DFS Alerts
Power Up In The Outfield
There are four Angels In The Outfield with ISO’s above .220 against right-handed pitching. Nearly all of the Angels power comes from these outfielders, and this is the first place to look in stacking against the league’s worst pitching staff. Baltimore will open with Jimmy Yacabonis and then continue with some mix of Tom Eshelman or other bad relievers. Mike Trout is the top play on this slate in all formats, but pairing him with Kole Calhoun (.224 ISO, 47% HH), Shohei Ohtani (.259 ISO, 47% HH) or Justin Upton (.230 ISO, 50% HH) gives you plenty of individual upside along with correlated runs and RBI.
Other tagged players: Shohei Ohtani, Kole Calhoun
High Contact Opportunity
Hanser Alberto continues to be very good against left-handed pitching. He has a .418 wOBA with a 10.8% strikeout rate and a 1.5% walk rate against lefties. He only has a 13.6% soft contact rate against lefties as well. With the high contact rate and the price point, I think he’s a really good value option. Suarez has faced 86 righties on the season, and he has a .472 wOBA with a .316 ISO against them.
Great Value On FanDuel
Mike Montgomery continues to really struggle this season, and Jordan Luplow is crushing left-handed pitching. Montgomery has a .368 wOBA with a .234 ISO against right-handed hitters this season. Luplow has a .372 ISO with a .463 wOBA and a 90.9 average exit velocity against lefties. He’s still underpriced on FanDuel and should hit fourth in this matchup tonight. Luplow has hit nine of his ten home runs against left-handed pitching this season.
Not A Lot Of Options
We don’t have a lot of value options on this slate, so I like the idea of attacking a struggling offense. The Tigers have five hitters with strikeout rates over 25% against left-handed pitching this season. LeBlanc is an average pitcher at best, but I don’t love anything in this price range, so I don’t mind taking a shot on him. It’s a good matchup and ballpark for pitchers, which could hit LeBlanc limit the damage.
Start of COL-WAS will be delayed due to inclement weather in the area Wednesday
The start of the second game of the split doubleheader between the Colorado Rockies and Washington Nationals on Wednesday evening will be delayed due to inclement weather currently in the area. There’s yet to be any confirmation of an official start time, and the Nationals have not yet committed to a specific timeline for providing further updates. The definitive late start is potentially better news for the prospects of starting pitchers like Patrick Corbin not being pulled from the game early because of a mid-game stoppage, and as Kevin Roth detailed in the latest update to his MLB weather forecast, he believes that this contest should play through to conclusion following the initial delay.
As reported by: the Washington Nationals via Twitter
Noah Syndergaard has struck out 17 of his last 55 batters and is in a top spot tonight
It would be hard to argue that the 2019 version of Noah Syndergaard is the best pitcher on the board tonight, but underlying metrics would certainly suggest that he’s better than his results and he may just be in the best spot to succeed tonight. The first piece of good news is that he’s struck out 17 of his last 55 batters and has gone seven innings in each of his last two starts. Those were in Miami and San Francisco, but tonight, he’s facing the Padres (90 wRC+, 18.5 K-BB%) at home. Citi Field is one of the most negative run environments in baseball and Syndergaard may also be in line for some umpiring help tonight (premium subscription required for Umpire Ratings). He’s exceeded a 14 SwStr% in three of his last four starts now and four of his last six. For the season, his 3.15 DRA is 1.21 runs below his ERA and his .282 xwOBA is 24 below his actual mark. In addition, Syndergaard’s 86 mph aEV and 30.1% 95+ mph EV is lowest not only on tonight’s slate, but for the entire day. Syndergaard costs $10K exactly on either site, which makes him just the third most expensive pitcher tonight. Considering environment, conditions and value, Syndergaard may be tonight’s top pitcher or at least the best value among high priced arms.
Jordan Lyles has a 25 K% and costs less than $7K
Jordan Lyles had his strongest start since May last time out against the Phillies (5.2 IP – 1 R – 7 K). While he does allow a bit too much hard contact (42.1% 95+ mph EV, 8.8% Barrels/BBE), resulting in a league average .319 xwOBA, he can miss a few bats (25 K%) and despite a 4.91 ERA, has estimators all below 4.50, which more or less agrees with Statcast’s assessment. He’s facing a below average offense (Cardinals 88 wRC+, 12.7 HR/FB, 14.4 K-BB% vs RHP) in a slightly negative run environment, but Lyles also has a reasonable platoon split. RHBs have just a .285 wOBA and .305 xwOBA against him since last season and he’ll face six of them tonight, including the pitcher. There are no left-handed bats in this lineup that should scare him. Lyles carries enough risk to where he’s probably not one of tonight’s top overall pitchers, but he doesn’t have to be as he costs less than $7K on either site, which means players could easily pair him with a Syndergaard, Bieber or Corbin. Lyles has shown the upside this year to end up a top value tonight.
Kyle Freeland has allowed 10 runs in eight innings since returning from the minors
The Nats and Rox are playing two today, so game two lineups are not yet confirmed, but it’s a good bet that the Nationals will be loading up with RHBs against Kyle Freeland in the night cap. Since being recalled from the minors, Freeland has allowed five runs in four innings in both his starts and has just a 9.5 K-BB% with a 21 HR/FB, 5.12 SIERA, 6.26 DRA, .368 xwOBA and 10.2% Barrels/BBE that can’t all be blamed on Coors. Over the last calendar year, RHBs have a .342 wOBA and xwOBA against him. The projected lineup for the Nationals features six RHBs. Among the first five, Brian Dozier (109 wRC+) is the only one below a 120 wRC+ vs LHP over the last calendar year. Anthony Rendon (144 wRC+, .288 ISO), Howie Kendrick (162 wRC+, .247 ISO) and Victor Robles (133 wRC+, .214 ISO) add quite a bit of power to the equation as well. The Nationals find themselves at 5.83 implied runs tonight, behind only the Dodgers on a 16 team board.
Other tagged players: Kyle Freeland, Howie Kendrick, Brian Dozier, Victor Robles Matchup Makes The Difference
Right-handed pitching against the Marlins has been in play all season, and that continues tonight with an affordable Reynaldo Lopez who has shown signs of life recently. It’s been a rocky season for Lopez, but he had a strong stretch last season, and in his last couple of starts, the strikeouts have crept back up, and as a fly ball pitcher, a low power team like Miami gives him a chance for a BABIP induced quality start. He’s also been far better against right-handed batters, with a 24.9% K rate and just 5% walks, and faces a mostly right-handed lineup that ranks last in the league in ISO.
Don't Forget The Righty
At first glance, we see the Dodgers against a right-handed pitcher and immediately think of all the left-handed power. While I always love hitters like Bellinger, Muncy and Pederson, the Angels’ Jaime Barria has shown significant reverse splits to this point in his career. They were pronounced last year, and have gone even more extreme in a limited sample this season with 34% strikeouts to lefties and just 12% to righties. The way to combat that is with the 13.9% K, 27% line drives and 46% hard hits of Justin Turner. He is a key part of Dodgers stacks, and someone that I would use on his own in cash games tonight.
Power, Power and Some More Power
The Yankees and Twins showed off their huge power last night, and with two fly ball pitchers on the mound tonight, there’s no reason to expect it to stop. Jake Odorizzi has always been a reverse splits power pitcher and he’s still due a lot more regression against righties this season in both BABIP and HR/FB%. Aaron Judge leads the Yankees with a huge 53% hard hit rate and is a play in all formats, either on his own or together with more of this Yankees power.
Triple Aces
There is very little separation between the top three of Patrick Corbin, Shane Bieber and Noah Syndergaard. Out of those three, we’ve seen the longest stretch of ace level skills from Corbin, dating back to last season. Getting to face Colorado away from Coors Field in addition to it being the second game of a doubleheader with a potentially watered down lineup, I’ll start with Corbin tonight in cash games. He has been steadily in the 30% range with low walks and the Rockies don’t have enough right-handed power past Arenado and Story to cause a serious threat.
A Lot Of Strikeout Upside
I like both of the pitchers in this CHW/MIA game. Gallen has struggled a little since being called up, but he continues to show really good strikeout ability. He has a 26.3% strikeout rate with a 11.6% swinging strike rate in his five appearances this season. The projected starting lineup for the White Sox has a 6.4% walk rate with a 25.9% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching this season. They also have a very low .161 ISO against righties. There is a lot of upside for Gallen in this matchup.
Let's Try This Again
Didi Gregorius is coming off a really good game last night and draws a decent matchup again tonight. Odorizzi has plenty of strikeout upside, but he also allows a lot of hard contact and fly balls. Odorizzi has a 47.1% fly ball rate with a 42.1% hard-hit rate against left-handed hitters this season. Didi is still priced very fair across the industry, and he has some really solid upside in this matchup.
Lefty Stack for GPPs
The shine started to wear off for Adam Wainwright in his last start, as he got knocked around for seven runs in 3 1/3 innings against the Reds. Lefties have become a major problem for him over the last few years, and Wainwright has allowed a .364 wOBA and 43% hard contact rate to LHBs so far this season. This isn’t a great matchup for him against a LH-heavy Pirates lineup. Josh Bell obviously profiles with the most power, but you could include Frazier, Dickerson, Reynolds, or any other lefty as part of a GPP stack. There’s sneaky potential here.
Other tagged players: Josh Bell, Bryan Reynolds, Colin Moran