DFS Alerts

Home Runs With Strikeouts

The Cardinals have really been struggling against right-handed pitching, and with limited upside arms in the value range, I think Chris Archer makes a lot of sense today. Archer has pitched a little better at home this season but continues to struggle with home runs. He does have a 13.2% swinging strike rate with a 26.7% strikeout rate on the season. The projected starting lineup for the Cardinals has a 24.7% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching this season. Five of those guys have strikeout rates over 25%.

He's Just Cheap

It seems strange to have a Marlins batter with a 30% K rate against righties as a Core Play, but this is a strange slate. I’m prioritizing pitching tonight and going out of my way to find some cheap bats to make it work. Dylan Covey is such a bad pitcher against lefties that the strikeouts of Granderson hardly matter. Covey has walked more lefties than he’s struck out, leading to a .419 wOBA against. Hopefully, Granderson won’t be pinch hit for if they see lefties out of the bullpen, as his numbers against lefties are actually far better this season with a .275 ISO and .373 wOBA, albeit in a small sample size.

Chris Archer's strikeouts are up (26 of last 73 batters faced)

Chris Archer has struck out 26 of his last 73 batters against the Cubs and Cardinals. In fact, he’s struck out eight in both of his starts against the Cardinals this year. It seems he’s said goodbye to a sinker and change that weren’t working and went back to being a four-seam and slider guy. Only a few starts, it could be a matchup thing and he’s still giving up runs (three in each start). He’s also only failed to allow a HR once in his last 14 starts, but this is daily fantasy where strikeouts trump all and then we decide how much of the noise surrounding them we can deal with. The answer may be quite a lot in this case because Archer costs just $7.5K on DraftKings and is in a strong spot tonight. The Cardinals have just an 88 wRC+ and 12.6 HR/FB vs RHP. Pittsburgh is a park that suppresses RHP similarly to St Louis and while that still leaves Archer susceptible to LH power, the Cardinals don’t really have much of that with Carpenter out. Oddly though, half of Archer’s 22 HRs have come at home and six of those to RHBs, so the park hasn’t really helped him at all in that aspect, though his wOBA (.326) is 27 points lower than on the road. This still leaves Archer as a dangerous start with an 11.3 BB% and 22.2 HR/FB, but the control has improved at least a bit, dropping his walk rate just under double digits (9.9%) over his last nine starts. He’s had no more than three in any of those outings. There’s always risk when dropping down to the middle of the board for pitching. There’s a reason these guys are there after all, but Archer has recently been showing the upside to potentially make him one of the top values on the board tonight.

This Matchup Makes A Lot Of Sense

Matt Adams is really cheap on FanDuel today, and I think he’s in play for all formats. His biggest issue this season has been strikeouts, and it helps that Lambert has a below average strikeout rate. Lambert has a .416 wOBA with a .353 ISO and a 42.9% hard to soft contact ratio against left-handed hitters. Adams has a .270 ISO with a 42.7% hard-hit rate against right-handed pitching this season.

Limited Upside But A Nice Floor

I’m not a huge Dallas Keuchel fan, but we don’t have a lot of cheaper options on FanDuel tonight. I think he has the upside to have both a quality start and a win in this matchup. He has a quality start in three of six starts this season. The projected starting lineup for the Royals has a .188 ISO with a .340 wOBA and a 22.3% strikeout rate against left-handed pitching this season. With Keuchel inducing a lot of ground balls, it really just depends if BABIP is in his favor in this one.

Stephen Strasburg has the best DRA (2.13) and xwOBA (.259) on the board

Stephen Strasburg is probably the second best overall daily fantasy pitcher on the board behind Chris Sale tonight and one of six who is at least $9.5K on both sites tonight. Certainly consider him one of the better values on the board in a fantastic matchup at home against the Rockies (68 wRC+, 21.6 K-BB% on the road, 83 wRC+, 16.4 K-BB% vs RHP). His 29 K% is fourth best on the board, his 3.47 SIERA third, but his 2.13 DRA is first by more than half a run. Also best on the board is his 24.1 Z-O-Swing% and .259 xwOBA. His 6.0% Barrels/BBE and 51.4 GB% are both fourth. He’s also faced at least 24 batters in 19 of his 20 starts. By ERA, his 3.52 mark is just seventh on tonight’s slate, but by all other metrics, Strasburg is having a great year.

Keston Hiura (quad) scratched Monday; Tyler Saladino replaces

Hiura has been scratched from the Milwaukee Brewers original confirmed lineup and will not start in Monday’s matchup against the Cincinnati Reds due to left quad tightness. He’ll be replaced in the lineup by Tyler Saladino, who will now play second base and slot into the eighth spot in the order, which bumps Jesus Aguilar and Orlando Arcia up to fifth and seventh, respectively. However, the remainder of the Brewers lineup will stay intact offensively as they face off against right-hander Sonny Gray at home this evening.

COL-WAS postponed due to rain Monday

The game between the Colorado Rockies and Washington Nationals on Monday evening has been postponed due to forecasted inclement weather throughout the remainder of the evening hours. The teams have already announced that today’s previously scheduled game will be made up on Wednesday, July 24 at 1:05 pm EST as part of a split, separate-admission doubleheader. Players from this matchup will not accrue fantasy points on Monday’s daily fantasy slates across the industry, so be sure to remove them from lineups as soon as possible.

Cubs face contact prone Shaun Anderson (14.4 K%) and an over-worked bullpen

Shaun Anderson does not miss bats and needs the assistance of a cushy home park. While we normally like to stay away from especially left-handed batters in this park, there are no overwhelmingly positive run environments on this slate, while LHBs own a .387 xwOBA against Anderson this year. This may still be a decent spot for the entire top half of the Chicago order (RHBs .338 xwOBA vs Anderson). Kyle Schwarber (103 wRC+, .247 ISO vs RHP last calendar year), Kris Bryant (130 wRC+, .208 ISO), Anthony Rizzo (158 wRC+, .249 ISO) and Javier Baez (111 wRC+, .246 ISO) all project as above average plays here. Another factor in favor of the Cubs here is that the Giants are coming off three extra-inning games over the last four days and were blown out in the other game. The bullpen is likely a bit over-worked.

Adrian Sampson allows the loudest contact on the slate (.363 xwOBA, 90.7 mph aEV)

Adrian Sampson misses bats at a below average rate (18.8 K%) with an ERA and estimators around five and has allowed the loudest contact on the board (.363 xwOBA, 90.7 mph aEV and 46.5% 95+ mph EV are all worst on the board). While it’s always great to get out of Texas and Seattle is a major park bump for him that might mute some of that loud contact a bit, he is the only pitcher on the board to feature a Z-Contact above 90% and a Z-O-Swing above 40%. While Dan Vogelbach (162 wRC+, .319 ISO vs RHP last calendar year) immediately jumps to mind as the play here. RHBs have a wOBA (.384) and xwOBA (.404) more than 40 points above LHBs against Sampson over the last calendar year. Domingo Santana (117 wRC+, .179 ISO) may be just as strong a play at the same price. Add J.P. Crawford (132 wRC+, .242 ISO) to stacks at a much lower price.

Alec Mills is a cheap arm who may have value in a great park

Alec Mills struck out six of 26 Reds in his season debut. The 27 year-old has a league average K-BB% at AAA over the last two seasons, but an impressive 17.2 K-BB% in 27.1 career major league innings with a 50.8 GB%. The Giants have come out of the break hot as a team, but four of those games were played at Coors. Over the weekend, they did take three of four from the Mets, but all three wins were in extra-innings. San Francisco is an extremely negative run environment and the Giants own just a 73 wRC+ at home (8.6 HR/FB) in addition to an 86 wRC+ vs RHP (14.4 K-BB%, 12.5 HR/FB). At a cost of right around $7K on either site, Mills may have some value here, especially on DraftKings if looking to pay up for another pitcher.

Sonny Gray has struck out 29 of his last 76 batters

Sonny Gray will pitch in Milwaukee for the third time in 11 starts. While walking four in each, he’s struck out 15 or 48 Brewers allowing four runs (all in his second start) over 10.1 innings. Gray has also struck out 29 of his last 76 batters and the Brewers are prone to strikeouts (24.9 K% vs RHP). This is not a safe spot (Brewers 9.8 BB%, 18.4 HR/FB vs RHP) as Gray has allowed multiple HRs in three of his last six starts, including to the Brewers, but also owns a board best .211 xwOBA over the last month. Players would be getting a 55.5 GB% with the fifth highest strikeout rate on the board (28.6%) for less than $10K in a spot with some upside.

Arizona switch hitters have value in potential bullpen again vs Baltimore

Aaron Brooks has been utilizes as more of an opener, facing a total of 20 batters over his last two starts. He’ll likely go once to twice through the lineup and then a below average Arizona offense vs RHP (91 wRC+) will face a poor bullpen. The top half of the Arizona lineup is interesting here, as it’s likely to include switch hitters in Eduardo Escobar (95 wRC+, .215 ISO vs RHP last calendar year) and Ketel Marte (126 wRC+, .207 ISO) who are both at least competent with power from both sides of the plate, while Christian Walker (118 wRC+, .259 ISO) has hit same-handed pitching well and has come out of the break hot (167 wRC+, 60 Hard% last seven days). At 5.73 implied runs, the Diamondbacks are currently the fifth best team on the board, but less than one-tenth of a run removed from the top spot.

Powerful Lineup in Favorable Matchup

Look, I get it, I’m a sucker. I’m simplistic. I see the Yankees are facing an average-to-below-average lefty and automatically get excited about stacking them. Quite honestly, stacking the Yankees hasn’t been a very successful GPP strategy since their offensive explosion in London but I still can’t resist the desire to get exposure to their powerful lineup in a favorable matchup.

Most teams have two, maybe three, legitimate HR threats in their lineup while New York casually runs Stanton-less lineups with seven hitters with ISO’s north of .200 against left-handed pitchers over the last two seasons. Gleyber Torres, who is the owner of a .259 ISO and .371 wOBA against southpaws over the last two years, routinely hits in the seven-hole for goodness sake.

New York is one of the more expensive stacks of the night which means you’ll probably need to get a little wild at the pitcher position to make things work. On FanDuel, Trevor Richards is ridiculously underpriced and is the natural choice to pair with Yankee stacks. On multi-SP sites you may get away with rostering a high-priced pitcher with a cheaper arm but you’ll more than likely have to settle with pairing Richards with a low-floor, low-upside, dirt-cheap option like Shaun Anderson or Ivan Nova.

Good Power, High Leverage

It’s not the New York Yankees but rather the Minnesota Twins that SlateIQ pegs as the better stack from this contest – largely due to Twins players projected to be significantly lower owned. Ironically, Minnesota is one of the teams that can at least somewhat rival the Yankees in the power department as they have four hitters in their projected lineup with an ISO of .229 (Mitch Garver) or higher (C.J. Cron, Miguel Sano, Nelson Cruz) against left-handed pitching over the last two seasons.

The Twins make for a more cost-effective stack on FanDuel where both Cron and Garver are priced at just $3,400. Garver’s insane $5,400 tag on DraftKings should continue to suppress his ownership in the low single-digits which makes him not only a foundation of any Twins stack you run but also an excellent one-off to use in other stacks. On FD you can reasonably pay up for a Mike Clevinger/Robbie Ray type of pitcher while on DK you’re likely stuck with a similar lineup construction as your Yankee stacks (Mid-priced + low-priced).