DFS Alerts

A Lot Of Upside In This Matchup

Josh Tomlin has been bad against lefties and righties this season, and the Kansas City Royals present some really nice value tonight. Hunter Dozier has a .207 ISO with a .414 CXwOBA and a 51.8% hard-hit rate against right-handed pitching this season. Tomlin has a .264 ISO with a 38.8% hard-hit rate and a 44.8% fly ball rate against righties this season. With the massive amounts of hard hits and fly balls, it’s a good spot to attack the upside.

Quality pitching difficult to come by on Thursday night

Thursday night’s six game slate features just a single pitcher above a $10K price point and while Gerrit Cole (35.1 K%, 2.88 SIERA, .284 xwOBA) has a great matchup in Baltimore (90 wRC+, 16.5 K-BB% vs RHP), it’s a significant park downgrade with some potential weather issues in a game where the Astros have absolutely no reason to extend him. Where might players look for their daily fantasy pitching needs tonight? The most obvious candidate is in Seattle, where Marco Gonzales (20.8 K%, 3.83 SIERA, .324 xwOBA) takes the mound against the Rangers (83 wRC+ on the road, 87 wRC+ vs LHP) for just $6.3K on FanDuel. He’s probably viable as well on DraftKings even at a cost $2.5K higher, where players need two pitchers. The other interesting spot to look for pitching is in New York, where Julio Teheran (22.4 K%, 4.67 SIERA, .337 xwOBA) and Jason Vargas (20.5 K%, 4.40 SIERA, .342 xwOBA) face off. Both have their flaws, but Teheran has at least five strikeouts in nine straight games and has allowed more than two runs just twice over that span. Vargas is facing an Atlanta offense with a 110 wRC+ and 19.9 K% vs LHP, but costs just $5.6K on DK and has a 26.4 K% over the last month with an ERA and estimators below four over that span.

Late Night Hammer

The Rangers are a team with a lot of low strikeout pitchers, but Ariel Jurado takes it to an unbelievable extreme. In 122 PA against righties this season, he has a ridiculous 7.4% strikeout rate, while allowing 45% hard contact. He has walked more lefties than he’s struck out, so the Mariners should have baserunners and balls in play all over the place tonight. The duo of Nelson Cruz (.243 ISO) and Mitch Haniger (.224 ISO) are among the top plays on this slate with their power and the inability of Jurado to generate any swings and misses.

A Strong Group Of Lefties

It doesn’t get much worse than Julio Teheran against left-handed batters. He has just one more strikeout than walk on the season, with a fully awful 63:62 K:BB ratio. On top of the terrible control, he allows 43% fly balls and 40% hard hits, so if he’s not walking the lefties, then they have home run upside. While the most likely outcome of any AB is a walks, the Mets can line up five pretty good lefties, and at some point, Teheran will have to throw a strike. Jay Bruce is still underpriced after his injury riddles start to the season, but in September, he has looked like his old self with a .373 wOBA and .268 ISO.

All Alone At The Top

The weather is a big concern in Baltimore tonight, and the slate will be thrown on its head if that game gets postponed. But for now, if we assume that game plays, Gerrit Cole is the top pitcher by a huge margin on this slate. His 35.1% K rate is 13% higher than the next closes pitcher on this slate, which is as big a gap as you’ll ever see. The Astros could choose to limit his slightly, but he will be on full usual rest after tonight before his first playoff start, so it shouldn’t be a big concern. He has 8+ strikeouts in 11 of his last 13 games, and faces one of the weakest teams on this slate with plenty of strikeouts throughout their lineup. Weather permitting, this is a ‘don’t overthink it’ spot.

A Low Cost Risk/Reward Stack

There’s no getting around the fact that the Twins have been awful against left-handed pitching all year. This is more about their matchup tonight and their price tags than anything. Grossman, Polanco, and Forsythe should all be in the top four in the batting order against Francisco Liriano, and they are all dirt cheap. We all know that Liriano can implode on a moment’s notice, too. Fire up this cheap stack in GPP’s and grab basically anyone else you want in the rest of your lineup.

Lefties, Lefties, Lefties!

The Mets actually haven’t been awful as a team in the month of September, and their lineup is as healthy as it has been in quite some time. I also like these matchup against a wide splits pitcher in Julio Teheran. For years, Teheran has had elite splits against RHBs and poor splits against LHBs, and you will likely see quite a few lefties in the lineup for the Mets this evening. Nimmo and McNeil both have wOBA marks over .380 against RHP for the year, while Conforto and Bruce offer some power potential. Don’t sleep on the Mets here.

An Affordable GPP Stack

The Royals are no great shakes at the plate, but they do draw a favorable matchup tonight against the Indians and Josh Tomlin. As always, Tomlin is a pitcher with a massive fly ball lean who has problems with the home run ball. At this stage of the season, everything is about motivation, and the Indians have exactly nothing to play for at this point. You won’t see much of their top bullpen arms in this series, and the Royals could break out in this series. O’Hearn, Dozier, and Perez are not great hitters, but they all have power in their bats and line up well against Tomlin. On a short six game slate, this offense could be a difference-maker.

A Talented Arm With Upside

This is one of the better pitching plays of the day in my eyes. Gonzales has been solid for the Mariners all year long, and he is coming off an impressive performance against these same Rangers, holding them to just one hit over six scoreless innings last week. This matchup will also occur in Seattle as opposed to Texas, so the park shift is in Gonzales’ favor. Texas is much weaker on the road and against LHP, so fire up Gonzales with confidence in all formats tonight.

Motivation.

At this point in the season, it’s mainly about the motivation angle. The Astros have nothing left to play for, having locked down the #2 seed in the American League playoffs, so they have zero reason to push Gerrit Cole any longer than five innings tonight. Meanwhile, the Cubs have a pivotal game against the Pirates as they look to hang on to their narrow NL Central lead. I am not a fan of Jon Lester in general, but it’s reasonably cool in Chicago, and the Pirates aren’t necessarily a team to score a ton of runs. Again, this is more about motivation than numbers, and on a night that’s thin on pitching, I think you have to consider Lester as a top option.

Felix Hernandez takes the mound in Seattle against one of the most powerful offenses in baseball. It stands to reason he may struggle with LHBs Matt Olson (128 wRC+, .249 ISO vs RHP) and Jed Lowrie (134 wRC+, .204 ISO), considering his .359 wOBA against RHBs this year, along with a 39.9 GB% and 40.8 Hard%. However, despite a 52.6 GB%, RHBs have a .332 wOBA and .337 xwOBA against him too this year. making Khris Davis (142 wRC+, .316 ISO) look pretty good as well, despite the negative run environment. Nick Martini (135 wRC+, .126 ISO) has a offers salary savings in the leadoff position.

B-squad may still put up some runs in this park

After hanging 19 on the O’s this afternoon, the Red Sox are going with the B-Squad in the nightcap. They are currently implied for 5.47 runs and while that total may drop, it’s still a significantly positive run environment and they are facing a pitcher who has allowed a .406 wOBA to LHBs so far and a .346 wOBA to RHBs. They may still score some runs and now Jackie Bradley Jr. (100 wRC+, .184 ISO vs RHP this year), Brock Holt (104 wRC+, .150 ISO) and Steve Pearce (122 wRC+, .207 ISO) are affordable top of the lineup bats.

Updated forecast still shows delay potential in a couple of spots

Wednesday’s forecast has been updated and there still appears to be some delay potential in a couple of spots. Players can read the full report on the Weather page. Premium subscribers can join Kevin at 6:30 ET on Crunch Time for further details.

Too Cheap Even If Limited

While it’s not quite a full strength Chris Sale, the Red Sox are now saying we should see 6 innings and around 100 pitches tonight. In this ideal matchup, that is more than enough to pay off this discounted salary. I would still prefer Jacob deGrom if salary didn’t matter, but it does matter, and the gap is too big. Nobody, not even deGrom can touch Sale’s per inning upside especially against a Baltimore team that is as bad as it gets against left-handed pitching. There is a high floor for cash games and as much upside as anyone even without a full workload.

Top projected offense will face a marginal bullpen

At 5.18 implied runs, Cleveland has the highest total outside Coors. In fact, they’re the only team outside Coors above five runs. The problem is that the White Sox are going with a bullpen day. That bullpen has a 4.38 FIP and 13.8 K-BB% over the last 30 days, but we have no idea who will be coming out of it after lefty Jace Fry, who has maxed out at seven batters faced twice this year. Fortunately, we know that the top two bats in the Cleveland lineup projects well against pitchers from either side of the plate, though Jose Ramirez (120 wRC+, .210 ISO) is a bit less elite against southpaws. Francisco Lindor (161 wRC+, .213 ISO) shows no prejudice.