DFS Alerts

Low and moderate priced pitchers with some upside

If content with tonight’s high end offerings, DraftKings players can pair one with Eric Lauer against the Mets (76 wRC+, 26.1 K%, 8.0 HR/FB vs LHP) for $4K and be done, but one of tonight’s potential top values on DraftKings tonight is opposing Lauer for just $7.7K. Zack Wheeler has pitched into the seventh inning in four of five starts, failing to complete six innings in just one of the six before that by a single out. He has a 25.5 K% and 13.6 SwStr% over the last month along with the lowest aEV on the board for the season (85.1 mph). On top of all that, he’s in a great park against a terrible offense (70 wRC+, 19.8 K-BB% on the road, 80 wRC+, 18.1 K-BB% vs RHP). Felix Pena’s 91.1 mph aEV is easily the highest on the board, but he’s struck out 30 of 100 batters faced as a starter and costs $5.5K on DraftKings ($7.1K on FanDuel) against the White Sox (18.7 K-BB% on the road and 18.9 K-BB% vs RHP). Jeremy Hellickson (19.5 K%, 3.94 SIERA, .330 xwOBA) costs around $6.5K in a matchup with some upside (Brewers 25.2 K% at home and vs RHP), but isn’t likely to go very deep into the game. Masahiro Tanaka is a high upside pitcher (13.8 SwStr%) for less than $9K with a nice park upgrade against a low power Rays’ offense, which should help with his home run issues.

Underpriced Sluggers

Prior to landing on the DL Clay Buchholz was having a good season (2.56 ERA) albeit a bit lucky (4.03 SIERA, 80.3 LOB%, and a .236 BABIP to go with a less than ideal batted ball profile). The reality is, despite a gaudy ERA, Buchholz is just not very good at this stage of his career. Enter the Chicago Cubs who, because of recent lack of production, are completely underpriced on DraftKings – specifically guys like Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant who are both $4,500. While we won’t have notable wind to aid our hitters at Wrigley, the Cubs still have one of the higher implied run totals on the board as it opened north of 5 runs and continues to creep up as we get closer to first pitch.

Discounts on some of tonight's high end starters

Two pitchers reach the $10K price tag on both sites tonight, three more on DraftKings alone. Aaron Nola is the most expensive pitcher on either site by at least $500. The strikeout rate is increasing (29.9% over the last month). His .260 xwOBA is best on the board by more than 20 points, .254 at home since last season. His 3.9% Barrels/BBE is best on the board behind a 51.7 GB% and 85.8 mph aEV. The matchup is not ideal in a power friendly park against the Dodgers. Jose Berrios is $10.5K on FanDuel and $500 less on DraftKings. Recent outings have been very inconsistent, allowing six runs to the Rays last time out, striking out five or fewer in three of his last four. He’s facing a decent Toronto offense in a somewhat neutral run environment. His xwOBA is up 25 points over the last 30 days (.329). Gerrit Cole (35.2%) and James Paxton (32.2%) have the highest strikeout rates on the slate and both come with reduced price tags. Cole because he’s pitching in Coors. His strikeout rate the last month is up above 30% again with 19 of his last 47 batters and while Coors is not a death blow to RHP (Rockies 81 wRC+, 15 K-BB%), it’s still a tough spot. Paxton because he left his last start with a back injury. He’s a certainly a risk, but the price drop is too much to ignore in a nice spot at home against the Giants (81 wRC+, 16.5 K-BB%, 10.8 HR/FB on the road, 88 wRC+ vs LHP, though with slightly better peripherals). Kenta Maeda costs $11.3K on DK, but just $9.5K on FD. He’s struck out nine in four straight starts and is in a high upside spot against the Phillies (25.8 K% and split low 8.1 Hard-Soft% vs RHP). He does experience a park downgrade tonight and rarely throws 100 pitches, but efficiency could potentially get him through seven innings occasionally.

Brewers Lefties

With Eric Thames expected back in the Brewers lineup on Tuesday night I’m taking a look at using some Brewers lefties as “fillers” for other team stacks. Jeremy Hellickson owns wide splits for his career and has been much worse against lefties – .324 wOBA, 4.85 xFIP, 15.9 K% vs .309 wOBA, 3.97 xFIP, 19.6 K%. To be fair, his numbers against righties are far from staggering so adding some right handed bats to complete a full Brewers stack isn’t a terrible idea, but I would rather sprinkle Thames (underpriced on FanDuel), Yelich, and Shaw with some of the stronger overall stacks.

#StackStros

You may have to do some ugly things at SP to make it work but #StackStros in Coors versus a LHP – this is what dreams are made of. Anderson has been good this year (3.72 ERA) but has perhaps been running a little pure – he owns a 4.09 SIERA and has a slightly low BABIP (.273) to pair with an inflated strand rate (76.3 LOB%). He’s been doing a good job generating soft contact but could use some help keeping the ball on the ground (38.2 GB%) which isn’t an ideal profile for a pitcher who calls Coors home. High price tags combined with a “meh” matchup could help lead to decent ownership numbers on the Astros.

Highest Upside

It seems likely that Maeda will make for a better GPP play on DraftKings where he’s priced as the second most expensive starting pitcher on the slate. Paxton will still draw the majority of ownership on FanDuel but Maeda has a more user friendly price tag there and as a result could see an uptick in ownership. Maeda has a good matchup against a Phillies team that strikes out a ton – they own the league’s second highest strikeout rate (25.8%) against right handed pitching. He’s been a bit streaky but Maeda’s 2018 numbers are sensational as he’s the owner of a 3.42 SIERA, 29.7 K%, and 14.1 SwStr%. Those gaudy numbers combined with the matchup arguably give Maeda the highest upside of the slate.

One Less Lonely Girl

It’s only been seven starts but Shane Bieber is quietly having himself a good year. Bieber is the owner of a 3.53 SIERA, 23% strikeout rate and 11.4 SwStr%. His batted ball profile is far from ideal (9.9 Soft% – grimace emoji) but he’s done a good job generating strikeouts and ground balls. This isn’t a great matchup for Bieber against a Pirates team that doesn’t really strikeout against RHP (19.2 K%) and is mostly neutral in terms of offensive production (99 wRC+) but his cheap price tag provides him with a little bit of wiggle room. Notably the Pirates implied run total opened around 4.2 and has slowly crept below 4 at the time of this writing.

Nice Value Stack On FanDuel

There are a lot of great value plays on FanDuel tonight, but the Texas lefties really stood out to me as being underpriced. Choo, Gallo (expected back tonight), Profar, and Calhoun are some of the best plays on the slate, and they’re all under $3,200 on FanDuel.

It’s going to be a hot day in Texas again tonight, and Montas has struggled with left-handed hitters since being called up. He has a .353 wOBA with a .204 ISO and a 41.3% hard-hit rate. If you look at the amount of hard-hits he’s allowing and then the very low strikeout rate, these lefties especially Gallo become great options tonight. I would expect them to be popular on FanDuel tonight, but with Coors on the slate and five games with totals over 9.5, they might actually be lower owned than expected.

Nice Value Stack On FanDuel

There are a lot of great value plays on FanDuel tonight, but the Texas lefties really stood out to me as being underpriced. Choo, Gallo (expected back tonight), Profar, and Calhoun are some of the best plays on the slate, and they’re all under $3,200 on FanDuel.

It’s going to be a hot day in Texas again tonight, and Montas has struggled with left-handed hitters since being called up. He has a .353 wOBA with a .204 ISO and a 41.3% hard-hit rate. If you look at the amount of hard-hits he’s allowing and then the very low strikeout rate, these lefties especially Gallo become great options tonight. I would expect them to be popular on FanDuel tonight, but with Coors on the slate and five games with totals over 9.5, they might actually be lower owned than expected.

Nice Value Stack On FanDuel

There are a lot of great value plays on FanDuel tonight, but the Texas lefties really stood out to me as being underpriced. Choo, Gallo (expected back tonight), Profar, and Calhoun are some of the best plays on the slate, and they’re all under $3,200 on FanDuel.

It’s going to be a hot day in Texas again tonight, and Montas has struggled with left-handed hitters since being called up. He has a .353 wOBA with a .204 ISO and a 41.3% hard-hit rate. If you look at the amount of hard-hits he’s allowing and then the very low strikeout rate, these lefties especially Gallo become great options tonight. I would expect them to be popular on FanDuel tonight, but with Coors on the slate and five games with totals over 9.5, they might actually be lower owned than expected.

Watch The Weather

If the weather holds off here, it’s going to be humid and the wind is going to be blowing out to left field. Pomeranz will be making his first start off the DL, and while the Baltimore offense has struggled in general this season, Danny Valencia continues to crush left-handed pitching. Pomeranz has a .410 wOBA with a .258 ISO and a 34.4% hard-hit rate against right-handed hitters in 143 PAs this season, while Valencia has a .227 ISO with a .372 wOBA and a .464 CXwOBA against lefties in 2018. If Kevin Roth gives us the green light on hitters in this game, the value is really nice with Valencia tonight.

Nice Punt Shortstop

Tyler Saladino has been excellent against right-handed pitching this season, and he’s pretty cheap across the industry tonight. If you’re looking to pay up for some big bats, taking the value at shortstop doesn’t sound like a bad idea. He has a .209 ISO with a .375 wOBA and a .456 CXwOBA against right-handed pitching this season. On top of that he has a 50% hard-hit rate and 42.9% of his hits have been over 95mph off the bat.

Hellickson has pitched well against righties this season but has a 1.4% swinging strike rate on his fastball which he uses 36% of the time. His changeup has been his best pitch against righties, which worries me for Saladino, but he still profiles great against his fastball and knuckle curve this season.

Throw The Heater

Zack Wheeler sets up as one of the best salary pitchers on the slate, as he draws a great matchup against the Padres at home. The projected starters for the Padres have a 23.8% strikeout rate with a .144 ISO and a .310 wOBA against right-handed pitching. Only Myers has an ISO over .200 and Jankowski is the only hitter with a strikeout rate under 20%.

Wheeler has been great against right-handed hitters this season, as he has a very high groundball rate with an elite hard to soft contact ratio. His ISO against lefties is .137 but the wOBA is sitting at .340 with a high hard-hit rate. Wheeler does have a higher strikeout rate to left-handed hitters this season, and a lot of that has to do with his curveball. Since the start of 2016, Hosmer is the only projected starter that hits 94-96 mph fastballs well, and that’s what Wheeler throws almost 50% of the time. Plus, Hosmer has been ice cold lately, so I’m not too worried about him.

Attack The Attackable

Matt Carpenter has started to see his salary rise to a more appropriate level, but he is still underpriced on FanDuel for a matchup with Homer Bailey. Bailey has just 13.1% strikeouts to lefties this season while allowing a .271 ISO and .393 wOBA. Carpenter should need no introduction at this point, but just in case you haven’t heard, he’s good. He has a 51% hard hit rate, .292 ISO and .407 wOBA against righties this season. And if you’re a fan of hot streaks, he has eight home runs and 14 hits in his last eight games.

Attack The Attackable

The Cardinals are right there with the Oakland-Texas and Coors Field game for high end offense. They will see the return of Homer Bailey with his 12.2% strikeouts and 52% hard hits allowed to right-handed batters which has resulted in a .231 ISO and .404 wOBA against him this season. Marcell Ozuna is the Cardinals value option hitting in the middle of the lineup with his 46% hard hit rate and solid contact skills. He should have plenty of base runners on ahead of him tonight.