DFS Alerts
Just Keep Playing The Best
On a night with no must-spend pitching, we may as well pay up for the best hitter in the league. Trout is going to appear in these Core Plays a lot this season, especially when the salary is easy to find. He is simply the best baseball player on this planet, and tonight he faces a left-handed starter in Brett Anderson, who managed just a 14.8% K rate to righties last season. His only strength is ground balls, and Trout has no issue smashing ground ball pitchers.
Yankees hitters firmly in play vs. Orioles ‘pen
Nate Karns will be the opener for the Orioles and figures to throw 1-2 innings. It seems that Jimmy Yacabonis (RHP) is the best bet for long relief duty out of the Orioles pen. Yacabonis was bad in 40 IP in the majors last year (5.22 xFIP, .340 xWOBA) and projects for a 5.36 ERA this year per Steamer. Even if Yacabonis doesn’t see action, there isn’t a good enough arm in the Orioles pen to shut down this Yankees lineup. The Yankees have a 5.79 implied line and a lineup full of viable options. Aaron Judge is always in play at home (196 career wRC+ at Yankee stadium) despite the high price tag. Brett Gardner is leading off and is a nice value at $4.3k on DK and just $2.9k on FD. Luke Voit had a .436 xWOBA last year and will bat 4th in the Yanks’ potent lineup. Gary Sanchez (batting 6th) is coming off a seemingly down 2018, but a .342 xWOBA last year vs. RHP suggests not to worry.
Other tagged players: Jimmy Yacabonis, Nate Karns, Brett Gardner, Luke Voit, Gary Sanchez
#NSFW
Mike Trout is going to be the top play on any slate he’s on for the foreseeable future. Trout’s numbers are #NSFW as the Angels outfielder owns a ridiculous 162 wRC+ and .234 ISO against left handed pitching for his career. The matchup happens to be a good one as well, as Brett Anderson simply can’t miss bats at this stage of his career – he posted a 14.1% strikeout rate and a mere 7.6% swinging strike rate over 80 innings last season. O.co is a pitcher’s park in terms of power but boosts both triples and doubles, which plays into Trout’s strength of driving the ball into the gaps.
Power Out West
With a lot of focus likely on the Cubs offense, don’t forget to look out West where the Red Sox will be facing off against Mike Leake. Leake had a horrendous 11.5% strikeout rate against left-handed batters in 2018. His only asset there was 49% ground balls, but Rafael Devers will not be bothered by that with his 41% fly ball rate. If he continues to bat 3rd against righties, placed in between Betts and Martinez, this salary is a steal.
Longer Leash
Starting pitching got ugly quick as Eduardo Rodriguez and Kenta Maeda headline Saturday’s main slate. While both guys project similarly, I have more confidence in the Boston lefty, as I simply trust him to pitch deeper if things are going well. Rodriguez has never been an overly efficient pitcher, but I do think Alex Cora will give him a longer leash than Dave Roberts – who only let Ryu + Stripling combine for 158 total pitches despite allowing just one run over 11.1 innings – will with Maeda. Eduardo Rodriguez has shown strikeout upside in the past, posting a strikeout rate north of 25% in each of the last three seasons, and the Mariners lineup has a ton of strikeouts in it.
Junis and Odorizzi present contrarian options at SP
The early slate has four obvious aces at the top who all project for solid ownership (Strasburg, Bauer, Paxton, Syndergaard). Junis and Odorizzi present intriguing options as they are priced down a bit and have decent matchups. Junis is likely a bit safer facing a White Sox lineup that was 26th in xWOBA last year vs. RHP and returns virtually the same lineup plus Eloy Jimenez. Junis was serviceable at many points in 2018 and finished with a respectable 16 K-BB% and 3.98 SIERA. Game time temperature in KC should be around 40° and the White Sox currently have a 3.66 implied team total vs. Junis. Odorizzi also takes the mound at home against an Indians team that has a surprisingly mediocre lineup outside of Jose Ramirez. Game time temperature of 34° should certainly work in Odorizzi’s favor as he gets a lot of outs through the air (48.8% FB rate last year, 45.5% career FB rate). Also working in Odorizzi’s favor are the second half improvements he made in 2018, lowering his HR/9 from 1.43 to 0.57, his FIP from 4.66 to 3.46 and his WHIP from 1.45 to 1.18. The Indians currently have an implied line of 3.63 runs in a sneaky good run prevention spot for Odorizzi.
Other tagged players: Jake Odorizzi, Eloy Jimenez, Jose Ramirez Gotta Throw Somebody
After an early slate that was loaded with aces, we are left with a rough group of pitching options tonight. Kenta Maeda, Yu Darvish and Eduardo Rodriguez are the best we have, and Rodriguez is where I’ll start my builds tonight. There is some power risk against Seattle, but ERod did a great job limiting hard contact to righties last season at just 23.6% hard hits while striking out 35.6% of lefties. He has overall strikeout rates of 26.4% and 25.8% over the past two seasons and has been well above average in limiting hard contact his entire career. I will be spreading out my pitching in tournaments tonight, but will start with Rodriguez.
The Place To Be
The Cubs are the high total team of the night, and bound to be the most popular offense on the slate. It will be tough to get away from them even in tournaments in Texas against Edinson Volquez and the Rangers bullpen. The last time we saw Volquez in 2017, he was striking out just 19% of lefties with 16% walks, while allowing 41% hard contact. Rizzo is the prime candidate to take advantage with his .205 ISO, .385 wOBA and just 9.6% strikeouts against right-handed pitching.
That Weird Pitcher
Matthew Boyd is kind of that weird pitcher that you’re okay targeting with hitters (sup, inexpensive Brandon Drury) but is also worth exploring as a cheap SP2 option. Boyd has shown the ability to put things together at times as he did for a two month stretch last season (June/July) when he posted a 3.99 SIERA and 24.1% strikeout rate over 11 games. That sort of skill-set is certainly worth more than Boyd’s current price tags but there’s not much of a floor in this spot for Boyd who is likely best left for GPPs.
Good Run Prevention Spot, Some Strikeout Upside
I don’t have a ton of interest in rostering the low-priced pitching options in any format on single pitching sites but there’s some merit to exploring salary relief at SP2 in multi-pitcher formats. Enter Trevor Richards who gets a home matchup against a Rockies lineup that was one of the worst context neutral offenses in the league last season against RHP (82 wRC+). The addition of Daniel Murphy will certainly help the Rockies against righties but this is still a fairly solid run prevention spot for Richards at the pitcher friendly Marlins Park. While Richards finished last season with a slightly above average 23.8% strikeout rate, he did show plenty of upside on that number with six games of eight or more strikeouts.
The Matchup and Salary Are There
Listing Robbie as a Core Play is a little gross, man. But, we’ve got a couple expensive hitters up top and there’s a lot to be said for a cheap leadoff hitter against a pitcher with shaky splits. Matt Harvey improved quite a bit in the second half last season, and I am no longer looking to just blindly attack him, but he has still shown no ability to control batted balls against left-handed batters. He throws a lot of strikes and Grossman should see a lot of pitches to hit. While he doesn’t have a ton of power, he does have good plate discipline, 17.9% K and 10.9% BB and an acceptable 34% hard hit rate against righties. He is nothing to go out of your way for, but when filling in those spots around your big spends, this is a very useful salary.
The Next Best Hitter
Within these Core Plays, some days I will list two expensive options, knowing that it’s unlikely you’ll be able to fit both in the same lineup. Machado is the next man in line if you can’t find the salary for Mike Trout tonight. While Derek Holland improved in 2018, he was still allowing a ton of hard contact to right-handed batters. Machado had a remarkably low 8.4% strikeout rate along with 12.6% walks, a .238 ISO and .396 wOBA against lefties. He is a strong play in all formats.
The Best Hitter In A Plus Matchup
It was a quiet Opening Day for Trout, but this is not the time to back off. Yes, he’s expensive, but if you aren’t using Gerrit Cole tonight, this would be the place to spend that salary. Marco Estrada fell off a cliff last season, striking out just 15.8% of right-handed batters, and has always been a home run machine against righties. Trout led all of baseball with a .338 ISO against right-handed pitching in 2018.
Largely Average
The case for Josh Harrison is similar to the case for Brandon Drury on Friday night. Largely average, but cheap and leading off. Unlike Drury, Harrison won’t have the platoon advantage but this still rates as a favorable spot for him against the oft-injured 32 year old Matt Shoemaker. Shoemaker is a bit of an unknown commodity at this stage of his career but his outlook is more negative than positive. Harrison is fine using as a one off but the Tigers could also make for a semi-sneaky low-owned stack against the Maker of Shoes.
Low-Priced Dong of the Day
I picked Justin Bour as my low-priced ‘Dong of the Day’ on today’s On Deck Pod as he has the most power upside of all the cheap options on Friday’s slate. Bour has a career .228 ISO versus right handed pitching and the matchup is a good one against fly baller Marco Estrada. In general, pitcher friendly O.co will be a strong match for Estrada who posted an obscene 24% ground ball rate last season but the fly balling righty will still let up an above average rate of long balls, even if he improves on the 1.82 HR’s per 9 innings he allowed last season.