DFS Alerts
Exploitable Price Tag Due to Early Struggles
Arlington is the premier hitting environment on Friday’s slate and Odor’s price tag is laughable due to a slow start to the season. Rougy isn’t going to be a guy that projects for a high average but he’s got a ton of power when he has the platoon advantage (.212 ISO) and has some upside with his legs as well. The power matchup is good for Odor as he’ll square off against the fly baller Mike Fiers whose skill-set could have trouble translating to hitter friendly Globe Life Park in Arlington.
The Best Of A Great Bunch Of Bests
I’m going to point out some cheap core options with early season struggles tonight, so let me give you one that probably looks more obvious. But really, this is a sneaky way to make you appreciate the cheaper core options. I don’t think anyone would argue with Mookie Betts as a top play against David Hess and his absurd home run issues. But Betts has actually started out slowly. He’s only hitting .240 while collecting a .250 BABIP (.368 BABIP in 2018). Do you doubt that this is fluky small sample size noise, or do you think Betts is a .240 hitter? Just remember your answer when you look at the next core play options.
BABIP vs Salary Nonsense
Jose Ramirez is $3,400 on FD and $15 on Yahoo facing Brad Keller. Cut it out. I get it, he’s batting .136. He’s also played 12 games, has a 14.9% K rate and 37% hard hits with a .158 BABIP and 0% HR/FB rate. Even if you want to discount him all the way to his poor second half of 2018, some of these fly balls are going to turn into home runs, and now he’s priced low enough that even just taking a couple walks from the 13% BB of Keller and scoring a run will be plenty.
BABIP vs Salary Nonsense
It is not hard to identify the top bats on tonight’s slate. Load up on Boston and Oakland, we all get it. But with Carlos Carrasco up top and expensive high end OF in clear spots, we need value somewhere. Early season sample size can lead to salary outliers like Jesus Aguilar on DK. He’s hitting .111, so why do we want to play him? Because it’s been 10 games and he has a .138 BABIP and 0% HR/FB rate. (.309 BABIP and 23.8% HR/FB in 2018). His plate discipline says there is nothing wrong here, he has a 15.9% K rate and 13.6% walks in the young season and a 38% hard hit rate that says better things are on the way.
Top Of The Hill
There are only a few good pitchers on the mound tonight before we see a steep drop-off. Carlos Carrasco has been one of the most consistent pitchers in the league the past several seasons, and has a great matchup going into Kansas City tonight. After back-to-back seasons with over 28% strikeouts and under 6% walks, he’s picked up right where he left off with 34.8% K and 4.4% BB in his first nine innings this season.
Small Sample Size Salary Drops
Early in the season, we see a lot of players start out hot or cold in batting average based on nothing but small sample size noise, and it’s too early to ignore the long term numbers. Rougned Odor has just a .167 average, but a .259 BABIP and 0% HR/FB rate for a guy with his track record and a 4-game slump where he struck out a lot is not enough to warrant this salary drop. He hits at the top of a powerful Texas lineup facing a fly ball pitcher in a strong hitting environment.
Value bat behind the plate mashes LH pitching
While Steven Matz absolutely grounds LHBs with a 71.4 GB% over the last calendar year, the surprising thing is that he’s held RHBs to a .313 wOBA over the last calendar year, supported entirely by his xwOBA (.312) as well. However, this does come with a 38.5 Hard% and much lower 42.8 GB%. Catcher has become a difficult position to fill in a DFS lineup the last few years, so when one stands out, we have to take notice, no matter where he’s hitting in the order and that appears to be the case with Tyler Flowers tonight. Flowers has a 193 wRC+, .246 ISO and 45.8 Hard% vs southpaws over the last year, all best or second best in this lineup. Overall this season, Flowers is averaging a 96.1 mph aEV so far. All of these numbers are small samples, but we’ll take what we can get behind the plate. The Braves currently have a 4.71 implied run line, exceeded only by the Red Sox, so he may see a few opportunities to drive runners in and costs $3.5K or less on either site.
Other tagged players: Steven Matz
Failure to locate has caused this pitcher to struggle
Nathan Eovaldi has not been sharp his first two times out in Oakland and Seattle. A quick look at his Statcast page suggests it’s the four-seamer, his primary pitch. The velocity loss has been minimal and it actually has slightly more spin, so what’s caused the pitch to cut it’s whiff rate more than half (11%) and suffer a 96.5 mph aEV through it’s first eight BBE this season? It’s probably location. Although the Red Sox get credit for it because that’s where he won a world championship, Eovaldi really began throwing his split finger with the Yankees, prior to his Tommy John surgery, to get more swings and misses. Then, with the Rays, he learned to elevate one of the fastest fastballs in the game. So far this year, he has just a measly 6.5 SwStr%. His Statcast heat map shows that he’s not really elevating the fastball yet this year. It’s been kind of all over the place. The concern would be how much he pitched in the post-season, coming off a major surgery. The good news is that his velocity is okay. The control, however, is not. He’s walked 12.2% of batters, as many as he’s struck out. Falling behind in the count allows batters to not chase the splitter. Not only that. They’re just not swinging at anything. Tonight, he’s back at Fenway to face a Toronto lineup with a combined 23.4 K% vs RHP last season and a 29.7 K% as a team vs RHP this season so far. It’s going to be cold in Boston, not very conducive to hitting weather and Lance Barrett could be a favorable ump for Eovaldi. If he can start getting ahead of batters and putting his fastball where he wants, a few more whiffs and better results should follow.
Keep Playing Until The Salary Catches Up
Brandon Nimmo remains underpriced for his skills. The batting average has started out low, but as we’ve seen with a lot of players, early season batting averages are just a source of salary savings. He has struck out a lot, which is the real reason behind the low average, but 36 at bats is just not enough sample size to say he’s suddenly a high strikeout batter. In 2018, Nimmo had a .248 ISO and .411 wOBA against right-handed pitching and so far this season his remarkably low 6.3% soft hit rate has me more than willing to overlook the strikeouts.
Stick With The Skills
Josh Donaldson has huge career numbers against left-handed pitching. His salary has dropped to a silly low level thanks to starting out this season with a low .184 batting average. But behind that low average is a huge 52% hard hit rate plus 17.4% walks that say this is the same guy as ever. The BABIP and HR/FB% will catch up to the hard hits as the sample size grows.
Catch The Savings
On DK, Francisco Cervelli is priced way down at $3,200, and will be easy plug and play against Jose Quintana tonight assuming he’s in the lineup. Quintana is just an average pitcher against righties and Cervelli’s strong plate skills against lefties was good for a .360 wOBA.
Start At The Top
With no expensive pitching on the slate, we’ll be able to spend up for a top bat or two. Boston is the obvious spot tonight, and among their big outfielders, Mookie Betts gets my vote for top play of the night. Aaron Sanchez’ best skill is ground balls, and Betts is not only an elite contact hitter but also leads the team in fly ball rate and has strong numbers against ground ball pitchers. His .271 ISO and .441 wOBA against right-handed pitching make him a core option in all formats.
Value Arm
It’s never fun to trust Nathan Eovaldi, but everything is relative on this short slate. I like his potential, I like his price tag (particularly on DK/FDRAFT), and I like his matchup as a massive home favorite against the Blue Jays. Yes, this team did some damage to Chris Sale the other night, but it’s still a squad that ranks 28th in team wOBA, 26th in ISO, and has a sub-.200 team batting average in the early going. Eovaldi is a fine value option on this ugly slate for arms.
Upside Stack
This is a great spot for a sneaky upside stack. Let’s start with Josh Donaldson. This doesn’t get as much publicity as it used to, but don’t forget that Donaldson is a player who is capable of mashing against left-handed pitching. He is the owner of a career .409 wOBA, .296 ISO, and 164 wRC+ against lefties, and he should cause fits for Matz and company tonight. I like the Donaldson/Acuna pairing a lot as a little mini-stack, and you can throw some of the other RHBs for the Braves in there, too. Albies gets the tag from me in LUHQ because of his multi-category upside, and you can run on Matz, so I like the stolen base potential.
Other tagged players: Ronald Acuna, Ozzie Albies Thursday's Top Arm
This is a pretty ugly slate for pitching, and I’ll side with the talent level and relatively reasonable price tag on Gray throughout the industry. He gets one of the best park shifts possible here going to San Francisco to take on the Giants, and Gray is a pitcher who has always had peripherals that look better than his overall numbers. Perhaps this is the year he puts it all together, and he still maintained a high 25% strikeout rate and 12% swinging strike rate a year ago. It’s time for him to make the leap.