DFS Alerts
High Upside, Low Ownership
The three best PlateIQ ratings for Tuesday’s probable starters? 1) James Paxton 2) Justin Verlander 3) Patrick Corbin. If this game wasn’t being played in Arlington, Corbin would draw much higher ownership as the Rangers make for a strong matchup for opposing southpaws. The Rangers three best hitters (Choo, Odor, Gallo) are all left handed and struggle against same-handed pitching. While Gallo has done a good job maintaining power against lefties this season, his already high 35.2% strikeout rate spikes to 40.5% and there are four other high strikeout rate batters in the Rangers (23.8%+) projected lineup. Corbin has a ton of upside in this matchup and should see single digit ownership.
Smoke and Mirrors
Trevor Richards has put together a string of five 17+ DK pt starts but outside of his first game against Philadelphia he did a terrible job of generating soft contact during that span. In the other four games, Richards gave up a hard-hit rate of 41.5% and allowed a ton of flyballs (46.2%). Richards strong recent fantasy performance combined with a large 14-game slate should lead to fairly low Braves ownership outside of Freeman and Acuna. They should be a “sneaky” stack despite a team implied run total of 5+ runs.
Other tagged players: Johan Camargo, Kurt Suzuki, Ronald Acuna, Ozzie Albies Next Ace In Line
It’s Justin Verlander on top tonight without question. But, the salary cap is tight, and so if you can’t make him work, it’s a useful 10% savings to Kluber with his elite real life skills. His DFS upside does not reach Verlander or Paxton territory, but his 3.2% walks more than make up for the ‘only’ 24.7% strikeout rate. Cincinnati doesn’t have much power left in their lineup at this point, and even with just moderate strikeouts, Kluber can stack up points with easy outs and innings. If you can’t afford Verlander in cash games, I would shift down to Kluber, and in tournaments, I would mix and match the aces.
The Sketchy Mid-Tier
The mid-tier is shaky tonight at pitcher, but the low tier is even shakier. I slightly prefer J.A. Happ to Anibal Sanchez, but every dollar matters here on DK/FDRFT, and the savings to Sanchez along with his great matchup against the hapless Marlins is enough to move him ahead. Sanchez has shown above average strikeout ability to both sides of the plate along with an ability to limit hard contact, sitting under 29% HH to both right and left-handed batters. With a ridiculous .104 ISO and .278 wOBA from the Marlins projected lineup and that soft contact ability, the floor is high in this matchup. The likely ceiling is not huge, but that is the case with most of tonight’s pitchers and I’d rather take the safer matchup than chase upside with a far riskier pitcher elsewhere.
A Top Bat At A Mid-Tier Price
There are 35 batters priced ahead of Manny Machado tonight on DK/FDRFT. That is too many. In cash games, I am unable to spend up to that $5k/$10k range, so Machado is the stud that is viable in non-Verlander lineups. Andrew Suarez is allowing a huge 46% hard hit rate to right-handed batters, and his moderate 20% K rate is not going to be enough to get past the 8.4% K and .382 wOBA from Machado. He has on base ability, home run upside, and a great team context around at a very fair salary.
Lead Off Savings
It sounds like the Dodgers may be without Brian Dozier for a while, and if that’s the case, Chris Taylor may get back to the leadoff spot against lefties. Andrew Suarez is allowing a huge 46% hard hit rate to right-handed batters and Taylor will have all kinds of run scoring opportunities at the top of this talented lineup tonight. I would love to be able to play Manny Machado here, but the huge savings down to Taylor will be very useful in the rest of your lineup.
Site Specific Values
One of the biggest pricing discrepancies on this slate is with the Mets Brandon Nimmo, going into Baltimore to face the .223 ISO from Andrew Cashner against lefties. DK is on board with the elite matchup for Nimmo, pricing him up for his .244 ISO and .384 wOBA, but on FanDuel, he’s down at an affordable $3,300 and a play in all formats.
Keep On Catching That Value
Catcher is a rough position again today, and unless you can pay up for Yadier Molina, or are playing a catcher in your stack, just take the savings with Salvador Perez. He is one if the best hitting catchers in the league, and one of the only catchers regularly in the middle of the lineup. Ryan Borucki throws hittable strikes to righties, and Perez carries a 42% hard hit rate with 45% fly balls and a .204 ISO against lefties.
Continually Under Priced
Marcell Ozuna just keeps hitting the ball hard and piling up multi-hit games and his salary doesn’t budge. He’ll hit in the middle of the lineup against the 18.5% strikeouts and 12.6% walks of Gio Gonzalez with his big 46% hard hit rate against lefties. He has five multi-hit games in his past eight, and is scoring runs and picking up RBI with talented hitters on both sides of him.
Great Play In All Formats
It’s very rare that I get to write up a guy like Matt Kemp as a value option on DraftKings and FantasyDraft, but he’s underpriced for the matchup tonight. Suarez has a .372 wOBA with a .206 ISO and a 46.1% hard-hit rate against right-handed hitters this season. He throws his fastball 51% of the time and has a .441 CXwOBA with a 48.8% hard-hit rate and a 91.38 average exit velocity. Not only has Kemp crushed left-handed pitching this season, he’s hit fastballs well throughout his career. He has a .411 wOBA with a .514 CXwOBA and a .255 ISO against fastballs since the start of 2017. Kemp is a top play in all formats for me tonight.
Boom/Bust Low Owned Value Play
We’re starting to get to a sample size worth noting for Barria, and he continues to struggle with right-handed hitters. He has a .402 wOBA with a .258 ISO and a 40.5% hard-hit rate against righties this season. Barria also has a low strikeout rate and allows a lot of fly balls. Franmil Reyes has shown strong power but continues to strike out at a massive clip. I still like him a lot in this matchup because of the hard contact potential and the low strikeout upside from the starting pitcher. It’s still a risky spot, but I like the boom over bust potential in this matchup.
Love This Price Point On FanDuel
Avisail Garcia is my favorite value hitter on FD tonight. After a down season against lefties last season, he’s back to crushing them this year. He has a .302 ISO with a .519 CXwOBA and a 52.9% hard-hit rate against left-handed pitching. Garcia is also a good fastball hitter, and that’s what Hardy throws over 65% of the time. Hardy has been good against righties this season, but he gives up a lot of hard contact and fly balls to right-handed hitters. I’m playing Garcia for the home run upside in this matchup.
Ace On The Cheap
On FanDuel, James Paxton is a significant savings for a pitcher of his caliber. While I would prefer to get up to Verlander, a $1,400 savings is very useful on this slate, and I would be happy with Paxton in either cash games or tournaments. He has the ability to pitch deep into games and pile up strikeouts with strong control. There is some power risk from Oakland, but it’s mitigated by the ballpark, and Oakland is an above average strikeout opponent. His skills give him both a solid floor and a high ceiling.
Can't Be As Bad As The First Time
I tend to take chances more than most on these young pitchers, and I think Brett Kennedy is an interesting tournament play tonight. No one is going to play him after how bad his Major League debut was in Milwaukee. He averaged 93mph in that first start, but the thing that stood out to me was the 38% usage on the slider. With Trout out and Ohtani not likely to play the field in the NL park, this is going to be a pretty right-handed heavy lineup, and that slider could be very effective tonight. Justin Upton hits sliders well, but the rest of the projected starters have struggled with sliders.
Kennedy was 10-0 with a 2.72 ERA in AAA this season, and he posted a 22.1% strikeout rate with a 1.12 WHIP and a .60 HR/9 in 16 starts. He’s extremely cheap and he will allow you to get a top stack and a good second pitcher to go along with him.
The Ace Is Fine
I’m very hopeful that we’ll see lower than warranted ownership Verlander after his outlier disaster start last week. Everyone, no matter how good, is going to have the occasional bad outing, that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again. Verlander is heads and shoulder above the crowd in strikeout ability, with a 33.3% K rate for the season all the way up at 40.7% over the past month. He has a long term ability to limit hard contact and excellent control to go along with all those strikeouts. Colorado is a beatable lineup on the road, and while there is always some home run risk with the fly balls of Verlander, the strikeout upside outweighs that heavily.