DFS Alerts
If Only He Hit Here All The Time
The Giants are one of the worst offenses in the league, so they don’t become an automatic must-play at Coors Field. However, Brandon Belt does stand out here with his huge fly ball lean getting a boost in the altitude. The lone skill for Antonio Senzatela is ground balls, but with Belt’s 50% fly ball rate against righties and Senzatela’s low strikeouts, we can count on seeing the ball in the air tonight at a very fair salary.
More Aces Coming At You
We had a pitchers duel in San Diego last night, and have another ace on the mound tonight with Noah Syndergaard. He had a start for the ages last week with a 10-K complete game shutout, and while that start was an outlier on the good side, his early season struggles were an outlier on the bad side. He should be able to settle at least in the 25-27% K range with upside, and his ground balls and soft contact to righties should play well in this matchup. The Padres are almost entirely right-handed, where Syndergaard has a 55% GB rate with 27.7% K since the start of 2018. He’s the clear cash game ace and a top tournament option even at likely high ownership.
Hitting Really Well Since Being Called Up
I don’t like taking a bunch of hitters in Pittsburgh, but I really like this matchup for the Pirates. Bryan Reynolds has hit very well since being called up and hit really well at AAA before being called up. Sampson has been better against left-handed hitters, but the sample is so small, I don’t want to weigh that data too much. Sampson does have a low strikeout rate with a high fly ball rate and a high hard-hit rate.
Cheap Bat In Coors
I don’t typically write up a lot of players from Coors, but I really like the value of Joe Panik tonight. Panik has a very low strikeout rate against righties, and Senzatela is a pitch to contact pitcher. Panik doesn’t have a lot of power, but he’s hitting leadoff in Coors and he’s really cheap. Since the start of 2016, Panik has a 92.76% contact rate on fastballs, and a .197 ISO, which is much higher than his normal ISO. Since the start of 2018, Senzatela throws his fastball 64.27% against left-handed hitters.
Really Good Strikeout Stuff
McHugh started the season with four really strong starts but has struggled in two of his last three. This is a great spot for him to get back on track, and he’s a big favorite against the Royals tonight. Since the start of 2018, McHugh has a 3.58 xFIP with a 30.5% strikeout rate and a very impressive 12.9% swinging strike rate. McHugh always as some risk because he’s a fly ball pitcher. The projected starting lineup for the Royals has seven hitters with a strikeout rate over 20% against righties since the start of 2018. With no clear-cut value pitcher on this slate, McHugh is a guy I’m looking at in all formats.
Above Average Slider
Canning threw 82 pitches in his first career start and ended up with three earned runs on four hits. He had a 2.73 xFIP with a 33.3% strikeout rate and a 22% swinging strike rate in that game. He draws a really good matchup against the Tigers tonight. Since the start of 2018, the projected starting lineup for the Tigers have a .130 ISO with a .301 wOBA and a 23.7% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching. I’m mostly paying up at pitcher tonight, but I really like the value for Canning on FanDuel and Yahoo.
Chris Paddack is working deeper into games, has top DRA (2.24) and xwOBA (.253) on the board
Chris Paddack has increased his workload (at least six innings in three straight starts) and has allowed even three runs only once so far. Four of his nine walks have come in a single start, while he’s striking out 28.7% of batters faced (80 Z-Contact%). While his 1.91 ERA is well below his estimators (.160 BABIP), all are still below four and his 2.24 DRA and .253 xwOBA are best on the board tonight, as he’s managed contact extremely well (84.9 mph aEV, 5.2% Barrels/BBE). The Mets have been struggling. They come into this game with just a 91 wRC+ vs RHP and 24.8 K% over the last week. They’ve just come off a weekend series in Milwaukee that saw them play 18 innings Saturday night. Paddack costs a reasonable $9.2K on either site against a tired team and seems a reasonable alternative to some higher priced names, who have been allowing much louder contact this season.
Load Em Up Here
I want as much Red Sox exposure as possible tonight, and Xander Bogaerts is a standout at the shortstop position, making him a priority spend ahead of a second Boston OF. Bogaerts has a 42% hard hit rate against lefties since the start of 2018, and has flown out the gate this season with a .458 ISO and just 7% K in his first 28 PA against lefties.
Highest Barrel/BBE rates on the board belong to deGrom (10.4%) and Scherzer (10.2%)
Both Jacob deGrom (7 IP – 3 H – 0 ER – 6 K) and Max Scherzer (7 IP – 8 H – 3 ER – 8 K) alleviated some concerns about their fantasy worthiness last time out, as most supporters can easily point to BABIPs well above .300 for their struggles this year. Each can support this with strikeout rates above 30% and they, along with Cole, are clearly the top pitchers on the board tonight, though deGrom is in the stronger spot in San Diego (84 wRC+, 20.1 K-BB%). Scherzer is in Milwaukee, which is still a favorable spot by the early season numbers (96 wRC+, 26.1 K% vs RHP), though a bit more dangerous with Christian Yelich back. While deGrom is already halfway to his 2018 full season HR total of 10, Scherzer’s 10.0 HR/FB is right on his career rate (10.2). Here’s the mind-blowing state though. Scherzer (10.2%) and deGrom (10.4%) have allowed the two highest Barrel/BBE rates on the board. Vince Velasquez (10%) is the only other pitcher within a full percentage point. Will this continue? Likely not and this is not a call to fade either tonight, but it does explain and validate some of their troubles this year and may be enough reason for players to pick out a high powered bat to contrarianly use against them tonight. It may be the lowest ownership rate you’ll see Christian Yelich (184 wRC+, .325 ISO vs RHP last calendar year) against a RHP for the foreseeable future. The problem with San Diego is a lack of left-handed power, but Manny Machado and Franmil Reyes have both been hot (140+ wRC+ last seven days) from the right side and each are above a .200 ISO against RHP over the last calendar year.
Other tagged players: Max Scherzer Brandon Lowe (141 wRC+) and Ji-Man Choi (138) have hammered RHP over the last calendar year
Merrill Kelly has been a below average contributor to the D’Backs this year (4.76 SIERA, 4.99 DRA, 10 K-BB%, .349 xwOBA) despite the 3.60 ERA, so perhaps there may be an opportunity to line up some bats at lowered ownership against him in Tampa Bay, a negative run environment tonight. Both Brandon Lowe (141 wRC+, .239 ISO) and Ji-Man Choi (138 wRC+, .233 ISO) have been feasting on RHP over the last calendar year and LHBs have been well above average against Kelly (.346 wOBA, .378 xwOBA), while RHBs have been around average (.324 wOBA, .326 xwOBA). The latter is just $2.9K on FanDuel. Tommy Pham (123 wRC+, .192 ISO) has been a strong bat against same-handed pitching. Nathaniel Lowe is an affordable bat in the middle of that lineup (bathing fifth). Despite a 155 wRC+ at AAA this year, he has just a 33 wRC+, though his .320 xwOBA through 25 PAs is more league average.
Other tagged players: Ji-Man Choi, Nathaniel Lowe, Tommy Pham, Merrill Kelly Martin Perez has literally "cut" his sinker usage in half toward better results
Martin Perez struck out a season high seven Astros through eight scoreless innings last time out. Perez is throwing harder this year (94.8 mph on his four-seamer) and has added a cutter, which he’s thrown 35% of the time, cutting his sinker usage in half from 50% to 25%. This is a good thing, because both his sinker and four-seamer are being hammered (.400 wOBA), while the cutter has a .129 wOBA (.220 xwOBA) and 27.1 Whiff%. He threw 45 of them (45%) against the Astros, almost all on the inside corner or off the plate to RHBs. The Blue Jays are a bit more balanced than the Houston lineup in terms of LHBs, but this is easily a much more favorable matchup (Toronto 79 wRC, 17.5 K-BB%, 5.1 HR/FB). Perez is certainly usable at $6.6K on DraftKings, but he’s likely to be quite a bit more popular after his most recent outing and players must realize that he still only has a league average strikeout rate (20.4%) this year and below average 10.9 K-BB%. His Deserved Run Average (5.17) is 1.76 points above his 3.41 ERA. This is still too strong a spot at too low a price not to consider him, especially when he can be paired with Scherzer or deGrom. The Twins also have the top defense on the board by UZR/150 (+10.6).
Not The Same Lineup
With Soto and Adams on the IL, Washington is a very right-handed heavy offense. Adam Eaton is projected to be the only left-handed hitter in this lineup. Since the start of last season, Chacin has a .254 wOBA with a .118 ISO and a 23.8% strikeout rate against right-handed hitters. This game opened as Washington (Max Scherzer pitching) as a slight favorite but has turned into a straight up pick em game. The projected starting lineup has a .190 ISO with a .318 wOBA and a 26.6% strikeout rate. Pitching is loaded tonight, but I like Chacin to be a low owned difference maker.
Top Offense to Target
The Red Sox are the top offense to target on Monday night as they lead the slate with a current implied run total of 5.4. Boston finally got their bats going over a 4-game series with the White Sox where they scored 34 total runs. They find themselves in a favorable matchup to carry over their hot bats as they take on southpaw John Means and a poor Orioles bullpen at hitter-friendly Camden Yards. Means has been solid this season for Baltimore with just a 2.81 ERA but advanced run prevention metrics (4.65 xFIP, 4.04 SIERA) view him less favorably as he’s had a difficult time generating soft contact (13.5%). A full out Red Sox stack is difficult to roster if paying up for pitcher which may help subdue ownership a bit.
Other tagged players: Mookie Betts, Michael Chavis, Xander Bogaerts
Strikeout Prone Team With Power
What’s the cure for a strikeout prone team that has a lot of power? A pitcher that can’t miss bats. Mikolas has struggled mightily in that area this season with a 7.2 SwStr% and 13.5 K%. Bryce Harper is going to be absolute chalk on DraftKings where he’s only $4,500 but his teammates are unlikely to see heavy ownership which makes Philadelphia my favorite “sneaky” stack of the slate.
Other tagged players: Rhys Hoskins, J.T. Realmuto Save The Salary, Keep The Upside
Fly ball hitters are going to have fluctuations in batting average, but the DFS salaries move with them, giving us a lot of points per dollar upside with bats like Matt Carpenter. In the early going this season, he has just a .312 wOBA against right-handed pitching. But underneath the surface, we see 30.8% line drives, 49.2% fly balls and 40% hard hits. Hard hit fly balls and line drives are going to lead to extra base hits, and the artificially low batting average has Carpenter’s salary too cheap to pass up.