DFS Alerts

The Ideal Matchup

We know all about picking on the Marlins with right-handed pitchers, and it’s an even better looking matchup with the ground balls and soft contact from Zack Wheeler against right-handed bats. Wheeler is just a moderate strikeout pitcher at 25% to righties and 27% to lefties, but on this particular slate, we don’t have the usual elite upside aces, so the 25% range is plenty. What he lacks in K’s, he makes up for with 52% GB and 28% hard hits allowed to righties along with strong control that has led to just a .277 wOBA to RHB. With the low power and ground balls of Miami, everything would have to go wrong for him to have a bad outing tonight.

Right Back To The Well

It’s been a rough season for Nick Castellanos, but I really think we will see an increase in numbers with the move to Chicago. Even with his struggles, he’s been very good against left-handed pitching. Anderson does a great job getting ground balls, but he gives up a lot of hard contact in the process. Castellanos is cheap and has a .270 ISO with a 53.2% hard-hit rate against left-handed pitching this season. There is going to be a lot of hard contact in this matchup.

The Power Is On The Left Side Of The Plate

Chase Anderson is really cheap tonight, and he’s one of my favorite SP2 options tonight. This lineup is very left-handed heavy, and Anderson has some serious reverse splits this season. He’s been a reverse splits pitcher for a few seasons now, he’s just taken it to the next level this season. He has a .234 wOBA with a .129 ISO and a 22.3% strikeout rate against left-handed hitters. He also has a very good 9.8% hard to soft contact ratio. I also really like the ballpark upgrade in this spot.

Home Run Incoming?

Dodgers crushed it on Monday, and I’m going right back to the well tonight. Mikolas has really struggled against lefties, and he’s been a lot worse on the road this season. He has a 5.11 xFIP with a .359 wOBA and a 42.7% hard-hit rate against lefties this season. He also has a 1.53 HR/9 against left-handed hitters and it’s 2.35 HR/9 against lefties on the road. Joc Pederson has a .286 ISO with a .366 wOBA and a 44.4% hard-hit against right-handed pitching this season.

Makes Sense On Certain Sites

Lamet is priced up on DraftKings and FantasyDraft, but I really like his price on FanDuel and Yahoo. He’s coming back from serious injury, and while I worry about the pitch count, the upside is there at this price point. He has a 5.09 ERA but a 3.95 SIERA after his first five starts this season. He has a 29.1% strikeout rate with a 14% swinging strike rate. The Seattle projected starting lineup has a 26% strikeout rate with a .177 ISO against right-handed pitching this season.

Alex Verdugo (back) scratched Monday; Kristopher Negron replaces

Verdugo has been scratched from the Los Angeles Dodgers original confirmed lineup and will not start in Monday’s matchup against the St. Louis Cardinals due to lower back soreness. He’ll be replaced in the lineup by Kristopher Negron, who will now play center field and slot directly into Verdugo’s vacated seventh spot in the order. However, the remainder of the Dodgers lineup will stay intact offensively as they face off against right-hander Michael Wacha at home this evening.

J.D. Martinez (back) scratched Monday; Sandy Leon replaces

Martinez has been scratched from the Boston Red Sox original confirmed lineup and will not start in the Monday’s matchup against the Kansas City Royals due to a presently unspecified reason. He’ll be replaced in the lineup by Sandy Leon, who will now handle the catching duties and slot into the ninth spot in the order, which shuffles quite a few players around in the Red Sox batting order. Therefore, be sure to double-check the Starting Lineups page for the updated lineup as Boston faces off against left-hander Mike Montgomery at home this evening.

Jeff Samardzija has struck out 27 of 91 batters since the break

On a board without much on the high end and many mid-range pitchers either struggling or more contact managers in potentially difficult spots, it’s tough to find really anyone who stands out on the mound tonight. In that case, Jeff Samardzija may be your man. The most obvious factor in his favor is his home park, a negative run environment that crushes LHP, something the Nationals don’t have much of anyway. This is partially the reason they also have just a 94 wRC+ vs RHP this year. Samardzija has struck out 27 of 91 batters since the All-Star break, allowing just seven runs over 23.2 innings, three of his four starts on the road, including one at Coors. His 3.75 ERA is a bit below estimators in the mid-fours this season, but a .317 xwOBA is right around average. Over the last month, those estimators are right around four. With the park bump, a cost below $9K should have some value if he can hold recent gains.

Jake Odorizzi has allowed the third highest rate of Barrels/BBE (9.9%) on the board

A key to watch with Jake Odorizzi is his Z-Contact%. He likes to pitch up in the zone despite not being a high velocity pitcher and when it works, he misses a lot of bats in the upper part of the zone. He was a Z-Contact% leader early on this season, but that has gone south over the last month and a half (87.4% last eight starts) as has his results (20.2 K%, 7.04 ERA, 6.03 FIP over that span). He allowed just one run in his last start (5.2 innings), but that was in Miami, the perfect park for a struggling fly ball pitcher. The Braves will represent much more of a challenge, especially considering that Odorizzi is a reverse platoon pitcher, not by wOBA (RHBs .258 last calendar year), but by xwOBA (RHBs .333). That’s a 75 point difference and Atlanta has RHBs who can hit same-handed pitching well. Over this poor eight start stretch though, batters from either side of the plate exceed a .350 wOBA against him and for the season, his 9.9% Barrels/BBE is third worst on the board. While Ronald Acuna (127 wRC+, .213 ISO vs RHP last calendar year) may be the top overall bat in the Atlanta lineup tonight, Josh Donaldson (132 wRC+, .258 ISO) may be the best value. He has the second best wRC+ and top ISO vs RHP in the lineup tonight (over the last 12 months), while costing $4.2K or less on either site.

Wrigley conditions favor affordable Cubs' bats

The Wrigley winds will be blowing out tonight, which puts Chris Bassitt in a very different environment than he’s used to in Oakland. With decent peripherals (13.8 K-BB%), Bassitt has kept his 3.84 ERA more than a half run below estimators due to quality contact management (15.1 IFFB%, 5.6% Barrels/BBE), projecting a .303 xwOBA that supports his actual mark (.297) and ERA. The Cubs have an 18.4 HR/FB vs RHP though and a 5.6 implied run line that’s third best on tonight’s board despite Bassitt holding batters from either side of the plate below a .300 wOBA and .310 xwOBA over the last calendar year. Conditions give Cubs’ bats substantial value tonight with only Javier Baez (106 wRC+, .231 ISO vs RHP last calendar year) above a $4.1K price tag on DraftKings and only he and Anthony Rizzo (149 wRC+, .229 ISO) above $4K on FanDuel. Rizzo actually costs less on DK than FD tonight. Jason Heyward (118 wRC+, .195 ISO) and Nick Castellanos (113 wRC+, .196 ISO) would be strong values in the top two spots in the lineup.

Low-Priced, Low-Owned Wrigley Wind

When I first took a look at the opening total for this game, I was a little weary. We all know Wrigley is the most weather affected stadium in the league and hitting conditions are expected to be great. At the time of writing this, Monday’s forecast is calling for temps in the mid-80’s, a dewpoint in the mid-60’s, and winds blowing out to dead center around 8 mph. Per Kevin Roth’s Weather Edge tool, in 148 games matching those current conditions there has been a 34.5% increase in HRs and a 21% increase in total runs.

Monday’s forecast will be important to continue to monitor but this game is starting to trend up with the total being bet up to 10 runs at the time of this writing, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that number increase as the day progresses. If conditions do hold we could see one of the lower owned “Wrigley Wind” games of the season with ownership focused elsewhere. The Cubs are the “better” offense to stack in this game but my focus is on the A’s primarily because of how cheap they are on DraftKings with Marcus Semien being their highest priced player at $4,000. The A’s ridiculously cheap price tags on DK could lead to some ownership inflation on that site while Oakland players are still likely to go underowned on a site like FanDuel where they’re more adequately priced.

Lefty Power

I’ll raise my hand – I’ve been waiting for the Dario Agrazal blow up to happen over his last handful of starts and it hasn’t yet. Yet, I’m not deterred. There is one thing I am certain of and it’s that Agrazal is not a good pitcher. Yes, the Pirates righty does have a 3.65 ERA through his first seven Big League Starts but I’m simply not buying it. Agrazal does not miss bats. He’s the owner of the slate’s worst strikeout rate (11.6%) by a wide margin and has never profiled as a strikeout pitcher in the Minors. There are routes to being successful in the Big Leagues that don’t include striking batters out but they are few and far between and include pitchers much more talented than Dario Agrazal.

One dead horse I like to beat in regards to pitcher friendly PNC Park is that, yes, it’s pitcher friendly, but not at the expense of left-handed power. Per RG’s Ballpark Factors tool, PNC Park has allowed HRs to right-field at an almost exactly average rate since 2014. PNC Park is certainly death to right-handed power but lefties can still thrive which is great news for a Milwaukee lineup chock full of left-handed hitters with power. In fact, Milwaukee’s lineup is STACKED with left-handed power with five hitters owning ISO’s north of .232 against right-handed pitching over the last two seasons. Keston Hiura (.301 ISO) is included in there but has a bit of a small sample size alert. Not included is Travis Shaw (.245 ISO) who could crack Monday’s lineup.

Long story short – we want to chase power when stacking and the Brewers have a ton of it, are in a good matchup, and are playing in a park neutral to left-handed power.

Chalk Stack

Oh boy has Mike Montgomery been bad this season. The now Kansas City Royals starter has pitched 11.1 innings for his new club and has given up 18 hits and 10 runs over that span. Montgomery’s season long numbers are still subject to an extremely small sample (38.1 IP) but the story they tell isn’t good. The once respectable southpaw has been incapable of missing bats (13.2% strikeout rate) and is allowing a ton of hard contact (43 Hard%). Those numbers foreshadow a beating for Montgomery at hitter friendly Boston as the Red Sox attempt to stay in the playoff hunt.

As a team, Boston’s numbers against left-handed pitching has been underwhelming this season but they still have multiple bats that can tee-off on southpaws. The Red Sox have four hitters that have posted ISO’s north of .200 against LHP over the last two seasons led by J.D. Martinez and his ridiculous .356 ISO and .477 ISO. While Mookie hasn’t shown nearly as much power as J.D. with a .255 ISO he’s still been tremendous with a .414 ISO.

I fully expect J.D. and Mookie to be two of the highest owned players on the slate and the Red Sox to be the highest owned stack. I am still fine with having some exposure to Red Sox stacks in tournaments but think it’s smart to look for ways to differentiate your stack. For example, stacking the bottom of the Red Sox order, using multiple left-handed hitters in your stack, or simply getting a little frisky with it at the SP position.

Charlie Morton has struck out at least eight in seven of 10 home starts

High end pitching is on the light end on tonight’s slate with just three pitchers reaching $10K on either site. While Luis Castillo has generated a 20+ SwStr% in three of four starts and the Angels will be without Ohtani tonight in an NL park, it really comes down to Charlie Morton or Lucas Giolito as tonight’s top overall arm. Giolito (29.9 K%) has been inconsistent over the last two months, but has allowed one run while striking out nine in two of his last three starts and is in a great spot in Detroit tonight (Tigers 73 wRC+, 19.3 K-BB%, 10 HR/FB vs RHP). He may be the top upside pitcher on the board tonight, but Morton (30.1 K%) is probably the most consistent. He has struggled in two of his last three starts, but those were at Fenway and Yankee Stadium, two teams he’s also dominated at home over the last month (21 Ks in 12.2 IP). The matchup (Blue Jays 90 wRC+, 24.3 K% vs RHP) isn’t as strong as Giolito’s and Toronto has a 142 wRC+ with an 11.4 K-BB% and 23.3 HR/FB over the last week, but of Morton’s 10 home starts this year, he’s allowed more than two runs just twice and has struck out at least eight seven times. Aside from his strikeout rate being highest on the board, Morton also tops the board with a 3.61 SIERA, 2.83 FIP, 2.70 DRA, 29.7 Z-O-Swing% and .269 xwOBA among those with more than one start. Morton is the second most expensive pitcher on either site.

Value in RH Tampa Bay bats against reverse split (RHBs .400+ wOBA/xwOBA)

Jacob Waguespack has struck out just two in three of his four starts this season and only more than that against the Tigers. In five innings against the Rays two starts back, he allowed three runs with as many walks. Considering his underlying numbers, there should be some expectation for the Rays to do some damage tonight despite sitting in the middle of the board at 5.09 implied runs. Waguespack has the third worst Z-Contact on the board (90.5%) and is tied for the second highest aEV (90.2 mph). Hard contact and lots of it is essentially what players are looking for in a daily fantasy offense. Additionally, the rookie’s .414 xwOBA over his four starts is 54 points above his actual mark. However, Waguespack has shown such a substantial platoon split that despite the small sample, one would have to think there’s some legitimacy to it. Same-handed batters have a wOBA and xwOBA exceeding .400 with a 51.8 Hard% against him, while LHBs are below .300 with only half as much hard contact (26.3%). Looking at tonight’s projected Tampa Bay lineup, that puts Tommy Pham (133 wRC+, .219 ISO vs RHP last calendar year) in the best spot, but also makes Travis d’Arnaud (98 wRC+, .157 ISO) and the recently resurgent Jesus Aguliar (103 wRC+, .176 ISO) interesting bats as well here. Each exceed a 180 wRC+ over the last week, but Aguliar (292 wRC+, 75 Hard% last seven days) is within $400 of $3K on either site.