DFS Alerts
Worth The Risk On This Slate
If we’re looking for just pure upside from a pitcher tonight, Max Fried is that guy. He has a very low floor, but his upside, is worth all the risk on such a small slate. Fried had a 31% strikeout rate in a small sample size last season and is one of the top prospects in the Atlanta organization. He posted a 24.4% strikeout rate with a 11.7% swinging strike rate in AAA last season. His biggest downside has been control and struggling with walks. On a small slate like this, we have to take a shot on the upside.
Loads Of Lefties
With the pitching being so scarce tonight, we may need to use some Matt Harvey, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still get some of this Rangers left-handed power against him. Harvey has improved, but still allows a ton of hard contact to lefties, and there are a lot of good ones in this Rangers lineup. Rougned Odor was sedond on the team to Joey Gallo in hard hit rate against righties at 45% and while he is still somewhat of a strikeout risk, he makes much more contact than Gallo. He hits near the top of the lineup and has the ability to score points in a variety of ways.
The Place To Start
There is a lot of bad pitching out there tonight, but Edinson Volquez is the first I’d look to attack. We haven’t seen him in a couple years, but his first start did nothing to inspire confidence in a bounce back. For his career, he’s been more susceptible to lefties, so while of course Mike Trout is the top play, we can save some salary and keep some upside with the .191 ISO if Kole Calhoun and the .221 ISO of Justin Bour. Calhoun is a good value everywhere, while Bour is notably cheap on FD and Yahoo.
First Stop For Bats
There is a lot of bad pitching out there tonight, but Edinson Volquez is the first I’d look to attack. We haven’t seen him in a couple years, but his first start did nothing to inspire confidence in a bounce back. For his career, he’s been more susceptible to lefties, so while of course Mike Trout is the top play, we can save some salary and keep some upside with the .191 ISO if Kole Calhoun and the .221 ISO of Justin Bour. Calhoun is a good value everywhere, while Bour is notably cheap on FD and Yahoo.
An UGLY Pitching Slate
Well, tonight’s slate sure leaves a lot to be desired from a pitching perspective. If you aren’t playing on DK where you can get Trevor Bauer, the arms are few and far between. I’ll likely roll with a lot of Tyler Mahle on the other sites simply because he’s reasonably talented, he’s cheap, and he is pitching in a good park against a beatable offense. The command is a problem, but we can say that about almost every pitcher on the slate tonight. Yuck. Tread carefully.
Target The Lefty Power
Tonight’s matchup is a tough one for Matt Harvey, who has always had issues getting left-handed batters out. We could see six or seven lefties in the Texas lineup tonight, and I expect them to give Harvey fits. While his wOBA splits weren’t extreme a year ago, a lot of that was due to good fortune, as Harvey allowed a massive 43% hard contact rate to left-handed hitters and still ended up with a .286 opposing BABIP. Gallo has immense power and is fully capable of squaring one up, and I like the Texas bats in this spot. Gallo, Cabrera, Choo, Mazara, and Odor can all be considered as part of a GPP stack with some upside.
Other tagged players: Shin-soo Choo, Asdrubal Cabrera, Nomar Mazara All Alone At The Top
DraftKings is starting their main slate an hour earlier than tonight in order to get the Indians game on the slate, and this makes the first pitching choice very simple. Trevor Bauer is in a league of his own tonight, with nobody else even remotely close. His 30.8% strikeout rate season in 2018 ranked him 6th in the league in that department and he opened 2019 with a 9-K performance in seven strong innings. He’s at home against a Toronto team with a 24.3% K rate from the projected lineup. Don’t overthink this one.
Marcell Ozuna (side) scratched Wednesday; Jose Martinez replaces
Ozuna has been scratched from the St. Lous Cardinals original confirmed lineup and will not start in Wednesday’s matchup against the Pittsburgh Pirates due to right side tightness. He’ll be replaced in the lineup by Jose Martinez, who will now play left field and slot directly into Ozuna’s vacated cleanup spot in the order. However, the remainder of the Cardinals lineup will stay intact offensively as they face off against right-hander Jameson Taillon on the road this evening.
As reported by: Erica Weston via Twitter Other tagged players: Jose Martinez
Board high 10.8% Barrels/BBE in 2018
While it’s quite obvious that the Astros are the top offense on tonight’s small slate, it’s probably still pertinent to point out a few reasons why. Mike Minor did hold RHBs to a .307 wOBA last season, but a 40.4 Hard% suggests that number could have easily been more than 30 points higher (.344 xwOBA). Overall, Minor had a board high 10.8% Barrels/BBE last season and has started this season off on the wrong foot with just a 7.9 SwStr% and 46.7 Hard-Soft% in his first start. Texas is easily the highest run scoring environment on the board and the predominantly right-handed lineup of the Astros has started off the season pummeling LHP for a 178 wRC+ so far. George Spring, Alex Bregman, Yulieski Gurriel and Tyler White have all exceeded a 140 wRC+ and .190 ISO vs LHP over the last calendar year.
Other tagged players: George Springer, Yulieski Gurriel, Tyler White, Mike Minor
Lead Off Savings
Value bats are very tough to come by tonight. On DK/FDRFT/Yahoo, Ben Zobrist is at a very useful salary leading off against Julio Teheran. Teheran has some upside against righties, but has been completely lost against lefties the past couple seasons. With Zobrist’s elite plate skills, 12.3% K, 11.7% BB vs the low strikeouts and high walks of Teheran, there is a lot of on base upside here.
Lester could be ripe for the pickings
Jon Lester has seen further velocity loss in his first start of the season and did not pitch that well even if he did allow only two runs through six innings in Texas. He struck out only three batters with a .176 BABIP despite a 27.8 LD% and 58.8 Z-O-Swing%, which means he wasn’t fooling too many batters. He generated just six ground balls with a 44.4 Hard%. Additionally, the Braves are implied for a second best 4.74 runs on tonight’s five game slate in a game featuring a hitter friendly umpire in Marvin Hudson and an adequate weather situation with a temperature near 70 degrees. The moneyline in this game has moved in Atlanta’s favor as well. While Lester was actually worse against LHBs last season (.364 wOBA vs .306), Statcast contact numbers suggest a 42 point bump to that latter number might have been warranted (.348 xwOBA, 43.6 Hard% vs RHBs). Atlanta features a lineup where each of the first seven batters have a wRC+ 105 or better against LHP since last season. Of those, only Nick Markakis is below a .198 ISO against them in that span.
Other tagged players: Jon Lester, Nick Markakis Glad He's In The Lineup
We have very little value on DraftKings tonight. I really like that Johan Camargo is in the lineup for the Braves tonight. I respect Jon Lester, but the Braves have a lot of upside against him tonight. Camargo was really good from the right-side of the plate in 2018. He had a .213 ISO with a .354 wOBA against left-handed pitchers. Lester relies on his fastball a lot against right-handed hitters, and we saw Camargo tee-off on fastballs in 2018.
Cheaper SP2 To Target
When looking for a SP2, Miles Mikolas is someone that I really like tonight. He has very good control, and he’s the type of pitcher that can really take advantage of a good pitcher’s umpire, like he has tonight. We have really cold temperatures in Pittsburgh tonight, and I don’t expect the ball to be jumping off the bat. Mikolas is not a big strikeout guy, but he should have no issues limiting the damage and pitching deeper into this game. With very little value at hitter, this is a great spot to pay down at pitcher and get some of the big bats.
Going To Break Out Of This Funk
We don’t have a ton of value tonight, but with the Astros being one of my favorite teams to attack, I really like the price of Yulieski Gurriel. In 170 PAs in 2018, Gurriel had a .182 ISO with a .375 wOBA and a 11.8% strikeout rate against left-handed pitchers. I like the fact he’s going to put the ball in play, and he’s not typically a player that walks a lot. Mike Minor had a high fly ball rate with a lot of hard contact against right-handed hitters last season.
It's All Right
The Giants’ Derek Holland has a few things going for him, but none of those things are controlling hard contact against right-handed batters. He allowed 45% hard contact and 39% fly balls to RHB leading to a .205 ISO against. The Dodgers have three strong right-handed bats near the top of the lineup with Enrique Hernandez, Justin Turner and A.J. Pollock. All three hit the ball hard with good contact ability, and they can be played together in stacks or individually in any format. The salaries are leading me more towards Pollock on FD, Hernandez and Turner on DK and Hernandez on Yahoo.