exposure to this lineup. The Twins currently have a 6.48 implied total vs. Lopez and the Royals.

Pablo Lopez is a nice value SP option

Though he’s facing a very good Nationals’ lineup, Pablo Lopez has a number of things working in his favor this afternoon. Lopez returned from the IL on 8-26 aft and initially had to shake off some rust, but looked good in his last outing vs. the D-Backs, allowing 3 earned over 6 IP with no walks and 6 Ks. He’s at home this afternoon in pitcher’s haven Marlins Park, where he’s been much better so far in his career: Lopez has a 3.41 ERA / 3.56 FIP, 1.16 WHIP and .285 xwOBA allowed in home starts compared to a 6.44 ERA / 5.62 FIP, 1.28 WHIP and .344 xwOBA allowed in away starts over 160 and 2/3 total innings. Lopez has also been better versus righties (15.6% K-BB, .293 xwOBA allowed vs. RHB compared to 13% K-BB, .326 xwOBA allowed vs. LHB over his career) and he’ll face 6 righties compared to just 2 lefties in the Nationals’ order today. The best part about Lopez is his price, as he comes in at a dirt cheap $6.2k on Draftkings and $7.2k on Fanduel. He makes for a nice GPP SP2 play on Draftkings.

Angels currently have just a 2.19 implied total vs. Verlander

This is the lowest total I think I’ve ever seen. Verlander has been great again this year as he currently has career bests in K%, WHIP, batting average against and SwStr. He has a 2.50 ERA / 3.24 xFIP despite giving up homers at a pretty high rate (1.44 HR/9). He’s been even more dominant over the past 30 days, with a 1.08 ERA / 2.76 xFIP, 31.9% K-BB, 0.69 WHIP and 0.27 HR/9. The Angels’ lineup is awful without Mike Trout and they have just a 71 wRC+ and 26.2% K rate since his injury. The Angels’ projected lineup has just 1 batter with an xwOBA vs. RHP above .320 this year. The Astros are -530 to win, so it’s likely Verlander gets the ‘W’ bonus in this matchup. Verlander is above $12k on both major sites this afternoon but should be well worth the price as this is about as good as it gets from a matchup perspective. He’ll likely see very high ownership across all contests on this slate.

Lefty Masher Alert

The Red Sox are implied with a team total fewer than four runs, as they are without Mookie Betts and taking a negative ballpark shift here. While I’m not high on the Red Sox as a whole, Martinez stands out like a sore thumb as a clear core play. Martinez has a .496 ISO against left-handed pitching and now faces lefty Ryan Yarbrough, who he’s 6-for-9 career off of with three doubles and a homer. I’m also fine if you want to use a Martinez / Bogaerts mini-stack as Bogaerts also mashes lefties, but Martinez is my main target here.