DFS Alerts
Already His Fourth Start
Seattle is one of the hottest teams in baseball to start the season, and with the two games in Japan, they’re a little ahead as far as schedule. Marco Gonzales will be making his fourth start of the season and draws a really good matchup against the Royals. Mondesi, Merrifield, and Soler all worry me, but this lineup features six guys with strikeout rates over 20% against left-handed pitching last season. Gonzales isn’t a big strikeout guy, but I think he’s a safer play in this matchup and I really like him as an SP2.
Right-handed Stack At Home Against Lefty
Colorado faces a left-handed pitcher at home tonight in Coors Field, and while Max Fried has looked good with a career 2.94 ERA and 71 strikeouts in 67.1 innings, I’ll still be targeting the Rockies right-handed hitters tonight. First, Fried’s 3.89 career SIERA is almost a full-run higher than his ERA, and his 1.35 WHIP shows signs that he is getting hit a bit harder than his ERA would indicate. Also, the Rockies have several hitters who hammer left-handed pitching at Coors. Nolan Arenado has 508 plate appearances against lefties at home in his career, and has an astonishing 38 home runs, .371 batting average, 1.191 OPS, and .383 ISO. Trevor Story has 23 HRs in 203 home plate appearances against lefties, good for a 1.205 OPS and .458 ISO. Chris Iannetta rounds out the right-handed stack with a career .835 OPS against left-handed pitching.
Other tagged players: Nolan Arenado, Trevor Story
Chasing The Upside
I don’t really want to pay down at pitcher tonight, but if I’m looking for upside, Jonathan Loaisiga has the strikeout upside down here. He had a 12.3% swinging strike rate with a 28.4% strikeout rate in AA last season. In 24.2 innings with the Yankees in 2018, he had a 13% swinging strike rate with a 30.6% strikeout rate. His biggest issue is his control, but he has an above average slider that creates a lot of swinging strikes. The Houston righties have struggled with sliders, which leads to the upside in this matchup.
Targeting Right-Handed Power Hitters Against a Rookie Left-Hander
The Oakland offense gets a big park upgrade tonight playing in Baltimore, and at 4.95 runs, they have one of the highest implied run totals on the slate. The team will be facing rookie left-hander John Means, and while Means was decent last year in AAA with a 3.48 ERA and 89 strikeouts in 111.1 innings, he still gave up a .764 OPS to right-handed hitters across all levels last season. I’ll be targeting the power-hitting right-handers in the Oakland lineup, starting with Khris Davis (11 HRs in 151 ABs against lefties last season), and also Stephen Piscotty and Matt Chapman.
Other tagged players: Khris Davis, Stephen Piscotty Save That Salary
The salary cap isn’t quite as tight on FD/Yahoo, but we can still use a couple cheap bats to help afford deGrom and the Rockies big righties. Out in Anaheim, the Angels are priced way down against the wild and unpredictable Freddy Peralta. There’s all kinds of strikeout risk, and when Peralta is on, he’s elite, but we just haven’t seen it often enough to be afraid of. Justin Bour is a patient hitter who will take the walks if they are there, and he has plenty of home run upside as well against the extreme fly balls of Peralta.
Save That Salary
The salary cap is tight again on DK/FDRFT tonight, and I can’t pass on a leadoff hitter at this price against a pitcher with the control issues of Freddy Peralta. There’s all kinds of strikeout risk, and when Peralta is on, he’s elite, but we just haven’t seen it often enough to be afraid of. Kole Calhoun is cheap enough where just a walk and a run would be plenty here, and he absolutely has home run upside as well against the extreme fly balls of Peralta.
The Night Is Darkest Just Before The Home Runs
Even the improved version of Matt Harvey late last season did not solve hard hits to left-handed batters. He allowed a .225 ISO to lefties in 2018 on 41% hard hits and 42% fly balls. This Brewers team is filled with left-handed power, and outside of Christian Yelich, it is all reasonably priced. The duo of Mike Moustakas and Travis Shaw top my list. Moose had a 50% fly ball rate, 43% hard hits and a .230 ISO against righties last season with Shaw at a .285 ISO on 48% fly balls and 41% hard hits. Making matters even better, the Angels bullpen is entirely right-handed, so they’ll keep the platoon advantage all night.
The Night Is Darkest Just Before The Home Runs
Even the improved version of Matt Harvey late last season did not solve hard hits to left-handed batters. He allowed a .225 ISO to lefties in 2018 on 41% hard hits and 42% fly balls. This Brewers team is filled with left-handed power, and outside of Christian Yelich, it is all reasonably priced. The duo of Mike Moustakas and Travis Shaw top my list. Moose had a 50% fly ball rate, 43% hard hits and a .230 ISO against righties last season with Shaw at a .285 ISO on 48% fly balls and 41% hard hits. Making matters even better, the Angels bullpen is entirely right-handed, so they’ll keep the platoon advantage all night.
Just Play The Best
There is a lot of good pitching on this slate, but it’s no mystery who the top option is. The salary is not an easy fit, but Jacob deGrom has been so elite and so consistent that I can’t make any case to put anyone else ahead of him as the core option. The last time he allowed more than three earned runs was 30 starts ago, and he’s opened 2019 even better than his Cy Young season. He has a 24:2 K:BB ratio through his first 13 innings this season. His strikeouts give him a high ceiling, his elite control gives him a strong floor and the ability to pitch deep into games.
Potentially popular pitcher with limited upside
Eric Lauer looks like he may be a popular SP2 on DraftKings tonight and why not. He’s in a great park (San Francisco) in a great matchup (Giants team 55 wRC+ this year) and costs a reasonable $7.2K. He’s even already thrown six shutout innings against them. Players should beware the potential lack of upside here though. Lauer has averaged less than five innings per start in his career and has thrown only 145 pitches through two starts. He’s also struck out just five of the 46 batters he’s faced this year because batters have made contact with 97.9% of the pitches they’ve swung at in the strike zone. The Giants are just implied for 3.67 runs, so Lauer may keep runs off the board, but he’ll likely not do so for very long or with very many strikeouts. Players might want a bit more upside, especially for GPPs when paying more than $7K.
Cheap, league average bat in a nice spot
Nobody is going to confuse the Kansas City offense with Murderer’s Row and Felix Hernandez even pitched well first time out (1 ER), but he did only have a 4.4 SwStr%. The Royals are on the upper half of the board with 4.94 implied runs and perhaps a bit of value in the top half of their lineup, considering LHBs have a .352 wOBA against Hernandez over the last calendar year. While Adalberto Mondesi (117 wRC+, .224 ISO vs RHP last 365 days) is the flashy new toy, he’s become a bit expensive. Ryan O’Hearn (200 wRC+, .381 ISO) has fewer believers and costs nearly $1K less. And don’t look now, but Alex Gordon is batting third and has been a league average hitter against RHP over the last year (106 wRC+, .158 ISO) and costs just $3.7K on DraftKings. In fact, his .347 xwOBA against RHP over that span trails only O’Hearn (.389) in this lineup and suggests he may have been capable of even slightly more.
Other tagged players: Whit Merrifield, Felix Hernandez, Ryan O'Hearn, Adalberto Mondesi Powerful offense against a pitcher who has been more HR prone in 2019
Miles Mikolas does not miss many bats, but thrived on location and soft contact last year. Velocity down a bit so far, he’s already hung four pitches (which you can visualize on Baseball Savant) that have been hit out of the park (33.3 HR/FB). Positive regression is going to come and he pitches in a power suppressing park, but with just a 5.6 SwStr% so far, it’s not good news that the Dodgers are coming to town with their 164 wRC+, 11.7 K%, and 21.8 HR/FB vs RHP so far. Mikolas features a 96.1 Z-Contact% so far with his 13.5% Barrels/BBE worst on the board. The Dodgers are only implied for a modest 4.05 runs and don’t project to be very well owned, so if Mikolas is off again for a third time in three starts tonight, Dodger bats could win someone a GPP. Considering a substantial platoon split (RHBs .222 wOBA, LHBs .318 wOBA vs Mikolas last calendar year, supported by Statcast), points of focus should be lefties in the top half of the order, such as Joc Pederson (151 wRC+, .315 ISO vs RHP last calendar year), Corey Seager (128 wRC+, .155 ISO), Cody Bellinger (147 wRC+, .269 ISO) and Max Muncy (162 wRC+, .327 ISO). One area of concern here might be that the line has moved towards the home team since opening.
Other tagged players: Corey Seager, Joc Pederson, Max Muncy, Miles Mikolas Great pitchers, but HR prone
While Masahiro Tanaka has not allowed a HR this season, he’s faced the Tigers and Orioles. Over the last two calendar years, Tanaka has an 18.5 HR/FB and while Houston is a negative run environment, it does treat right-handed power pretty well. Having evenly split his HRs throughout his career, it doesn’t bode extremely well for him that the Houston lineup contains many RHBs that hit RHP well, although it’s only Alex Bregman (.249) and Tyler White (.237) who exceed a .200 ISO against them over the last year. Bregman is a great one off here. On the other side, while Justin Verlander may be the top pitcher on the board, he’s an extreme fly-baller and has allowed a HR in starts in Tampa Bay and Texas this season. While Verlander has a 15.3 SwStr% through two starts, his .347 xwOBA is third highest on the board. He’s not a pitcher you’d recommend stacking against, but the two through four hitters in the Yankee order (Aaron Judge, Luke Voit, and Gary Sanchez) all exceed a .200 ISO vs RHP over the last year and are unlikely to be popular at all.
Other tagged players: Masahiro Tanaka, Justin Verlander, Aaron Judge, Luke Voit, Gary Sanchez Any Power We Can Find
The pricing on DK is tough again tonight, and with a bunch of decent outfield options between the $3,900-$4,500 mark, I plan to use a wider core than usual tonight. As such, I’ve already switched my core play here a couple times, and between the likes of Trey Mancini, Robbie Grossman, Kole Calhoun and Andrew McCuthchen, there are a lot of ways to go. A pitcher like Marco Estrada going into Baltimore is such an obvious home run risk that I want to get something in play against him. Trey Mancini is the best option the Orioles have for upside tonight.
Highest xwOBA on the board against a powerhouse lineup
Andrew Cashner could have some issues tonight. Despite not allowing a run against the Blue Jays last time out, he hasn’t struck out more than he’s walked in either start this year and his .398 xwOBA is highest on the board by more than 20 points. While the A’s haven’t hit their stride offensively yet (91 wRC+ vs RHP), they project five bats in the starting lineup with at least a 129 wRC+, .200 ISO and 40% hard hit rate against RHP over the last calendar year. Tonight, they get an environmental boost in Baltimore against a pitcher who has allowed batters from either side of the plate a wOBA and xwOBA exceeding .340 over the last year. It should be no surprise that Oakland owns the highest implied run line outside Coors tonight (5.38). An interesting bat to look at who might not be on many radars is Ramon Laureano, even if he’s lower in the lineup. He now has a career 129 wRC+ and .200 ISO vs RHP and costs just $2.8K on FanDuel.
Other tagged players: Andrew Cashner