DFS Alerts
I Know He Is 1 For 18
Stevie why are you writing up a guy that is 1 for 18 to start the season. Good question, Altherr has one start this season, so 13 of his at bats have come from pinch hitting. I don’t want to weigh these at bats too much because it’s not the easiest thing to come in and get one at bat. If Herrera misses the game tonight, Altherr should hit seventh or eighth in Coors Field at $2,500 on FanDuel. I’m just playing the price game with him. He had a .190 ISO with a .308 wOBA and a 45.1% fly ball rate against left-handed pitchers in 2018.
One stop Thursday night pitching shop
Pitching is both difficult on this slate because only three teams are below four and a half implied runs, but also very easy because it all probably boils down to San Diego even if you’re likely overpaying for mediocrity. One the one hand, Tanner Roark has not completed six innings nor thrown 100 pitches in any of his three starts, all against NL Central opponents. He’s still the only guy on the slate averaging six innings per start over the last two calendar years, but that was for a different organization. He’s a league average strikeout (22.1%) and walk rate (8.8%) at an average price tag. The appeal is a large park upgrade and favorable matchup (Padres 83 wRC+, 17.0 K-BB% vs RHP). If we dig further down, it’s nor pretty, so best to just ignore Roark’s 6.7 SwStr%, 93.3 Z-Contact%, 43.2 Z-O-Contact%, and 90.6 mph aEV and hope for the best on this slate.
While Chris Paddack is a highly regarded prospect (Fangraphs #34 overall with a 55 Future Value grade) and has an impressive 30.8 K%, it comes with just a 9.8 SwStr%, 11.3 BB%, 3.93 SIERA, .194 BABIP, and 32.2 H-S%. Statcast does suggests he has handled contact well though (83.8 mph aEV, 3.2% Barrels/BBE) and he has a great matchup (Reds 30 wRC+, 21.8 K-BB% on the road, 57 wRC+, 17.3 K-BB% vs RHP). He hasn’t seen 90 pitches yet and costs $9K, but you’re really not going to do better tonight and considering no other pitcher costs more than $8K, players can afford to pay a little extra here. Another interesting aspect here is that the line has moved heavily in his favor.
Really Slow Start
Julio Urias is a very talented young pitcher, but he’s shown a lot of fly ball tendencies in his short time in the Majors. If you’ve been playing Jesus Aguilar this season, then you’re just as frustrated as me with how disappointing he’s been doing. I’m going back to the well tonight, and I think his price makes a lot of sense against a lefty. He has a .244 ISO with a .380 wOBA against left-handed pitching since the start of the 2018 season.
Very Risky
We don’t have a lot of pitching options on this slate, and the few that we do have will be really high owned. If you’re willing to take some risk, I think Ryan Yarbrough is worth a look. It’s not confirmed that he will be the long relief pitcher, so there is a lot of risk with this one. I’m going to play him on a team or two to get off of Paddack, Roark, and German. The projected starting lineup for Baltimore has a .096 ISO with a .264 wOBA and a 27.6% strikeout rate against left-handed pitching since the start of 2018. He might only need 50-60 pitches to pay off his price on this slate. I just want to say one more time, I know the risk, and I’m perfectly okay with risking it, he might not even pitch, which I also know is the risk of playing him.
Run It Back
Ji-Man Choi was thrilled to see his name as a Core Play last night and he responded with his first home run of the season, reaching base four times and scoring three runs. Tonight’s matchup is almost as good for the Tampa lefties, as Andrew Cashner is a pitcher with well below average strikeouts and has allowed 40% fly balls to lefties with a .213 ISO since the start of 2018. Choi’s 43% hard hits and 26% line drives give him power upside and his 11.5% walk rate adds to his on base ability. First base is a good position to save some salary tonight while spending up on the elite bats at other positions.
King Me
There are good hitters everywhere tonight, but we’ve always got to keep Coors Field at the top of the list, as this game opens with a run total of 11 and features a Phillies team that is near the top of the league in every offensive category to open the season. The injury to Jean Segura should open up a prime spot in the batting order for Scott Kingery, to get us some affordable access to this high powered lineup. Kingery has been red-hot with homers in back-to-back games and nine hits in his last five. This was a highly touted prospect who didn’t break out in 2018, but is making the most of his second chance.
So Much To Love
Some days, it’s hard to decide on core plays, because nobody really fits the bill. And then we have nights like tonight, where basically every high priced batter is in an elite spot and I could make a strong case for everyone of them. As much as I love the beer-themed ballparks in Colorado and Milwaukee, if I’m going to spend top dollar on a batter, I’ll just start with the best. Mike Trout had the highest ISO in all of baseball against right-handed pitching in 2018, and he has opened this season striking out just 7.9% of the time to go with a 43% hard hit rate, .366 batting average and .531 wOBA. We’ve even got a little something for our BvP fans, as Trout has a career 1.158 OPS against Felix Hernandez.
Too Cheap Here
Charlie Blackmon has started the season slowly, but he’s way too cheap for a Coors Field game on FanDuel at just $3,600 and Yahoo at $17. There is nothing behind his low batting average beyond early season BABIP noise, with most of the Rockies game having been played on the road. It’s better to attack Zach Eflin with lefties, making Blackmon the easy top choice for the Rockies and basically a must play in FD and Yahoo cash games.
Cheap and Kind Of OK
It is tough to find even one pitcher to use tonight, much less two. The only option cheaper than Chris Paddack (and Domingo German on FD) that has anything to like is Tanner Roark in San Diego. Roark is a essentially a league average pitcher and nothing to get excited about, but he has limited hard contact below 29% every previous season of his career and has been better against right-handed batters, where most of the top Padres bats appear. It’s nothing great here, but he is less bad than the other SP2 options.
Have To Be A Fan Of This Duel
Pitching is terrible tonight, but with FanDuel adding the Yankees game onto the Main Slate, we get one more decent option with Domingo German. He has similar upside to Chris Paddack, but we’ve seen more major league sample size from German to trust in the strikeouts, and he’s also facing a Royals team that has quite a few high strikeout hitters. On a different slate, he’d be a tournament pivot, but tonight, he’s option #1 on FD.
Not Much To Choose From
There just isn’t much of anything out there at pitcher tonight. Chris Paddack is not mowing down major league hitters as easily as he did in the minors, but he still has a 30% K rate to start, and is facing a Reds team that has stumbled out of the gate. This is the only low total game on the slate, and the only pitcher that has realistic 30% strikeout upside.
Risk/Reward GPP Appeal
Urias has had problems putting everything together at the major league level, and he has one of the biggest disparities you will find between his minor league numbers and major league numbers. I’m not ready to completely write him off yet, and I still have faith in his upside. He will likely be very low owned tonight in a road matchup against an elite offense, and there are worse things you can do on a five game slate. I’ll target Urias as a risk/reward GPP option provided that our projected ownership comes in at the 10% range or less.
Thursday's Top Arm
The command has been a bit of a problem in the early going, but I don’t expect long-term issues in that department with Paddack, as he never had more than a 5.5% walk rate at any minor league level. He has impressive strikeout stuff and has started his MLB career with a 30% strikeout over his first three starts to go along with a .194 opposing batting average and a 1.29 ERA. His advanced metrics suggest some regression, but it’s hard to make definite conclusions after three starts. The stuff is very good, the matchup is very good at home against a mediocre Reds offense, and the park is certainly favorable for pitching. That’s enough to make Paddack the best option on a relatively ugly slate for arms.
Don't Sleep On This Much Improved Team
It may have been a bit of a shocker when the Rays traded away Chris Archer, but they may end up getting the better end of that deal with the Pirates. Austin Meadows looks like the real deal, and this offense has some sneaky potential with the likes of Choi, Diaz, and Lowe also coming in as breakout candidates. The Rays are off to a great start, and they draw a fine matchup tonight against a very hittable pitcher in Andrew Cashner. He has allowed a .408 wOBA to RHBs so far this year, and he allowed a wOBA of .360+ to hitters from both sides of the plate a year ago. In short, he’s just not good. The 1-5 hitters in this Tampa lineup are all very much in play as stand alone options or as part of a GPP stack this evening.
Other tagged players: Brandon Lowe, Yandy Diaz, Ji-Man Choi Always Target The Hitter-Friendly Park
The Rockies are an obvious top spot for bats tonight, as they are back home playing in the hitter-friendly confines of Coors Field in a game with a Vegas total of 11 runs. They get a matchup against a league average arm in Zach Eflin, and while Eflin is better now than he was at the start of his career, I’m still not sold on him as a quality MLB talent. Charlie Blackmon is an obvious choice here given his career home splits against right-handing pitching, while the likes of Tapia and Hampson check in with reasonable prices and likely solid batting order spots. The Rockies are more stackable than the Phillies tonight because of those price tags, and I’ll be taking advantage.
Other tagged players: Raimel Tapia, Garrett Hampson