DFS Alerts
Brew Crew
Jason Vargas has looked better in his last two starts, but I’m still not buying into it. This season he is giving up a 41% fly ball rate, 58% hard hit rate, and a 12% walk rate. I think the Brewers are a great stack today and hopefully people will be off of them with last nights game going 18 innings. Braun, Aguilar, Yelich, and Cain are the bats I will be targeting.
Slim Pitching Options
Pitching is tough today because there is no clear ace on the slate. I think the guy with the most talent and highest ceiling is Frankie Montas. He gets an extreme pitchers umpire behind the plate which hopefully will help his strikeout numbers. His ground ball rate is up around 57% and he has good control with only a 7% walk rate. On this slate he is definitely my preferred pitcher in GPPs.
Stack Up The Indians
The Indians against Erik Swanson are one of my favorite tournament stacks today. His last two starts he has struggled, giving up 18 hits, 4 home runs, while giving up 10 earned runs. The numbers for the season against right handed pitching do not look great, but they have definitely been better since Lindor has come back into the lineup. I like stacking Lindor, Ramirez, and Santana in tournaments.
Stack Up The Indians
The Indians against Erik Swanson are one of my favorite tournament stacks today. His last two starts he has struggled, giving up 18 hits, 4 home runs, while giving up 10 earned runs. The numbers for the season against right handed pitching do not look great, but they have definitely been better since Lindor has come back into the lineup. I like stacking Lindor, Ramirez, and Santana in tournaments.
Stack Up The Indians
The Indians against Erik Swanson are one of my favorite tournament stacks today. His last two starts he has struggled, giving up 18 hits, 4 home runs, while giving up 10 earned runs. The numbers for the season against right handed pitching do not look great, but they have definitely been better since Lindor has come back into the lineup. I like stacking Lindor, Ramirez, Kipnis, and Santana in tournaments.
Rangers Have Highest Total on the Slate
The Rangers face Clay Buchholz in Arlington Sunday with a 5.53 implied total. Buccholz wasn’t bad in 2018 with a 2.01 ERA / 4.01 xFIP, but over 21 innings this year he has a 4.79 ERA / 5.13 xFIP and a miniscule 12.5 K%. Since 2016 Buchholz has been slightly worse vs. RHB, but can be targeted with hitters from both sides of the plate, especially pitching in a hitter’s park like Globe Life Park. Joey Gallo (.395 xwOBA vs. RHP since 2018), Shin-Soo Choo (.394), Danny Santana (.379), Nomar Mazara (.354), Asdrubal Cabrera (.315) and Rougned Odor (.314) are all good options projected to be in the Rangers’ lineup. Choo is by far the cheapest of the bunch coming in at just $3.8k on Draftkings due to his early season struggles; he also has just a .185 xwOBA over the last 10 days. Choo has been the hottest hitter of the bunch with a .449 xwOBA over the last 10 days.
Other tagged players: Nomar Mazara, Joey Gallo, Rougned Odor, Asdrubal Cabrera, Clay Buchholz, Danny Santana
Montas a Solid Option Sunday
Frankie Montas has had a solid year so far with the A’s posting a 2.97 ERA / 3.75 xFIP and 14% K-BB. Montas is using his fastball much less in 2019, and has added a new splitter which has a .207 xwOBA against and a 43.9% whiff rate. Montas has really struggled vs. LHB in the past, coming into the year with a .411 xwOBA allowed for his career, but his new splitter has dropped his xwOBA allowed vs. LHB to just .316 on the year. Montas will matchup with the Pirates this afternoon, who have struggled to a 87 wRC+ on the year but have limited their K rate to just 20.9%. Montas will have the benefit of a pitcher’s park in PNC and a very pitcher-friendly umpire in Ron Kulpa. Montas is affordable in the mid $8k range on both sites and is especially intriguing given the lack of SP options on the slate. The Pirates have a 3.93 implied line vs. Montas and the A’s Sunday.
Pablo Lopez Has Quietly Been a Good Arm
The main slate is incredibly thin at SP, so we’ll have to get crafty with SPs today. Pablo Lopez gets a matchup today at home vs. the Braves, who are not an easy matchup with a 107 wRC+ and 21.8% K rate vs. RHP on the year. Lopez is intriguing because it seems he has taken a step forward this year; he’s got a 3.72 SIERA, 18.5 K-BB%, 50% GB rate and .290 xwOBA allowed so far in 2019. He’s also improved his SwStr% to 11.7% and has given up just 30% hard contact compared to 17.8% soft contact. In addition to pitching in spacious Marlins Park, Lopez will work with a pitcher-friendly umpire in Tony Randazzo. At just $7.7k on Draftkings and $7.1 on Fanduel, Lopez is a great bet to hit value and has decent upside given his 24.4% K rate on the year. The Braves have a 3.83 line vs. Lopez and the Marlins Sunday afternoon.
Play the Chalk in Cash
Dylan Covey has given no indication he’s a big league pitcher. The Red Sox are going to be chalky on Sunday but it’s for good reason. They are coming off a 15 run performance and now get to face one of the worst pitchers in baseball in a hitter’s ballpark. I think you need one of J.D. Martinez or Mookie Betts in cash games, with Martinez my preferred target given he’s cheaper. In cash games, this is chalk you want to eat.
Team in Prime Position To Attack Young Starter
Erik Swanson has allowed five home runs in his last three starts, and that bodes well for the Indians. Four of his five homers were to right-handed batters, but I don’t think we have enough of a sample to suggest he’s a reverse-splits pitcher. With that in mind, I’m targeting the power of Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez, Carlos Santana and Carlos Gonzalez. The Indians are good in all formats today.
Sneaky Good Matchup
Our PlateIQ tool really likes Gregory Polanco today, and he provided a much needed boost for this Pittsburgh offense. He has three hits and a pair of extra base hits over the last two games, and he profiles very well against a league average RHP in Frankie Montas. The appeal is particularly enticing on FanDuel, where Polanco’s sub-$3,000 price tag is just too cheap — but I like him as a potential core option on all sites today. Don’t forget that he had a .360 wOBA and .265 ISO against RHP a year ago.
Surprisingly Affordable
The Brewers have a solid matchup today against Jason Vargas, and while Vargas has been solid over his last few starts, the overall profile remains ugly. It’s only a matter of time before he gets blown up again, and the Mets bullpen is also taxed after an 18 inning game on Saturday (which the bullpen blew after the Mets took the lead in the top of the 18th). My preferred core play is site dependent here, with Ryan Braun checking in with a ridiculously cheap price tag on FD and Jesus Aguilar being more affordable on DK. You can’t go wrong with the RH power bats here, and they also provide some nice value on this Sunday slate. Braun had a great game last night, while Aguilar had three home runs in two games earlier this week. Lock them in.
Other tagged players: Jesus Aguilar Pitcher Coming Into Outing In Good Form
The fact we are considering Porcello as our SP1 gives you an indication of what kind of slate we’re working with. Porcello has an average 19.3% strikeout rate, but his walk rate has ballooned all the way up to 11.7% this season, which is double his career average. He has done a good job lately cutting back on his walks, however. After racking up 12 walks in his first three starts, he’s only allowed 5 walks in his last three starts. This suggests to me that his walk rate should start to decline towards his career average as it’s likely he’s made some kind of adjustment. I don’t love that he’s facing the White Sox in Guaranteed Rate Field as that’s a hitter’s ballpark, but the White Sox do have a 25.6% strikeout rate this season against right-handed pitching, 7th in the majors. They have a team wRC+ of 107, but their team ISO and team wOBA is around the league average.
The Best Of A Trash Heap
I am only tagging one core pitcher today, and it was hard enough to do that. This slate is absolutely gross from a pitching perspective. The only good options are pitching in the late afternoon games, where you get the luxury of choosing Verlander and/or Castillo (you probably want to do that if you are playing on Yahoo). In any case, on DraftKings and FanDuel, the option is pretty much Teheran by default. I really like Eflin today in his matchup, but weather seems destined to take that one away. Teheran does have a healthy 26% strikeout rate this year to go along with a reasonable SIERA/xFIP in the low fours, and that is about as good as it gets this afternoon. The walks are a problem, but a matchup against the woeful, impatient Marlins should help that. As I said… gross.
Keep It Rolling
The Red Sox absolutely annihilated Manny Banuelos and the White Sox last night, and this offense can be scary good when they get it rolling, especially with Chavis now smashing the ball at the big league level. Dylan Covey is terrible, and there’s no reason to think the Red Sox can’t have another huge offensive day this afternoon. Covey’s career splits are equally poor against both LHBs and RHBs, so I’d simply go with the hot bats here. Chavis is squarely in play, but I’ll side with Martinez as the core cash game option. He profiles very well against Covey’s pitch mix and has a 45% hard contact rate against RHP to go along with elite numbers against RHP across the board since the start of 2018.