DFS Alerts
A Hot Bat In a Plus Matchup
Travis Shaw has been having himself a nice August thus far, to the tune of a .421 BA with 3 HRs and 7 RBIs in the past week alone. Today he faces Julio Teheran, a pitcher who has struggled to put LHH away throughout his career, and is allowing a .377 wOBA to lefties this season. This high wOBA is largely due to the fact that Teheran is walking LHH at a crazy 18.4% clip. All of the Brewers LHH make great targets today in the lefty-friendly confines of SunTrust Park, but Shaw particularly stands out as a “ride-the-hot-hand” option.
Surprising Lefty-Masher In This Braves Lineup
It might be going under the radar this season, but Johan Camargo has been a fantastic player for the Braves. The team loved him so much that they released Jose Bautista earlier this season and handed him the full-time third base job. He hasn’t disappointed, and continues to rake against lefties. Against southpaws, he’s batting .293 with a .913 OPS and six home runs. He’ll have the benefit of facing lefty Wade Miley today, who has been solid this season. Camargo isn’t a core play, but I have some interest in him in tournaments whenever he faces a left-handed starter because of how wide his splits have been.
Top Pitcher #4
Trevor Bauer is the ace, Charlie Morton is the acey pivot, and Aaron Nola is the real life ace in the great matchup. But on FanDuel, Jack Flaherty is the guy with the meaningful discount, and an ace-level 29.9% strikeout rate that is all the way up at 34% over the past month. The Royals are not a high strikeout team, but they don’t offer much danger to opposing pitchers at home either. Flaherty has been lights out to righties with 34.5% K and his biggest flaw, walks to lefties doesn’t leave him with much to worry about in this matchup. The points per dollar upside makes him a top target on FD tonight.
Lefty Power Ready To Mash
While Julio Teheran is holding opponents to a .212 batting average this season, he’s served up 22 home runs in 120.2 innings and allowing 39.3% hard contact. His splits continue to widen too against lefties, who he struggles more against. This bodes well for the group of Brewers’ lefties, led by Mike Moustakas. Moustakas has quietly accumulated another 20+ home run season and will hit in the middle of this Brewers’ lineup. A lefty mini stack of Moustakas / Travis Shaw / Christian Yelich / Eric Thames is really intriguing against Teheran if you can find the funds. You’re crossing your fingers that they can take Teheran yard.
A Silly Value
Nola has seen his strikeouts come down recently, but this salary drop on DK/FDRFT is way too extreme for a pitcher with his talent, especially going into San Diego to face a team with extreme strikeouts against right-handed pitching. Nola has a 2.37 ERA, allowing more than three runs in only two of his 23 starts this season on the back of his strong control and elite ability to limit hard contact. The one note of caution here is there was a drop in velocity in his last start, so maybe just maybe there is something to that strikeout drop, but unless we hear some news about this, I will assume he’s good to go. That is just enough to stop me from going all-in here, but at this salary, I can’t pass on Nola in cash games on DK/FDRFT tonight.
Rookie Outfielder Ready To Fill In For Best Player In Baseball
With Mike Trout landing on the disabled list, the Angels are going to rely on Shohei Ohtani and his power to help carry the load. Ohtani will face Edwin Jackson, who has been surprisingly solid this season. Ohtani has been fantastic against right-handed pitching this year, however, batting .312 with 12 homers and a 1.034 OPS. Despite his solid hitting, he’s priced fairly across the industry and often goes overlooked. I love Ohtani in tournaments.
Just Play The Best Play
Trevor Bauer continues to roll over the competition, picking up his 10th double digit strikeout game in his last start. On top of his elite skills, with over 30% K to both right and left-handed batters, he gets a matchup with a high strikeout White Sox team with a 24% K rate from tonight’s projected lineup. Because we have three other top pitchers tonight, all at much lower salaries, I would not call this an all-in night for Bauer, but he is the highest floor, highest ceiling pitcher and someone you don’t want to be underweight on.
Overlooked Ace In Solid Spot
With several stud pitchers on the slate in prime spots (Bauer vs White Sox, Nola vs Padres, Flaherty vs Royals), Tyler Skaggs and his 25.0 K% may go overlooked. Skaggs was knocked around for 10 runs before landing on the disabled list with a groin injury. There’s been no noted restrictions for Skaggs heading into tonight’s game and he only missed one start. It’s a bit of a risk, but if Skaggs is allowed his normal workload, he could be an under-the-radar starter perfect for tournaments given we’re getting a nice discount on him too.
SP1 Discount
Perhaps the biggest choice of Saturday’s main slate will be if you should pitch Bauer, Nola, or both. Rostering both guys leads to suboptimal lineup construction on a slate where Coors is involved but it is tempting at the same time due to the lack of strength of low-priced SP2 options (Williams, Straily, Jackson, Oswalt). Bauer has certainly been sharper than Nola as of late but he is also priced at a premium – Nola offers a $2,700 discount to Bauer on DraftKings and there’s a $1,500 difference between the two on FanDuel. The price gap on FanDuel is more easily bridged thanks to a softer salary cap and Bauer is my preferred SP1 in cash games there despite the higher tag. Nola’s savings is significant enough on DraftKings where you’ll have to give him a long look as your SP1 if enough hitting value doesn’t open up.
Scary Fade
Bauer has a matchup dreams are made of as he and the Indians take on a White Sox team that Shane “Baby, Baby, Baby Oh” Bieber steamrolled through on Friday night (6.2 IP, 0 ER, 8 SO). The lineup the White Sox ran on Friday is one of the most whiff-heavy lineups you’ll find in the league as the hitters collectively own a 24.6% strikeout rate versus right handed pitching. Bauer has been impressive this season in terms of both run prevention (2.25 ERA, 3.23 SIERA) and strikeouts (31.3 K%, 12.9 SwStr%). The combination of matchup, run prevention success, and strikeout upside give Bauer the highest ceiling on the slate and he’s a scary fade in all formats. Bauer is my preferred cash game option on both FanDuel and DraftKings, although his price tag is a bit tougher to make work on DK.
Strong Skill-Set, Good Matchup
A couple things we know: 1) Alex Bregman is good. 2) Alex Bregman is too cheap. Bregman will have the platoon advantage against a below average lefty on Saturday and Bregman has absolutely smashed lefty pitching throughout the course of his short career (152 wRC+, .244 ISO). Bregman has seen his price tag drop due to an unimpressive stretch of games but with the Astros starting to get healthy again (Correa is back) the offense as a whole should start clicking again. Coors third base options will be popular in cash games, especially Justin Turner on DraftKings ($4,200) but Bregman does have SS eligibility on DK and you can use him in the UTIL slot on FanDuel.
Cost Effective Coors
It’s tough to know exactly what Dave Roberts will do on any given night but it seems likely that Matt Kemp will be in the lineup against a lefty. Kemp hit fourth against southpaw Tyler Anderson on Thursday night and he should draw a similar lineup spot against Tyler Anderson on Saturday night. Kemp is one of the cheapest ways to grab exposure to this Dodgers offense in Coors and he still offers tremendous upside. Kemp’s career numbers against lefty pitching are well above average (145 wRC+, .227 ISO) and he hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down when given the platoon advantage this year (141 wRC+, .287 ISO). All Dodger players have pinch hit risk with how deep of a roster they have but that risk seems baked into these low price tags.
O'er Yonder
If you had to guess which Indians player owned the highest barrels/plate appearance percentage I highly doubt Yonder Alonso would be your first guess, but it is indeed the lefty first baseman. Yonder owns the 11th highest percentage in the league (8.7%) of all players with at least 250 batted ball events. Alonso has been making good contact all season long and gets a prime matchup against the soft tossing James Shields at hitter friendly Guaranteed Rate Field on Saturday night. Shields has been putting up some serviceable fantasy performances as of late but has struggled keeping the ball in the yard, giving up a total six HRs over his last three starts. This is just a brutal matchup for Shields and Alonso should find himself with plenty of run producing opportunities. He’s one of the most cost effective ways to get exposure to this Cleveland offense.
Pitcher allowing hardest contact is facing the offense that hits the ball hardest
The party might be over for Felix Pena. His 90.1 mph aEV, 43.5% 95+ mph EV are both worst on the board and he’s facing an offense that makes a ton of hard contact (23.5 Hard-Soft% vs RHP is easily the split high today). He’s struck out just four of his last 56 batters with eight walks. The first five batters in the order for the A’s are all above a 120 wRC+ vs RHP over the last calendar year and all are above a 35% hard hit rate as well. Nick Martini (137 wRC+, .143 ISO) is the bargain leadoff bat, while Khris Davis (145 wRC+, .304 ISO) and Matt Olson (146 wRC+, .322 ISO) are the mashers. While LHBs have a .360 wOBA against Pena since last season, RHBs have a 47.2 Hard%.
Other tagged players: Matt Olson, Nick Martini, Felix Pena
A couple of Yellows in Friday night's forecast
The forecast has been updated for Friday night. There are a couple of Yellows, but nothing that Kevin seems too concerned about. That could change though and premium subscribers can be the first to know if they tune into Crunch Time at 6:30 ET. The entire forecast can be found on the Weather page.