DFS Alerts
Salary Is An Issue
With high end pitching, a Coors Field game and a few other elite bats worth spending on, we’ll need to find some savings to make things work. Stephen Piscotty is my first choice, but on FD/Yahoo we can save a few more dollars with Chad Pinder. If I can get my cheap punts with power upside, that’s what I’m going to do. Pinder has a huge 53% hard hit rate against lefties since the start of 2018 and a .260 ISO so far this season against lefties. Oakland also has the prospect of a bad Mariners bullpen coming in behind LeBlanc adding to the overall upside of this affordable lineup.
Blake Snell has struck out 30 of his last 66 batters and has just a .239 xwOBA this year
Blake Snell seems to be fully returned from injury. He’s struck out 30 of his last 66 batters and holds a 37.8 K% with a 19.2 SwStr%, 77.3 Z-Contact% and 29 Z-O-Swing% on the year. In addition, his .239 xwOBA is best on the board, while his 28.8% 95+ mph EV is behind only rookie Griffin Canning tonight. All of his estimators are at least a half run below his 3.31 ERA. With a 31.4 K-BB% and 1.9 Hard-Soft%, it’s impossible to find the flaw here. He’ll experience a park downgrade in Cleveland tonight, but the Tribe has just a 78 wRC+ (10.3 HR/FB) at home and 76 wRC+ vs LHP (24.8 K%). Snell is the most expensive pitcher on the board tonight, but with Chris Sale facing the Astros, it’s hard not to see him as clearly the top overall arm on the slate.
Disappointed More Often Than Not
Full disclosure: I have rostered Randal Grichuk way too much this season and he’s disappointed me more often than not. I know that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement for the Jays outfielder but value options are limited on this slate and Grichuk has shown a ton of power against left-handed pitching (.224 ISO) throughout his career.
Cheap + Platoon
Steve Pearce’s spot in the lineup is going to be contingent on if J.D. Martinez is back in the lineup or not for the Red Sox. Pearce hit fifth yesterday with no JDM and would be a cash game lock if he hits top five again with the platoon advantage against Wade Miley. Pearce still rates as a strong value option if he does find himself hitting lower in the order. He does come with his fair share of pinch-hit risk and that risk is tougher to take on the lower he hits in the order.
Salary Is An Issue
With high end pitching, a Coors Field game and a few other elite bats worth spending on, we’ll need to find some savings to make things work. Stephen Piscotty should be in the middle of the Oakland lineup facing a low strikeout, fly ball lefty in Wade LeBlanc. He should see plenty of RBI opportunities with his .217 ISO and .363 wOBA against lefties. Oakland also has the prospect of a bad Mariners bullpen coming in behind LeBlanc adding to the overall upside of this affordable lineup.
Not Fully Comfortable
Drew Pomeranz struggled a bit in his return from a lat injury but he still projects as one of the better pt/$ options on a slate devoid of value at the pitching position. While Pomeranz did struggle a bit with command in his first start back it was encouraging to see that he was able to throw 96 pitches. Pom’s matchup on Friday night is a middling one against a Diamondbacks offense that doesn’t strikeout much and has been solid against left-handed pitching this season but the context is strong at pitcher friendly Oracle Park. You’re not going to feel fully comfortable rostering Pomeranz but options in his price range are truly limited.
It's Obvious For A Reason
It’s easy to spot the top offense tonight with a huge total in Coors Field that dwarfs the rest of the slate. The Rockies face a fly ball lefty in John Means who faces the toughest test of his young career. While he’s looked pretty good so far, the combination of low strikeouts and fly balls to righties does not bode well for success here. The two big righty bats of Trevor Story and Nolan Arenado are the standout plays to spend on tonight, and while I’m going to list them both as Core Plays, I don’t actually expect you to be able to fit both of them in cash games. You really can’t go wrong either way, and it depends on which position you prefer other plays as to which one you use. Since the start of 2018, we’re looking at 49% hard hits and a .299 ISO from Story against lefties and 46% hard hits with a .385 ISO from Arenado.
Other tagged players: Nolan Arenado Joey Lucchesi is a strong contact manager (85.6 mph aEV) in a great spot (Blue Jays 71 wRC+, 17.7 K-BB% vs LHP)
Joey Lucchesi tied a season high with seven innings last time out, but still only faced 25 batters and hasn’t otherwise completed six or gone beyond 24 batters. His strikeout rate is down to league average and even slightly below that over the last month. Aside from a 3.33 FIP, all of his estimators sit between 3.6 and 4.3 for the season and over the last month. Most don’t take into account great contact management. An 85.6 mph aEV drops is xwOBA to .293 just 13 points below his actual mark. He downgrades to a more neutral run environment in Toronto tonight, but the Blue Jays have struggled against LHP (71 wRC+, 17.7 K-BB%, 8.3 HR/FB) and even more at home (64 wRC+, 17.8 K-BB%, 11.4 HR/FB). Luccehis is just under $9K on DraftKings, but nearly $2K less on FanDuel.
Question Marks
Kyle McGowin has a lot of question marks surrounding him on Friday night but the matchup is not one of those. McGowin gets a home matchup against a Marlins offense that is tied for a league worst 68 wRC+ versus right-handed pitching this season and the third highest strikeout rate (26.2%). Pitch count is the biggest unknown or the Nationals righty but his low-price tag helps mitigate the risk of an extra short leash. If things are going well for McGowan he’s likely to settle in around 80-90 pitches which is more than enough to pay off his cheap tag across the industry.
Pablo Lopez (18.8 K-BB%) and Kyle McGowin (21.2 K-BB% at AAA) provide affordable pitching in Washington
Pablo Lopez has sandwiched 13 shutout innings around being routed by the Mets (10 runs). He’s sitting on a strong 18 K-BB% with a 53 GB% and 87 mph aEV. In fact, his .290 xwOBA is fourth best on tonight’s board and while that one terrible outing wrecked his ERA (5.06), all four of his estimators (SIERA, xFIP, FIP, DRA) are all more than 1.3 runs lower (3.74 DRA is the highest). Despite the park downgrade and warm weather in Washingtion, Lopez should serve as an at least functional secondary arm against the Nationals, who struggle against RHP (80 wRC+, 25.3 K% vs RHP). One concern might be his work on the road this year. He’s allowed at least four runs in four of five road starts (plus all five of his HRs), but no more than three in any home start. However, his splits shouldn’t remain that extreme and the $7.5K cost is easily justifiable here.
Twenty-seven year-old Kyle McGowin had a 21.2 K-BB% in eight AAA starts this year and ran a mark above 18% at three different minor league levels last year after years of more pedestrian work. There’s not much major league performance to go on. He’s faced just 48 batters with a 10.4 K-BB%. The Marlins are an ideal matchup though. They have a wRC+ below 70 on the road and vs RHP (26.2 K%, 9.4 HR/FB). McGowin has pitched into the sixth inning in each of his last four AAA starts and may be a bit old to be much of a prospect at this point, but could be useful for $7K on DraftKings and $1.5K less on FanDuel.
Matchup Makes The Difference
Behind the duo of Snell/Sale, we have a group of righties with strong skills and favorable matchups. Noah Syndergaard does not match the strikeout upside of the top pitchers, but he makes up for that with elite control, ground balls to righties and an ability to limit hard contact. He is at home facing an already weak Detroit offense that will now lose their DH spot. The Tigers rank 29th in ISO and wOBA against righties with the 4th highest strikeout rate in the league. It’s a solid combination of upside and safety making Syndergaard playable in all formats.
The Best Of A Strong Group
Pitching is loaded tonight, and it starts up top with two elite lefties in Blake Snell and Chris Sale. Sale is all the way back to his elite status and you really can’t go wrong either way, but given a choice, I’ll avoid the matchup against Houston and go to Snell against the Indians. Snell leads all major league starters this season in K%, SwK% and SIERA. Even without a long leash, he’s piled up 9+ strikeouts in six of his starts and is just untouchable when he’s on. I would say that Sale has the slightly higher ceiling for tournaments with his pitch count, but in cash games, I side with the matchup for Snell.
Lucas Giolito has improved (28.6 K%) by increasing velocity and ditching his sinker
While top 100 prospect and fire-balling rookie, Corbin Martin, is likely to be a popular pick on a two game slate, pitching at home against the White Sox, players on DraftKings need to choose two of tonight’s four pitchers. Ryan Yarbrough, who’s actually getting the start tonight, is another reasonable choice in his major league return after publishing a 32.1 K-BB% in 16.2 AAA innings (though his major league work prior to that has been pretty bad this year – 6.05 DRA, .343 xwOBA). Cleveland may be a much more positive run environment than Houston, but the Indians are easily the worst 2019 offense on the board tonight.
It’s not often that daily fantasy players consider pitchers going up against a difficult Houston lineup, but this is probably the ideal time to talk a bit about the resurgence of Lucas Giolito. Once a highly regarded prospect, Giolito floundered through his first 200 major league innings, but things appear to be taking a turn for the better, particularly of late. In his last 19.1 innings, Giolito has allowed just two runs, while striking out 20 of the 71 batters he has faced. For the season, he’s struck out 28.6% of batters faced to go along with a 3.35 ERA. All of his non-FIP estimators are sitting closer to four due to an unsustainable 7.3 HR/FB, but even that’s a tremendous improvement and above average pitcher. His .292 xwOBA supports his strong contact management results this year. Giolito is throwing a mile per hour harder, which has increased the whiff rate on his four-seamer by nearly 50% over last year and he has ditched a sinker that had a .358 xwOBA last season. A generally imposing Houston lineup is still down George Springer and Jose Altuve, giving today’s projected lineup a .339 wOBA and .190 ISO vs RHP. This is still an above average offense, but it’s now more of a beatable one in a negative run environment. Giolito reasonably costs exactly $8.4K on either site.
Sneaky Stack
The Blue Jays will likely be the lower owned side of this game, but I like a potential shootout in Toronto today. Ryan Weber is not a quality MLB caliber arm, and all his signs point to him being league average at best with low strikeouts. Some of the Toronto pieces are quite affordable today, and I like the upside of a little Smoak/Guerrero/Sogard mini-stack, or you could use Tellez at 1B if you wish. The full game stack is definitely in play with this one as well.
Other tagged players: Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Eric Sogard
Cheap Power
Aaron Nola is not generally a pitcher to pick on, but he’s always been more susceptible to lefties, and so far this season has allowed a .278 ISO on 37% hard hits and no ground ball lean against LHB. With the wind blowing out to right field at Wrigley, the combination of fly balls and patience from Kyle Schwarber gives him both on base and power upside at a very reasonable salary.