DFS Alerts
Two Aces, Take Your Choice
Gerrit Cole and Patrick Corbin are on top of the heap tonight, both with strikeout rates above 30% both for the full season and over the more recent sample size. I expect Cole will be the more popular choice in all formats, and I understand it, he has been great. But I don’t understand the lack of love for Corbin. All he does is go out and rack up strikeouts start after start, with a consistently lower walk rate than Cole. Over the past month, we’re looking at a gap of 32.3% K for Cole vs 31.8% K for Corbin, and over any sample size, Corbin has the edge in swinging strikes, ground balls and control. The ballpark is better for Corbin, his opponent has much less power than Cole’s, and he’s $500/$800 cheaper on DK/FDRFT. It’s a toss-up, but I will have higher tournament exposure to Corbin tonight.
Two Aces, Take Your Choice
Gerrit Cole and Patrick Corbin are at the top of the board tonight, and on FD, it’s not difficult to fit either one at their salaries. Cole’s 34.7% strikeout rate is the second highest mark in the league this season, and gives him a solid floor as well as a high ceiling in all matchups. This is not an easy opponent for a fly ball pitcher, but he has brought his walks down recently, which can help him both limit the damage if he does see a home run or two, and can also help him get deep enough into the game to benefit from his strikeout ability. In cash games, I’ll take the slightly cheaper Cole ahead of Corbin, while in tournaments, I want shares of both.
Ride the Hot Streak
Billy McKinney has made the most of his opportunity to bat lead-off for the Jays, wracking up 6 hits including 3 HRs in his last 5 games. Today hey gets to square off against arguably the worst pitcher on the slate in David Hess, who sports a 5.34 SIERA and a meager 14.9 K% (the second-lowest on the slate). McKinney also gets the platoon advantage, as Hess has allowed a .356 wOBA to LHH this season. On a short slate with a number of good pitchers taking the hill and a lack of great value options, take advantage of this opportunity to get an affordable lead-off hitter in a great spot, as the price simply hasn’t caught up to the production.
Ugly Stack
This one is ugly. Typically on short slates ownership is much more predictable and it’s important to take into account when building GPP lineups. It seems likely that Sam Gaviglio will attract healthy ownership on DraftKings as SP2 which in turn makes Baltimore an intriguing “sneaky” stack. Advanced run prevention metrics place Gaviglio as a league average pitcher but he has struggled with stolen bases (-1 rSB) and the long ball (16.7 HR/FB%) – both things we want to target when looking for teams to stack.
Other tagged players: Trey Mancini, Chris Davis, Tim Beckham
Warm, Windy, Dingers
At the time of this writing the forecast for Wrigley is warm, windy, and lots of dingers. I am intrigued to see how ownership will shake out for this game with Lester and Syndergaard on the mound. I expect Mets to be heavily owned but think some of the secondary Cubs players could see lower ownership due to Syndergaard’s name recognition. Syndergaard has an excellent batted ball profile this season but has been absolutely awful in preventing stolen bases. If you do think Cubs hitters will garner a lot of ownership there are some ways you can look to differentiate your Cubs stacks. First you can play around with multi-position eligibility – for example, fade Rizzo, play Murphy at 1B. Second, look to target some of the lower owned Cubs – Ben Zobrist always tends to get overlooked despite hitting in a good spot in the order.
Other tagged players: Daniel Murphy, Anthony Rizzo, Kyle Schwarber, Javier Baez, Jason Heyward, Willson Contreras Austin Gomber has a 4.3% K-BB% and 5.44 xFIP versus RHB this season
Gomber is a talented left-handed pitcher, and he has certainly backed up his prospect pedigree of late, allowing just two earned runs in 16 innings pitched over his last three outings. However, pitching at Coors Field is an entirely different animal, and the young southpaw may have some trouble adjusting to the conditions given his lackluster 19.8% strikeout rate and an uninspiring 35.9% groundball rate on the year. Not only that, but Gomber has also struggled with his control in the early going (12.6% BB%) and has also shown very little ability to control batted ball outcomes, as he’s surrendered an above average 38.7% hard hit percentage through 22 career appearances. With such a lack of command, it would not be surprising for Gomber to be on a short leash on Sunday afternoon, which means that the St. Louis Cardinals bullpen could be in for a heavy workload if Gomber is ineffective out of the gate. Even though Nolan Arenado (50.4% HH%, 0.426 ISO, 0.534 wOBA vs LHP), Trevor Story (48.1% HH%, 0.308 ISO, 0.448 xwOBA vs LHP), and the other Colorado Rockies right-handed hitters are the clear preferred options at home versus a left-handed pitcher, it would be ill-advised to eliminate Carlos Gonzalez and David Dahl from consideration entirely since they could have the opportunity to record several at-bats against the Cardinals bullpen. Other than Arenado and Story, the other Rockies righties to target are DJ LeMahieu (40.4% HH%, 0.375 wOBA vs LHP), Ian Desmond (42.0% HH%, 0.259 ISO, 0.377 wOBA vs LHP), and even the recently recalled Matt Holliday, if looking for ways to round out a full stack in large-field tournament formats.
As reported by: FanGraphs Other tagged players: Trevor Story, DJ LeMahieu, Ian Desmond, Matt Holliday, Austin Gomber
A High Floor at Low Ownership
While most will flock to Baez or Murphy from the Cubs at 2B today, Jeff McNeil will be a lesser-owned option that has been on a remarkable run of late. In his last 10 games, McNeil has compiled 18 hits, with multi-hit games in six of the 10 outings. His slash line for his first 31 MLB games sits at .337/.395/.481, and today he squares off against Jefry Rodriguez, who has allowed a massive .441 wOBA to LHH this season. While McNeil doesn’t possess the HR upside that the Cubs options provide, he has a high floor for cash games and makes for an interesting GPP play as well simply due to his presumably low ownership, despite his favorable matchup.
Too Cheap on FanDuel
Michael Kopech won’t be flying under the radar today, as everyone knows who he is and what the circumstances are after he was lifted from his MLB debut after a rain delay having pitched just two innings. The talent is undeniable, as Kopech posted solid numbers with a 30%+ strikeout rate at Triple-A this season. It’s also a soft landing spot against a Tigers offense that is weak against right-handed pitching. This mainly comes down to price for me. Kopech is essentially free at $6,400 on FanDuel, and that tag is simply far too cheap. He’s been priced up to the moon on DraftKings and FantasyDraft, and I don’t really see a reason to go there on those sites.
Love Yourself
I am not sure how much traction Bieber will get today, but he is my favorite pitcher on the board on a points per dollar basis. His command is elite with a 24% strikeout rate and a sub-5% walk rate for the year, and he owns a SIERA and xFIP in the mid-threes. The only question mark in his overall profile is a high hard contact rate, but that is less of a concern against a limited power offense like the Royals. The price tag is more than fair here, and I like the discount from the top arms on the slate.
Great Splits Advantage
As usual, I’m not big on a Washington stack against a LHP, but a few guys stand out. Specifically, Anthony Rendon stands out as an elite play. We have a good combination of splits with this matchup. Matz may have relatively neutral wOBA numbers, but his batted ball profile tells a different story. While he has held LHBs to a 13% hard contact rate while inducing ground balls at a 69% clip, he has allowed a 37% hard contact rate to RHBs while inducing ground balls at just a 43% clip. Rendon owns a .371 wOBA and .245 ISO against LHP this year, making him a top option on this Sunday.
Power Potential in Great Weather
The wind is blowing out at Wrigley today for the third straight afternoon, and we saw a 10-6 game on Saturday. We could be in store for more of the same against Homer Bailey today. You might say that we might see some homers. Okay, that was awful. I apologize. In any case, fire up all the Cubs who have power potential against RHP. That means Kyle Schwarber (who homered Saturday and was listed as a core play) and Javier Baez tops the list. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it, so Schwarber once again checks in as a core play today.
Elite Power Upside
I do not like to full stack against Marco Estrada, but I do like to take one-off power bats against him. He’s a massive fly ball pitcher who is always prone to the long ball. Fly ball hitters that can go yard are just fine against him, which means we absolutely have to consider Rhys Hoskins here. He’s an elite tournament play on this slate and can also be used for cash games with his .262 ISO and 49% fly ball rate against RHP this year.
Stolen Base Target
Trea Turner finds himself in a great spot today batting second in the Nats order against Mets southpaw Steven Matz. First, Turner gets the platoon advantage against Matz, who has been more susceptible to batters from the right side. Turner himself also hits lefties better, sporting a .341 wOBA against LHP this season. However, much of Turner’s upside today lies in his likeliness to steal bases. Since 2017, Steven Matz has allowed a whopping 94.4% success rate on attempted stolen bases, while allowing 0.188 SB/IP as well. Turner has already swiped 33 bags on the season – a total he will surely look to add to today. Once Turner gets on base he should be off to the races, making him a high floor/ceiling play on today’s slate.
Great Cheap GPP Pitcher
I know this is going to sound crazy, but you won’t find many guys with the same type of upside as Baily for this price. In his last 5 games, he has 2 20+ DK point outing and is going against a team that is likely to be pretty chalky. There are a lot of high K bats in this lineup along with a whole lot of low K bats, so this could end up going either way for him (more likely to go wrong, but at just 4.5k I’m willing to take that chance). With so many high priced bats today, you are gonna need to save some money on pitcher and I think Bailey is the best way to do this.
This Either Ends Great, or Very Poorly
Today, Jordan Zimmermans fate lies completely at the hands of FB/HR variance. He draws a matchup against the White Sox who are by far the best team to face for K’s, but also one of the worst teams to face for power. Zimmerman has a great ability to get a whole lot of both. On the year, we’ve seen Zimmerman give up both in droves. In his last 8 starts, he’s given up almost 2 HR’s per game, but the 5 games prior to that he did not allow a single one. we’ve seen him strike out 6+ guys 3 times during that span and even has an 11 K game in the last 10. The White Sox projected lineup has a 26.9% K rate, so if Zimmerman keeps it in the yard, there’s a decent chance he is the highest scoring pitcher on the entire slate.