DFS Alerts

Austin Voth has followed up a 19.8 AAA K-BB% with impressive peripherals in three starts

Austin Voth hasn’t been very successful through three major league starts if you look solely at his results (5.52 ERA). However, every line of his advanced statistics tell a more encouraging story after owning a 19.8 K-BB% in 61.1 AAA innings this year. He’s struck out 16 of the 64 batters he’s faced at a major league level (25%), but has been plagued by .325 BABIP and 65.9 LOB%, despite just a 19 LD% and 17.6 IFFB% (40.5 GB%). Statcast makes him look even better. An 86.2 mph aEV, 24.4% 95+ mph EV and just 4.8% Barrels/BBE have resulted in a .259 xwOBA that’s 74 points below his actual mark. Suddenly, it’s not just his ERA that looks high, but perhaps his estimators, which are a bit above four too. Voth also has the luxury of pitching against the Orioles tonight (82 wRC+, 15.9 K-BB%, 12.2 Hard-Soft% vs RHP). Since returning from the All-Star break, the O’s have been the worst offense in baseball with a 33 wRC+, 28.1 K-BB% and 2.3 Hard-Soft%. Voth costs $7.2K or less in a fantastic spot tonight.

Winds & pitcher platoon issues (LHBs .371 wOBA last 12 months) may mean another big night for Dodger lefties.

As if the Dodgers need any additional help…but Kevin’s forecast calls for the wind to be blowing out to right in an already power friendly park against a pitcher who has allowed LHBs a .371 wOBA (.353 xwOBA) with just a 38.6 GB% over the last calendar year. Vince Velasquez can miss bats (25.7 K%), but struggled with many other aspects of his game (90.1 mph aEV, 12.2% Barrels/BBE, 9.4 BB%). This is a pretty sweat spot for Dodger lefties tonight. Projected are Joc Pederson (130 wRC+, .297 ISO vs RHP last calendar year), Alex Verdugo (116 wRC+, .192 ISO), Cody Bellinger (177 wRC+, .323 ISO), Max Muncy (153 wRC+, .305 ISO) and Corey Seager (139 wRC+, .245 ISO) for an offense that is somehow only in the middle of the board (13th currently) at 5.19 implied runs.

Walker Buehler owns a 31.6 K-BB% over his last six starts

Walker Buehler has inserted himself into the NL Cy Young conversation as he just keeps getting better as the season goes on. He’s become a workhorse, facing 30 batters in each of his last three starts and has a 31.6 K-BB% in six outings since the start of June. A period in which his 2.68 ERA is actually above estimators and includes a seven run beating at Coors. His .237 xwOBA over the last month is best on the board and he’s allowed just 6% Barrels/BBE on the year. Expected to be far from ideal pitching conditions with a park downgrade in Philadelphia tonight, Buehler may still be the top overall arm on the board. He’s one of just two pitchers who reach $10K on a full 15 game slate tonight (the other is Lance Lynn in Texas) and the only one who does so on both sites. The Phillies own a 91 wRC+, 23 K% and 13.5 HR/FB vs RHP, numbers not too far below league average, but they did suffer a couple of injuries in last night’s blowout (Segura & Franco – not believed to be major), so Buehler could be in line for a slight boost here once lineups are released.

Up And Down

It’s been an up and down season for Khris Davis, but this price is just too low on DraftKings and FantasyDraft. He still has a .269 ISO with a .374 wOBA and a 47.3% hard-hit rate against left-handed pitching this season. Marco Gonzales has the highest fly ball rate against right-handed hitters since he was a rookie. He’s been struggling against right-handed hitters a lot more this season, and with his lower strikeout rate, I like the upside for a guy like Davis in this matchup.

Raw Power With A Low Price Tag

If you’re playing on FanDuel, I really don’t mind taking a shot on AJ Reed at $2,100. Reed has a .245 ISO with a .798 OPS in AAA this season. In 2017 and 2018 he had 28+ home runs and 100+ RBIs in AAA with the Astros. Glenn Sparkman has a .391 wOBA with a .315 ISO and a 47.5% hard-hit rate against left-handed hitters this season. With his low strikeout rate and the amount of power he allows, this is a really good spot for a near minimum hitter.

Prospect With Upside

Dylan Cease has shown really good strikeout upside in the Minors, and with limited value options, I’m willing to roll the dice. He has a 12.1% swinging strike rate with a 24% strikeout rate in AAA this season. He’s a top five prospect in the Chicago White Sox organization. The projected starting lineup for the Royals has a .174 ISO with a .329 wOBA and a 21% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching this season.

Risky With Strikeout Upside

We don’t have a lot of cheap pitching options on this slate, and I’m willing to attack the upside with the risk. The projected starting lineup has a 28.9% strikeout rate against left-handed pitching this season. Elvis Andrus is the only hitter with a strikeout rate under 25% against left-handed pitching this season. Young has a 15.2% swinging strike rate with a 24.8% strikeout rate in AAA this season. His walks are the biggest concern but like I said, with limited options, I’m willing to roll the dice.

Joe Musgrove (25.9 K%, 1 BB, .290 xwOBA last four starts) costs just $5.8K on DraftKings

Joe Musgrove has allowed just four runs with a 25.9 K% over his last 22 innings, walking just a single batter to push his K-BB to a respectable 14.4% on the season. His 4.15 ERA is now in line with most estimators, though his 3.46 DRA remains even more optimistic. Despite an 89.2 mph aEV, he’s allowed just 5.9% Barrels/BBE and a .310 xwOBA on the season. Over these last four starts that’s down to a .290 mark that’s fourth best on the board over this span. He also pitches in the most negative run environment on the board in St Louis tonight against an offense with just an 87 wRC+, 14.1 K-BB% and 12.1 HR/FB. It gets even better when considering tonight’s actual lineup for the Cardinals with no batter above a .343 wOBA (Matt Wieters) or .184 ISO (Tyler O’Neill) against RHP this season. Amazingly, Musgrove still costs just $5.8K on DraftKings, where he has to be considered the top value on the board.

Chalk Stack

If you’re looking to avoid high ownership, look elsewhere. The Colorado Rockies are currently expected to be the top owned team on Monday’s slate by a wide margin as SlateIQ lists their total projected ownership at 180%, followed by the San Francisco Giants (126%) and the Cincinnati Reds (69%). With this being the second game of a double-header it’s important to keep a close eye on the Rockies lineup as one of their studs could very well sit. Based on Game 1’s lineup it’s safe to assume that Daniel Murphy and Chris Iannetta will be in Game 2’s lineup.

We got a good glimpse of Coors field at it’s finest over the weekend as the Reds and Rockies combined for 45 total runs in their two-games on Saturday and Sunday. Due to the elevation and large outfield, Coors can wreak havoc on opposing pitchers of all skill-levels. Unfortunately for Dereck Rodriguez, he’s not a very talented pitcher and has struggled big time over 56.1 Big League injuries this year with a walk-rate (9.2%) that almost matches his strikeout rate (14.5%). There’s very little encouraging about Rodriguez and his numbers this season as the righty simply doesn’t miss bats and allows a ton of hard contact (45 Hard%).

Colorado hitters will be a core piece of cash game builds and can be used as building blocks in single-entry and 3-max tournaments. Due to expected high ownership it makes sense to take a stand against them in multi-entry tournaments that have a top heavy payout structure.

Good Hitting + Stolen Base Matchup

Cleveland enters Monday with a top three implied run total on the slate (6.3) but current ownership projections have their total ownership as just the eighth highest. It’s a favorable matchup for the Indians who will host Daniel Norris and a Tigers bullpen that owns a league high 5.09 xFIP. Norris isn’t that bad of a pitcher but certainly one to target as he’s struggled both to miss bats (18.1 K%) and generate soft-contact (13.5 Soft%) this season. Due to the large amounts of hard-contact Norris allows it’s no surprise that he’s struggled with the long ball at times as the owner of a 15% HR-to-flyball rate which can really hurt him when he’s struggling to induce ground balls.

Cleveland has a handful of capable hitters against left-handed pitching with Jordan Luplow leading the way in terms of power (.328 ISO) over the last two seasons, albeit a small sample. Aside from Luplow, Francisco Lindor (.398 wOBA), Carlos Santana (.380 wOBA), Roberto Perez (.390) and at timesJose Ramirez (.338 wOBA) have all shown strong hitting skills against southpaws over the last two seasons – and I would expect Oscar Mercado (.300) to make improvements. In addition to simply being a good hitting matchup for Cleveland, PlateIQ also rates this is a fairly strong stolen base matchup with seven players in Cleveland’s projected lineup with a stolen base rating above 70 – Jose Ramirez leads the way at 79.30.
Analysis coming soon.

Could be value against good pitchers with wind blowing out at Wrigley

Luis Castillo and Kyle Hendricks are two of the top three contact managers on the board by aEV (86.3 mph & 86.4 mph respectively). Further in Castillo’s favor are a 56.3 GB% and 28.8 K% vs Hendricks 41.7 GB% and 21.5%. These things matter quite a bit on a night where a decent wind blowing out to center is expected to greatly boost offense. Where Hendricks has a major advantage is in his 4.8 BB% vs Castillo’s 12.3% that’s worst on the board among those with more than two starts. Hendricks has additionally struggled and not gone more than 4.1 innings in any of his last three starts. It’s at least fairly clear that pitchers shouldn’t be used in this game. Daily fantasy players are not even giving up much upside with Castillo due to Chicago’s 108 wRC+, 9.9 BB% and 18.5 HR/FB vs RHP. Offensively, the worst split among these two pitchers over the last calendar year is the .317 wOBA/.312 xwOBA LHBs have put up against Castillo. This makes Kyle Schwarber (100 wRC+, .232 ISO vs RHP last calendar year), Anthony Rizzo (160 wRC+, .253 ISO) and Jason Heyward (112 wRC+, .176 ISO) key bats, none more than $4K on DraftKings tonight.

Strikeout Pitcher Facing Team That Doesn't Strikeout

The Astros are my favorite stack of the slate that may go a bit overlooked – current ownership projections have them pegged as the sixth highest owned (52%) team on the slate and I could see them coming in even lower owned than that.

Griffin Canning has earned some respect this year, and rightfully so, as he’s been solid for the Angels and has opened some eyes with a solid 25.7% strikeout rate and even better 14.5 SwStr%. The problem for Canning is that when he allows contact, it’s hard contact (41%) that’s off the ground (35.8%). His propensity to allow hard contact has given him some problems in the HR department as he’s allowed 13 HRs in 65 IP already this season. Essentially Canning is a strikeout pitcher with a slightly above average strikeout rate but he’s facing a team that does not strikeout – only Yordan Alvarez, Tyler White, and Robinson Chirinos have strikeout rates north of 20% against right-handed pitching over the last two seasons while the rest of the team has been tremendous at putting the ball in play.

The Astros make for a sneaky stack industry wide with plenty of power upside. Low price tags on DraftKings (especially Altuve and Bregman) will likely lead to higher ownership there than on a site like FanDuel where there isn’t a price discount on Astros hitters.

Affordable right-handed power in Cleveland

Daniel Norris pitches on the road for the seventh time in nine starts. He’s allowed six runs in two of his last three, one of those in Cleveland, where he went seven innings with eight strikeouts. A below average strikeout rate (18.1%) with good control (5.9%), he can’t get whiffs in the strike zone (90.1 Z-Contact% is worst on the board among pitchers with more than two starts). A 4.96 ERA is supported by estimators with a 5.90 DRA nearly a run higher. His 90.6 mph aEV and 43.6% 95+ mph EV are both worst on the board. To sum, the fewest rate of swing and misses in the strike zone with the hardest contact allowed, although he did pitch better than his ending line in Cleveland in their most recent meeting a few starts back. The Indians also have just an 81 wRC+ vs LHP despite a 10% walk rate due to below average power (13.3 HR/FB, 19.2 Hard-Soft%) as the park is designed to favor LHP. Yet, the Tribe is projected above every other non-Coors offense tonight at 6.26 implied runs. There are two interesting bats in the projected lineup aside from Francisco Lindor (120 wRC+, .197 ISO vs LHP last calendar year) and Carlos Santana (147 wRC+, .195 ISO). Two unexpected lefty mashers over the last year have been Jordan Luplow (158 wRC+, .327 ISO) and Roberto Perez (140 wRC+, .268 ISO). While both have xwOBA more than 20 points below their actual mark against southpaws in this smaller sample span, each mark is still above a healthy .350 and neither is above $4.1K on DraftKings or $2.7K on FanDuel.

Off The Board Cheap One-Offs Against Extreme Fly Ball Pitcher

With much attention in Coors/Wrigley and multiple high total teams tonight, Tigers lefties will easily go overlooked against Adam Plutko who has a staggering 50%+ FB rate and measly 12% K rate in this split. While I’d be unlikely to stack in this spot with the Tigers sporting only a 4.4 implied run total, Christin Stewart & Jeimer Candelario both have enough pop in their bats to take one out of the park for under a $4k price tag on DraftKings at a sub-5% ownership.

Trent Thornton will see Boston for the third time in five starts

Trent Thornton has started against Boston twice over the last month. He was slammed against them at home (2.2 IP – 7 R – 1 K), after pitching well against them in Boston (6.1 IP – 2 R – 7 K). While he owns an above average strikeout rate (23.2%), the rookie has walked 9.8% of batters with a staggering 31 LD% despite a 30.9 Z-O-Swing% that’s second best on the board. His 4.75 ERA is in line with most estimators, though his 7.00 DRA is third worst on the board. A .323 xwOBA over the last month that’s 36 points below his actual mark suggests there’s been some bad luck in his 5.04 ERA over that span, but this is the third time the Red Sox will be seeing him in five starts, which generally works in the offense’s favor. That that offense is the Red Sox (113 wRC+, 11 K-BB% vs RHP) at Fenway, is even more concerning. Although Thornton owns a 28 point split by wOBA this season, batters from either side of the plate are within a point of .327 by xwOBA, dissolving any platoon issues, but also playing more in favor of Red Sox bats, who are predominantly right-handed towards the top of the lineup anyway. Xander Bogaerts (137 wRC+, .237 ISO vs RHP last calendar year) has homered in all three games since the break. Ideally, players would be able to stack a top four that also should include Mookie Betts (146 wRC+, .232 ISO), Rafael Devers (142 wRC+, .257 ISO) and J.D. Martinez (130 wRC+, .214 ISO), all elite bats against RHP over the last year. The Red Sox own a 6.1 implied run line that’s second best outside Coors tonight.