DFS Alerts

Pricey, Under-owned Stack

A ton of offense is expected on Monday night – at the time of this writing there are seven teams with an implied run total of 5+ runs. Of those teams I expect ownership to be heavily concentrated in Coors and Arlington with the Yankees and Cubs getting some attention as well. That leaves us with the Cleveland Indians as a potentially overlooked commodity going up against Kyle Gibson at home. Gibson has been very good this year for the Twins but this is undeniably a tough spot for the veteran righty.

Outside of a tough matchup, the top Cleveland hitters are extremely expensive which makes it difficult to roster them. While I’m not a BvP truther it is notable that Cleveland has hit Gibson well in the past, and notably two of the guys with the worst batting averages vs Gibson (Encarnacion – .280; Brantley – .250) actually own two of the highest xWOBAs (Encarnacion – .438; Brantley – .504).

Great Ballpark Shift For His Struggles

It’s been an up and down season for Luke Weaver, and it’s hard to trust what guy you’re going to get any time he takes the hill. With that said, I think he’s one of the better value options on this slate tonight. He should face a good number of righties in this pitcher’s ballpark, and outside of Bour, the lefties really don’t scare me. There are a lot of strikeouts in the bottom of this lineup, which adds to his upside here. This is a good ballpark shift for Weaver, and for you narrative people, I saw some local Facebook post about people going to watch him pitch tonight (he’s from my hometown).

Weaver has a .288 wOBA with a .120 ISO and a 23.3% strikeout rate against right-handed hitters this season. He’s struggled with lefties, but outside of Bour and maybe Dietrich, these lefties don’t scare me.

Don't Be Fooled By All The Righties Here

I don’t think a lot of people have caught on, but the Angels have been one of the worst teams in baseball against left-handed pitching this season. They’re 28th in wOBA, 28th in wRC+, and 29th in average against lefties this season. Those numbers are with Trout in the lineup too, and if he’s out again, the projected starters have a .158 ISO with a .307 wOBA against lefties.

Matt Boyd is one of my favorite pitchers on this slate. He’s more of a fly ball pitcher, and he should benefit from the lack of power in this Angels offense. He’s also going to benefit from this pitcher’s ballpark. Boyd is projected to face eight righties tonight, and he has a .284 wOBA with a .121 ISO and a 15.1% hard to soft contact ratio against righties in 2018.

A Solid Mid-Tier

Once we start paying for some bats tonight, it is going to be tough to get up to Trevor Bauer or Charlie Morton on DK/FDRFT. Definitely do it if you can, but we get a huge savings to a solid mid-tier that starts with Cole Hamels and Zack Godley. It is very close between the two of them, with both guys coming off huge starts.

The matchup tonight favors Hamels, but it’s Godley who has the longer stretch of good pitching here, with Hamels continuing to get hit hard while Godley has increased both his ground balls and soft contact along with an increase in strikeouts and a decrease in walks. If multi-entering, I would want equal shares of these two mid-range pitchers, but I have a slight lean to Godley in tournaments with his 29.5% K rate over the past month.

Overlooked Lefty

Hamels doesn’t seem to be drawing a lot of attention on Monday but is arguably the best option priced less than Charlie Morton. While a high pitch count only allowed Hamels to throw five innings in his Cubs debut, Hamels impressed with nine strikeouts and 29.7 DK points. The Royals were a bit of a pesky team in years past not striking out a lot but things have changed this year, and especially with Monday’s projected lineup – PlateIQ has the Royals projected lineup with a 26.5% strikeout rate against left handed pitching. Throw in Hamels slate best win equity and he provides you with a strong floor to go along with 30+ DK pt upside.

Site Specific Values

There are a few pricing discrepancies between the sites that we can take advantage of tonight. One of them is with Jean Segura at just $3,100 on FanDuel, hitting at the top of the Mariners lineup against Martin Perez. Segura is batting over .300 for the third straight season with his elite speed and contact ability. With Perez striking out just 13.4% of righties and Segura carrying a 90% contact rate, we are virtually guaranteed of multiple balls in play tonight, at a very fair salary for his on base and run scoring upside.

A Nice Landing Spot

On FanDuel, Charlie Morton gets a bigger price discount than on the two pitcher sites, and it’s a closer duel between him and Noah Syndergaard. I do not like the shaky control of Morton, but I do love his strikeout upside and the matchup in San Francisco against a Giants team with a projected .124 ISO against right-handed pitching. Morton gets extreme strikeouts to lefties and high ground balls and soft contact to righties. This will not be an all-in night with a pitcher on FD, but Morton tops my list.

Ace At A Discount

Since coming off the DL, the strikeouts have been down for Syndergaard, but that has helped keep his salary down while every other skill remains elite. He has a consistently low walk rate and the second highest soft contact rate in the league, trailing only some guy named Sale. The Reds lineup just isn’t what it used to be with only a few bats with any likelihood of doing damage here. Based on the lower strikeouts since his return from the DL, his upside doesn’t match that of Bauer and Morton, but neither does the salary. On FanDuel, his salary is closer to Morton, and I would be mixing and matching them there.

Yet Another Upside Offense

The Cubs join the Yankees, Coors Field and Texas as a high end offense with endless upside tonight. Anthony Rizzo has upside from a multitude of ways to score points leading off against Jake Junis. Junis is a below average strikeout pitcher to lefties, allowing tons of power to both sides of the plate, with the highest HR/9 of any starter in the league. Rizzo has more walks than strikeouts for on base, run scoring upside and can hit for power and extra bases with his line drives and hard hit ability.

Everything Lines Up Here

It is tough to narrow down the high end bat to spend on tonight, but I will start with Nelson Cruz in the Texas heat against a lefty with an 11.2% K rate and 48% hard hits allowed to right-handed batters. Cruz looks as good as ever with a .378 ISO, .430 wOBA and 50% hard hit rate against lefties. He has seven home runs in the last ten games and is back on pace for yet another 40-HR season.

Finding Something Cheap

There is a lot of offense to spend on tonight. It is no trouble at all to find bats to love, what is tricky is making them all fit. We’ll need a few values to bring it all together, and Marwin Gonzalez is an easy fit on DK/FDRFT. His weekend home run outburst was an outlier, but it’s still nice to see him hitting the ball well. Overall, this is simply the case of an affordable hitter in the middle of a good lineup at a low salary. The Giants Dereck Rodriguez is overdue for some regression, and Gonzalez should see some runners on base ahead of him tonight.

Sustainable?

It’s only been two games since his return from the DL but Homer Bailey looks like a new man. Bailey has put up DK point totals of 26.1 and 22.8 in his last two starts and there’s reason to wonder if his success is sustainable. Outside of strong run prevention metrics, Bailey has posted strong strikeout metrics as well which is what has helped buoy his fantasy production. Bailey’s recent success may not be sustainable at it’s current rate but there’s still plenty of room for him to return value on his current price tag ($5,500 DK; $6,200 FD). Bailey also gets a favorable matchup against a Mets squad that has been below average offensively all season long against right handed pitching (93 wRC+).

Despite recent positive results, Jon Gray still sports more than a two-run difference in his xFIP (2.97) and ERA (4.99)

In three starts since being recalled from a brief AAA stint, Jon Gray has been phenomenal for the Colorado Rockies, going 2-0 and allowing just four earned runs in 21.2 innings pitched while recording 17 strikeouts over that span as well. On Sunday afternoon, he will break away from the normal restrictions of pitching at Coors Field and head to Miller Park to take on a Milwaukee Brewers squad that is still plenty dangerous against right-handed pitching, ranking 13th in wOBA and fifth in strikeout rate to righties, largely without Mike Moustakas and Jonathan Schoop, both of whom were acquired just before the trade deadline this past week. This, in conjunction with being a slight road underdog, does relegate Gray to the status of a tournament-only option, but that designation does nothing to diminish his achievable upside at this manageable price tag across the daily fantasy industry today. Seemingly all season, the fantasy community has been waiting on Gray’s stellar advanced metrics to begin reflecting in his results on the mound, and those numbers now appear to be steamrolling towards the mean with his ERA finally dropping to 4.99 on the year, though there is still plenty of meat left on the proverbial regression bone with his 3.30 SIERA and 2.97 xFIP, respectively. Once a combined with a 27.7% strikeout rate and a 13.3% swinging strike percentage, it’s easy to see the optimism with Gray in any matchup, let alone one away from Coors Field with considerable strikeout upside against a Milwaukee lineup that has a 22.1% strikeout rate versus right-handed pitching to this point in the 2018 campaign.

Bieber Fever

If you are looking for an SP option that is a massive favorite at a depressed price point, look no further than Shane Bieber today squaring off against the Trout-less Angels. Corey Kluber cruised to a complete game shut out against this Angels lineup last night, who have struggled to score runs in Trout’s absence. At just 7.4 K on both sites, we also get Bieber at a discount – he was in the 8-9 K range on DraftKings just weeks ago. With a 23% K rate and a mere 4.5% BB rate, Bieber brings both safety and upside to the table in this matchup. It also appears positive regression should be incoming, as his 3.62 SIERA is one of the lowest on the slate, despite his actual ERA hovering at 4.73. As long as he can navigate Ohtani, look for Bieber to have success against this watered-down Angels lineup (and likely pick up the W as well).

The Chalk Value Emerges

With the Cubs resting Anthony Rizzo today, three of their top 4 hitters provide excellent value on a slate where their opening Vegas line was above seven (7!) runs thanks to strong winds blowing out at Wrigley. Albert Almora, David Bote, and Addison Russel are all 2.6 K or less on FanDuel and 3.8 K or less on DraftKings. They each make great value plays at the top of a lineup that should turn over early and often, and should be expected to carry a lot of ownership thanks to the Cubs’ eye-popping Vegas total.