DFS Alerts
Home Run Incoming?
I was really shocked when I saw Dietrich’s price on FanDuel, and I think he’s one of the best value plays on this slate. Derek Dietrich has a .468 ISO with a .458 wOBA against right-handed pitching. He has an average air distance of 325.2 against righties this season. Hudson has a .450 wOBA with a .267 ISO with a 29.7% hard to soft contact ratio. In 27.1 innings, Hudson has allowed eight home runs to left-handed hitters, which is a 2.63 HR/9.
Attackable Splits
Anthony Desclafani has allowed a terribly high .349 ISO and .442 wOBA to left-handed batters on the back of 46% hard hits, 50% fly balls and below average 20.7% strikeouts. Most of the Cardinals top bats are righties, but we open up with the lefty bat of Matt Carpenter with his 45% hard hits against right-handed pitching. He is generally preferred against ground ball pitchers, but his line drive lean this season will play better against fly ball pitchers and he is priced too low for his upside.
Top Of The Top
It’s not hard to find some bats to spend on tonight, but when looking for a player with power and speed for individual upside, strong team context for stacking and elite plate skills for cash games, Mookie Betts jumps to the top of the list. He has a .234 ISO and .414 wOBA with more walks than strikeouts along with 45% fly balls and 42% hard hits. It’s a skill set without a weakness facing an average at best pitcher in Jake Junis and a bad Kansas City bullpen.
Just Too Cheap
I hate the idea of playing a pitcher with a 15% walk rate in any format on any site at any price. However, we can make the case that Darvish is starting to improve his control with eight walks in his last four starts, after having walked 4+ batters in six of his first eight games. I’m absolutely still nervous about the control and it adds a lot of risk, but this is a goofy low salary for the strikeout upside. His 26.6% K rate is the 5th highest on this slate, and there is upside from there based on his history. He is the 14th most expensive pitcher on DK, and that is just too cheap.
Site Dependent Aces
We have a strong top tier of pitching tonight with Chris Sale, James Paxton and Charlie Morton all with strikeout rates over 30% and all in favorable matchups. All three of them are playable in all formats on all sites, but we have some pretty big pricing discrepancies to help sort things out. On FD, it’s James Paxton who gets the big discount, at $1,500 below Sale. The strikeout rate is nearly identical with Paxton leading the way at 34.9% K. The only issue here is pitch count, but as good as he looked in his 66-pitch outing last week, unless we hear otherwise, I am happy playing Paxton at this discounted price on FD.
Site Dependent Aces
We have a strong top tier of pitching tonight with Chris Sale, James Paxton and Charlie Morton all with strikeout rates over 30% and all in favorable matchups. All three of them are playable in all formats on all sites, but we have some pretty big pricing discrepancies to help sort things out. On DK/FDRFT, Chris Sale is meaningfully cheaper than Morton and Paxton. Having struck out 10+ batters in seven of his last nine starts, this is a don’t overthink it spot in cash games at this price. The decision is toughest on Yahoo where the pricing is closer. With the pitch count questions for Paxton and the elite recent K form of Sale, I prefer to spend the extra few dollars to get up to Sale there as well.
Kevin Gausman and Joe Musgrove have both had issues stranding runners
Kevin Gausman was lit up by the Nats last time out. While he did not allow a HR in six May starts (2.97 FIP last five starts), he’s still run a 6.56 ERA (4.95 SIERA) over the last 30 days. While his strikeout rate has dropped (20.2% last 30 days), his swinging strike rate has spiked (14% last 30 days). While none of his estimators are within a half run of his 5.56 ERA this season, a 5.00 DRA is still pretty unhealthy. However, none of this takes into account quality contact management (85.4 mph aEV, 3.8% Barrels/BBE, 30.8% 95+ mph EV). A 58.3 LOB% is unsustainable. His .299 xwOBA is more indicative of some unrewarded solid work. A .303 mark over the last month is 39 points below his actual mark over that span. Gausman seems like a prime candidate for some positive regression and while he’s not in the highest strikeout upside spot against the Pirates (20.4% vs RHP), he’s facing an offense without much power (11.3 HR/FB vs RHP) in a park that suppresses RH power. Meaningful because Gausman has shown reverse split tendencies throughout his career (though more neutral this season). Gausman is always a risk, but with a price tag now under $7K, he might be one of the top values on the board. On the other side of this matchup, Joe Musgrove hasn’t pitched well over the last month (15.7 K%), but his .326 xwOBA is 49 points below his actual mark over that span, in which he has just a 52.2 LOB%. His $5.6K price tag on DraftKings is probably far too cheap.
Other tagged players: Joe Musgrove
Risk/Reward SP #2 Choice
There is no doubt that it has been a rough 2019 for Yu Darvish, and his massive walk rate remains a problem. However, his price tag is now very cheap, and the strikeout upside is there with a 26.6% strikeout rate for the year. He has looked better in recent starts, and he will have the benefit of the wind blowing in at Wrigley by the time tonight’s game begins. He’s never safe because of the command problems, but the upside at this price is very tangible. He’s a risk/reward SP #2 choice.
The Rocky Start Has Been Washed Away
The early season struggles for Chris Sale are now a thing of the past, and he thrived in May with a 2.82 ERA and a ridiculous 66/9 K/BB ratio over 38 1/3 innings. That is even more impressive when you consider that he had to face Houston twice in May — a team that notoriously mashes left-handed pitching. Tonight’s matchup is a solid one against a Royals squad that ranks in the bottom half of the league in virtually every offensive category. They also rank 10th in strikeout rate against LHP this year. There’s a nice combination of safety and upside with Sale right now, and he’s my top arm on this Wednesday slate.
Power Upside Stack
The Red Sox match up nicely against Jakob Junis, a pitcher who has issues with walks and home runs. The Red Sox have plenty of hitters who are patient and can smack home runs. Seven regulars in the Boston lineup have walk rates of 10%+ this season, and there’s tons of power upside. Betts, Martinez, and Bogaerts all have wOBA marks of .375+ against RHP since the start of last season, and you can perhaps even get a value bat like Brock Holt as an affordable piece of a GPP stack. There’s a lot of upside here.
Other tagged players: JD Martinez, Brock Holt, Xander Bogaerts High Upside Stack
Even though the Brewers have a high implied team total of 5.6 runs this evening, I still expect their ownership to be very reasonable in GPP formats. The reason for that is because the price tags are really high on the top hitters, and that becomes a problem with DFS players attempting to spend up on the top pitchers tonight. Prices are approaching hurricane levels on DraftKings, where Yelich has hit the $6,000 mark. There is obvious upside with this stack in a matchup against Sandy Alcantara, who has struggled in 2019 with major command issues. Fire up the pricey Milwaukee bats if you want to go against the grain.
Other tagged players: Mike Moustakas, Yasmani Grandal Potent Offense Takes On Mystery Pitcher Tonight
Looking at things in the early afternoon, there are high projected run totals across the board tonight, but not for the Astros playing in Seattle. It’s not that Vegas is down on Houston tonight, it’s that Seattle hasn’t even been able to confirm a starting pitcher for tonight’s game. It’s looking likely that the Mariners will roll out Andrew Moore, who hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2017, carries a career 5.34 ERA, and has given up 25 earned runs in only 17.1 innings at the AAA level this year. Despite having no line, I’ll have a large amount of interest in the Astros hitters tonight, particularly left-handers such as Michael Brantley, Josh Reddick, and Derek Fisher (if he is hitting leadoff again), as well as righty Alex Bregman.
Other tagged players: Alex Bregman, Michael Brantley, Derek Fisher
Comeback Pitcher in Good Pitching Environment Tonight
With high projected run totals and good hitting conditions across most of the slate tonight, for pitching I’ll be looking towards one of the best pitching environments in baseball – Citi Field in New York. Madison Bumgarner has put a few tough seasons behind him and comes into tonight with his best SIERA (3.85) and K% (24.2%) since 2016, and faces off against a Mets lineup with the 9th-highest K% against left-handed pitching in the league.
The Price Is The Reason
Alberto has been one of my favorite value plays against left-handed pitching, and he draws an excellent matchup tonight against Smyly. Smyly has a .375 wOBA with a .234 ISO and a 50.5% hard-hit rate against right-handed hitters this season. Alberto doesn’t have a ton of power, but he’s shown elite contact skills against lefties this season. He has a .414 wOBA with a 15.6% strikeout rate and a 1.6% walk rate against lefties in 2019.
Devin Smeltzer is not a highly regarded prospect, but dominated in his MLB debut
Devin Smeltzer made his major league debut with six three-hit, shutout innings, striking out seven of 30 Brewers without a walk. A surprise, thrust upon Milwaukee without much notice (Martin Perez was originally scheduled to start that game), Smeltzer was just the 22nd ranked prospect in the Minnesota system (Fangraphs) this pre-season with a 40 Future Value grade. It’s suggested that a funky delivery could mask velocity issues and that’s just the kind of thing that can make a pitcher successful the first few times out before teams catch on. The 23 year-old had just an 8.0 K-BB% in four AAA starts this year preceding it with five starts of a 27.8 K-BB% at AA this season. Prior to that, he split his 95 AA innings between starting and relieving in two different organizations (part of the return for Brian Dozier). The good news here is that Cleveland has a 73 wRC+, 23.7 K% and 11.3 HR/FB vs LHP. They may be better prepared to face Smeltzer, so don’t expect a repeat of his debut, but he still only costs $7.5K on DraftKings and perhaps the deception can get him through a poor offense here.