DFS Alerts

Cheap Stack with Upside

I like the Pirates’ stack for a few reasons, but most importantly, they are cheap enough that you can pair them up with Max Scherzer, who I view as a must play. The Pirates aren’t playing in the best ballpark around, but they do draw one of the best matchups on the board. Matt Harvey is a low strikeout pitcher that has allowed a .365 xwOBA to lefties and a .328 xwOBA to righties this season. Corey Dickerson is my favorite value play early on, as he should be batting fifth and boasts a .354 xwOBA against right-handed pitching.

The Game For Savings

When you get down to your last few lineup spots today, the savings you need can be found in the Tigers-White Sox game. We’ve got two OK but beatable starters and two bad bullpens in a hitters ballpark, and on FanDuel, there is not a single batter on either side priced above $3,300. Second base is a spot I’ll look to save some salary on FD today, with Niko Goodrum having the highest ISO of any Tigers batter against right-handed pitching at .230. He hits the ball hard, and his questionable contact skills are offset by the low 15.9% K of Reynaldo Lopez against lefties.

Just Too Cheap

The matchup is not perfectly ideal for George Springer, Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa, but these DK/FDRFT salaries are just too low for hitters of this caliber. Even if they have a somewhat tough time with the reasonable skills of Kyle Gibson, his sketchy control makes it likely that we’ll see a good bit of the Twins bullpen, where there are a load of beatable pitchers. George Springer in particular is just too cheap for a leadoff hitter on the team with the highest projected total of the day.

The #fun Play

Touki is the #fun play that is going to be somewhat contingent on the Red Sox lineup. Toussaint has elite pedigree and has dominated the Minors this season with a 1.43 ERA and 28.1 K% in AAA. This is pure speculation but with September call ups I think it’s a possibility we see a watered down Red Sox lineup that will already be weakened with the absence of a DH. If there’s no Mookie or JDM in the BoSox lineup I want plenty of exposure to Touki in GPP’s. If neither are in the lineup Touki can be considered in cash.

Keep Playing The Lefties

Matt Harvey has not been as consistently awful, but he is still allowing way too much hard contact to left-handed batters. The thing that is allowing him to have some good starts here and there is his improved control, but that just means the Pirates lefties will see more pitches to hit. Harvey has below average 17.4% K to lefties with high 40% hard hits and 42% fly balls leading to a .351 wOBA and .218 ISO against. Corey Dickerson has been in a long power slump, so I understand if you’re not inspired to play him here, but he’s cheap enough that I’m willing to take the long term numbers and his likelihood of getting the ball in play multiple times with runners on base at this salary.

Elite Run Prevention

After Scherzer and Flaherty, Vleasquez is next in line with a 26.2% strikeout rate. No other pitcher on Monday’s main slate has a strikeout rate north of 25%. Aside from a top three strikeout rate, VV gets a favorable matchup at a pitcher’s park against a Marlins team that more closely resembles a AAA roster at this point in the season. The Marlins projected lineup has a .283 wOBA and .131 ISO – this is an elite run prevention spot for Velasquez even if the Marlins lineup doesn’t project to strikeout a ton (19.9%).

No Way To Get Him Out

The Cubs are going to make things tough on Zach Davies in his return from the DL. When we saw Davies earlier this season, he was struggling to get the ball past left-handed batters, with just a 16.7% K rate and high 15.5% walks. Even in his better 2017 season, he was well below average in strikeouts to lefties and had just average ground ball ability. The Cubs will be able to send up three high on base lefties early in the order, with Anthony Rizzo leading the way with more walks than strikeouts again this season against righties. If he doesn’t get a pitch he likes, he’ll take a walk and be in position to score. If the guys ahead of him get on and Davies has to throw him strikes, he has home run power and the contact to get all the RBI opportunities cleaned up.

Favorite Stack

I never thought we would see the day where you could roster all three of Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve and George Springer for $4,400 or less on DraftKings. But here we are. Despite Kyle Gibson’s strong 3.79 ERA, this is a good matchup for an Astros team that has the highest implied run total of the slate sitting at 5.2. Gibson and his 4.26 SIERA are backed up by a Twins bullpen that just took an absolute thrashing in Arlington and are simply overmatched in this contest. The Astros are my favorite stack of the slate.

Pricing Settles The Debate

If paying up for Max Scherzer today on DK, the $5k barrier is going to be a tough line to cross. I have Anthony Rizzo at the top of my first base rankings, but Freddie Freeman is close behind, and at this salary gap, I’m more likely to side with Freeman today. Boston’s Nate Eovaldi is a solid pitcher who throws a ton oif strikes, but for a hitter of Freeman’s caliber, that is a good thing. He is going to see pitches to hit, with his 45% hard hits and huge 30% line drive rate against right-handed pitching giving him all kinds of upside.

Zach Davies returns to the Big Leagues to make a start against a scary Chicago Cubs lineup that is just starting to get healthy. Prior to going on the DL, Davies struggled mightily with the long ball this season, giving up a HR on 16.7% of the fly balls he allowed. Even at his best, Davies is merely a league average Big League starter which translate into a favorable matchup for the Cubbies when you take into account this game is being played at hitter friendly Miller Park. Cubs are a top two stack for me on Monday’s main slate.

The Jack Flaherty Overreaction

Labor Day has given us the phenomenon known as the Jack Flaherty overreaction. Flaherty is good and has been good but he’s not Bryce Harper $4,300 good. In fact, all of the Nats hitters are underpriced for the matchup and context. Harper can be considered in cash games on DK while an underpriced Nats stack can be looked at in GPPs to run alongside Scherzer as your SP1.

Don't Overthink It

This is a tricky seven-game slate today, where there are no standout, must play offenses. What that means is that we can make the one elite pitcher a priority spend. Scherzer’s 34.3% K rate, 15.9% swinging strikes, 2.75 SIERA, 2.22 ERA and 24.6% soft contact are all the best marks on this slate. While the matchup against St. Louis is not easy, their right-handedness sets up well for him, as Scherzer is all the way up at a 37.6% K rate to righties this season and he Cardinals can only send up two lefties of any consequence against him. His strikeout ability gives him a solid floor and the highest upside.

SP2 for Cash Games

Keuchel will likely be the go-to SP2 in this early slate. He’s pitching at home against a team that has struggled against left-handed pitching all season. While Keuchel doesn’t have a high strikeout rate, he has an elite ground ball rate and an ability to pitch deep into games. His upside gets a nice boost in this matchup, as the Twins’ projected lineup has an average k-rate of 26% against left-handed pitching. It doesn’t hurt that Keuchel comes into the game as a -230 favorite.

Easy SP1 Choice in the Early Slate

Mad Max is back on the mound today, which should leave the Cardinals’ hitters shaking in their cleats. In 28 starts this season, he owns a 2.75 SIERA with a strikeout rate of 34% and a soft contact rate of 25%. Think about that for a minute — he strikes out over one-third of the batters that he faces and one-fourth of the ones that manage to put the ball in play are making soft contact. The Cardinals have some firepower offensively, but their projected lineup has an average k-rate of 22% against right-handed pitching.

Where Real Life Meets DFS

I often refer to Dallas Keuchel as a pitcher who is better in real life than he is in DFS. He is more about ground balls and soft contact than about strikeouts, which can make it tough to pile up fantasy points. But, on this slate, his mixture of skills, salary and matchup is a standout on two pitcher sites. Outside of the Scherzer-Flaherty matchup, the only other upside pitchers come with risk, Cole Hamels from his matchup, and Vince Velasquez from his own inconsistency. Keuchel is a huge home favorite against a Twins team that isn’t very good against lefties, and Keuchel’s long term ability to induce soft hit ground balls gives him a high floor here. While I’m never looking for strikeouts, he could even reach the upper end of his range against a Minnesota team with a 25.7% K rate from today’s projected lineup.