DFS Alerts

Value Play With Upside

It is a weird day for value on DraftKings and FantasyDraft, so with limited options, I’m looking to attack upside hitters more than average hitters. Mark Reynolds has broken a few slates already this season and draws a good matchup tonight against Matz, who continues to struggle with right-handed hitters. He has a .328 wOBA with a .212 ISO and a 38.3% hard-hit rate allowed. Matz is throwing his sinker 59% of the time this season, and since 2016, Reynolds has a .421 wOBA against sinkers. He also has a .360 wOBA with a 91.9 average exit velocity against left-handed pitching this season.

Did He Get It Figured Out?

When getting off the high-priced options on FanDuel, I think Jon Gray still has the upside and ceiling to win you a tournament. I think there are better options for cash games, but in tournaments, his price is standing out to me tonight. There is a good chance he faces six right-handed hitters tonight, and if Carpenter doesn’t take him deep, he could dominate the rest of this Cardinals lineup.

Gray has a .312 wOBA with a .102 ISO and a 26.2% strikeout rate against right-handed hitters this season. He also has an above average 56.6% ground ball rate against RHB. In two starts since returning from AAA, he’s pitched 14.1 innings with only two earned runs allowed and has 12 strikeouts. The matchups were tough too, as he faced Houston and Seattle in Coors in both of those games.

Don't Let The First Two Months Fool You

When searching for upside, Danny Duffy really stands out to me on this slate. The White Sox projected starting lineup has eight projected starters with a strikeout rate over 20% against left-handed pitching. Their combined strikeout rate is 24.9% and they have a .151 ISO with a .308 wOBA. Duffy has been great against lefties this season, but he’s struggled with righties. With that said, a lot of those struggles were earlier this season. His total overall wOBA in May was .396, but it’s been under .300 in June and July. After allowing 14 home runs in the first two months of the season, he’s only allowed six in the next two months. Duffy is pitching much better and has the upside to crush his price as an SP2 tonight.

What More Does He Have To Do?

It seems like Matt Kemp is still somewhat forgotten in DFS circles, despite elite numbers overall and especially against left-handed pitching. Against lefties this season, he has a 50% hard hit rate, 52% fly balls, a .307 ISO and .402 wOBA. He hits in the middle of a loaded lineup facing a pitcher with extreme control issues that is certain to lead to baserunners for the Dodgers tonight. He is priced well below the top tier of outfielders and has similar upside.

Pile On Here

There are several teams that can make a case for top offense of the night, but at least in terms of picking out strong individual matchups, the Diamondbacks against Bartolo Colon top my list. Against left-handed batters, Colon has a low 12.4% strikeout rate while showing no ability to limit batted balls in any way. David Peralta has a big 49% hard hit rate with strong contact skills and a .228 ISO and .391 wOBA against righties. He is surrounded by high upside batters and should have run scoring and RBI opportunities all night.

Site Specific Savings

Jack Flaherty is playable on all sites tonight, but the FanDuel salary is a clear bargain. His 29.7% strikeout rate trails only Bauer and Morton on this slate, and he has been outlandish against right-handed batters with a 35% K rate. The Rockies are not a scary opponent on the road and his moderate skills against lefties are balanced out by a lack of lefty power for Colorado. At this salary, he easily has the most points per dollar upside on FD, and I would be happy with him even in cash games if you can’t find a way to afford Bauer.

Good Pitcher, Good Salary, Good Matchup

On DK/FDRFT, we have a three-man second tier of Charlie Morton, Tyler Skaggs and Masahiro Tanaka. They are all viable in all formats, but the salary savings on Tanaka gives him the edge in a matchup against a high strikeout Baltimore team with a lack of patience that could help his efficiency. The complete game shutout last week was an outlier in terms of innings, but he is the type of pitcher who can pitch to that level against weaker opponents. This the best mix of skills, matchup and salary in this tier.

Pay For The Best

We have a solid second tier of pitching options tonight, so I’m not going to call Bauer a must play, but there is no questioning that this is the best pitcher by a wide margin tonight. He has 12 straight starts with 7+ strikeouts including seven double-digit K starts. He has pitched at least seven full innings in nine of his last 14 starts, adding even more upside to the equation. He has topped 40-FD and 20-DK/FDRFT points in 13 of his last 14 starts. You’re getting the highest upside with the most consistency on this slate, and that is worth paying for.

Hottest team in the league facing HR prone pitcher returning from DL

Only one of tonight’s eight west coast teams are above a 4.1 implied run line that’s the hottest offense on the board, the Oakland A’s (4.53 runs), who have a team 142 wRC+ over the last week. Marco Estrada last faced more than three major league batters more than a month ago and struck out just one of 24 batters in that start. He faced 14 AAA batters six days ago, allowing two HRs. Estrada has a reverse split. RHBs have a .364 wOBA and 26 GB% against him since last season and 10 of his 15 HRs allowed this season. Considering tonight’s projected lineup, Matt Chapman (126 wRC+, .223 ISO vs RHP last calendar year) would be extremely interesting in the top half of the order. Khris Davis (140 wRC+, .301 ISO) has a 177 wRC+ with five HRs over the last seven days.

One spot worth watching in Monday night's forecast

Monday night’s forecast has been updated and is currently available on the Weather page. There’s one game worth watching. Premium subscribers can receiver further updates from Kevin at 6:30 ET on Crunch Time.

Many interesting parts in this west coast matchup

With half of tonight’s slate on the west coast, we’re going to have to project on some of these lineups for a bit longer, but one spot that could be interesting for both pitching and offense could be San Diego. Derek Holland has been good and Eric Lauer is cheap, while there are plenty of soft spots in either lineup in a very negative run environment with both teams around the four implied run mark. RHBs have a wOBA and xwOBA within four points of .360 against Lauer this year though and both Andrew McCutchen (130 wRC+, .202 ISO) and Buster Posey (132 wRC+, .151 ISO) have hit LHP well over the last calendar year with Evan Longoria (112 wRC+, .208 ISO) an option with an upgraded lineup slot. On the other side, Derek Holland has improved his wOBA against RHBs by over 60 points this season, but they still have a .341 mark against him with all 14 of his home runs surrendered. There are plenty of strikeouts in this San Diego lineup, but also quite a bit of RH power: Wil Myer (118 wRC+, .259 ISO vs LHP last calendar year), Hunter Renfroe (144 wRC+, .304 ISO) and Christian Villanueva (201 wRC+, .434 ISO).

Lefty with major platoon issues against powerful RH lineup

The Diamondbacks have a lineup with five batters above a 110 wRC+ vs LHP over the last calendar year and six above a .185 ISO. So, of course, Jon Jay (77 wRC+, ZERO ISO) and Eduardo Escobar (72 wRC+, .097 ISO) bat in the first two spots against a pitcher with a with a .379 wOBA (37.1 Hard%, 45.4 GB%) against RHBs since last year and a .304 wOBA (28.7 Hard%, 57.4 GB%) vs LHBs. Getting the bad stuff out of the way first is not an optimal baseball strategy, but it’s hard to find a poor play in the lineup, including Escobar simply because he will bat right-handed with Paul Goldschmidt (193 wRC+, .280 ISO) and A.J. Pollock (142 wRC+, .314 ISO) leading the way. Goldy costs below $5K on both sites tonight. With a 4.96 run total, the Diamondbacks are within one-tenth of a run of the top spot tonight.

LHBs have a .444 wOBA and 53.6 Hard% against this pitcher

Shane Bieber has exceptional control and has carried an 18.5 K-BB% through eight starts, but maybe he’s around the plate a bit too often. While a .378 BABIP is bound to regress, there’s no denying he’s allowed too much hard contact (89.9 mph aEV is worst on the board), particularly to LHBs (.444 wOBA, 53.6 Hard%). The Twins have a 4.50 implied run line that’s dropped about a quarter of a run since earlier in the afternoon, but is still top third of the board. They recently traded one of their top LHBs, but still have enough to fill five of the first six spots with batters from that side tonight (RHBs have a .273 wOBA and 54.2 GB% against Bieber). Eddie Rosario (153 wRC+, .290 ISO vs RHP last calendar year) is a top bat tonight, while Joe Mauer (109 wRC+, .110 ISO, .400 xwOBA) and Jorge Polanco (159 wRC+, .225 ISO) are solid bargains even if the latter has an xwOBA (.317) 94 points below his actual against RHP over the last calendar year. Max Kepler (93 wRC+, .195 ISO) is also just $2.5K on FanDuel.

Dropping run line, but still the top offense

Dropping a quarter of a run since early this afternoon, the Indians are still the top team on the board at exactly five implied runs currently. Ervin Santana struck out five of 23 Blue Jays in his season debut, but with just a 6.2 SwStr%, 18.8 GB% and 37.5 Hard%. He allowed six HRs in seven minor league rehab starts, only two of those starts at AAA. The top half of the Cleveland lineup is generally a strong daily fantasy bet. This includes Francisco Lindor (139 wRC+, .298 ISO vs RHP last calendar year), Michael Brantley (135 wRC+, .197 ISO) and Jose Ramriez (173 wRC+, .337 ISO) with players then having a choice between Edwin Encarnacion (132 wRC+, .279 ISO) or Yonder Alonso (127 wRC+, .199 ISO). While not as positive a run environment as Cleveland, Minnesota may still be the second most positive run environment on the board behind Fenway tonight. While Santana has actually held LHBs to a .278 wOBA that’s a bit below his .306 against RHBs since last season, but by xwOBA (.303 vs .306), hard hit rate (28%) and GB rate (40%) there is no real split.

High priced lineup, but with a great bargain behind the plate

Wei-Yin Chen has been very good against LHBs since last season (.244 wOBA, .280 xwOBA) with a 47.9 GB% well above that against RHBs. Still, two of the first four batters in the order for Atlanta are LHBs against because both Freddie Freeman (155 wRC+, .249 ISO) and Nick Markakis (137 wRC+, .197 ISO) have been very good against LHP over the last calendar year. The Braves have a team total of 4.99 runs tonight, good for the second best mark on the board right now, but can players really consider Ronald Acuna (71 wRC+, 131 ISO, .295 xwOBA) at an expensive cost out of the leadoff spot here? Meanwhile, Ozzie Albies (134 wRC+, .216 ISO) costs even more and has a 21 wRC+ with a 38.5 K% over the last seven days in which he’s one of just two players in the majors with more at least 10 PAs and no hard hit balls. Tyler Flowers (209 wRC+, .218 ISO) is the bargain here and likely a must for those who want exposure to this lineup. Another consideration, is that high priced Atlanta bats will be facing a struggling Miami bullpen behind a pitcher averaging less than five innings per start.