DFS Alerts

Liking The 2-To-1 Odds Here

I really like the Rays as one-offs tonight, and the four guys I’ll be using throughout lineups are Robertson, Ramos, Cron, and Adames. Robertson is a nice value play tonight against Liriano, who has a .343 wOBA with a 17.1% strikeout rate and a 13.4% walk rate against right-handed hitters this season.

Robertson has struggled with sliders this season, but he’s crushing sinkers and changeups. Liriano uses his slider 32% against righties but uses his sinker/changeup combo for 62%. It doesn’t hurt that Robertson has a .212 ISO with a .363 wOBA and a .408 CXwOBA against left-handed pitching this season.

Playing The Ballpark Game

We don’t have a lot of cheap options tonight, so I’m looking at Andrew Suarez against the Cubs as a potential SP2 play. Suarez has been extremely unlucky (.356 BABIP) against right-handed hitters this season, but he continues to give up a large amount of hard contact. The good thing about this matchup is the Cubs rank 23rd in hard-hit rate against left-handed pitching this season. The projected starting lineup has a 33.9% hard-hit rate and Ian Happ is the only one with it over 40%, but he also has a 41.2% strikeout rate against lefties in 2018.

Suarez has a .353 wOBA with a .176 ISO and a 1.44 WHIP against righties this season, and that’s where the risk comes in. However, I’m willing to take the risk on this slate, and this ballpark certainly helps with that decision. Suarez still limits the walks and has a decent strikeout rate with an above average groundball rate.

Stop Throwing Your Fastball

It’s been a rough season for Danny Duffy, but he has pitched well in three of his last five starts. He also draws a favorable matchup tonight, so I think he’s an interesting tournament play at his price. The Twins are ranked 24th in team wOBA, 25th in team wRC+, and they have the fourth-highest strikeout rate against left-handed pitching this season.

Max Kepler has been the only person that’s hit left-handed pitching for power this season, and while Duffy has struggled overall, he hasn’t been bad against left-handed hitters. Duffy mixes in his fastball, sinker, slider, and changeup against right-handed hitters, and while the fastball and the sinker haven’t been great, he does have a 13.9% swinging strike rate with his changeup and a 14.5% swinging strike rate with his slider.

Nick Castellanos (sore wrist) scratched Sunday; Jim Adduci replaces

Castellanos has been scratched from the Detroit Tigers original confirmed lineup and will not start in Sunday’s matchup against the Texas Rangers due to left wrist soreness. He’ll be replaced in the lineup by Jim Adduci, who will take over the designated hitter duties and slot into the fifth spot in the order, which bumps Jeimer Candelario up to the two-hole to fill the void left behind by Castellanos’ late-unavailability. However, the remainder of the Tigers lineup will stay intact as they face off against right-hander Austin Bibens-Dirkx at home this afternoon.

Back to the Well with Houston

The red-hot Astros have now scored 37 runs in their past 5 games, including 23 in their last two against the White Sox. Yesterday’s advice was to not overcomplicate things and load up on Houston against James Shields, and the same logic holds true today as the ‘stros face arguably the worst pitcher in the league in Lucas Giolito. To put in perspective just how much Giolito has struggled, his K% is now the exact same as his BB% at 13%. Yikes. On most slates the Astros bats would carry crazy ownership in this dream matchup, but with NYY, BOS, and CLE all in great spots today it’s actually possible Houston is lesser-owned than they should be in this spot.

Heath Fillmyer will start in place of Jakob Junis (back inflammation) on Sunday

Junis has officially been placed on the 10-day disabled list, and he will not make his scheduled start for the Kansas City Royals and will not pitch in Sunday’s matchup against the Boston Red Sox due to lower back inflammation. He’ll be replaced on the mound Heath Fillmyer, who, like Junis, is a right-handed pitcher, so his presence on the bump won’t alter the projected outlook of the Red Sox hitters in any significant fashion, but still be sure to double check projections for any notable changes prior to submitting lineups for this afternoon’s main slate.

It's OK

Some people may steer clear from O’s hitters as Odorizzi is arguably one of the top pitchers on the slate, although that speaks more to the slate than to Odorizzi’s ability. Regardless, I wanted to highlight Beckham as a way to say that I think it’s totally fine to roster one or two O’s hitters in cash in this spot, especially Beckham who is dirt cheap on DraftKings. Odorizzi is actually one of my favorite under-the-radar pitchers to stack against because he profiles as someone who will allow a ton of HRs when things aren’t going well – he’s the owner of the league’s second lowest ground ball rate among starters (25.8%) and is allowing a HR on 12.2% of the fly balls put in play. In other words, if the strikeouts aren’t there (24.4 K% this season) HRs will come in bunches.

Hard Hit

Brian Dozier hasn’t quite been the same this season (89 wRC+, .171 ISO) and there’s no indication that improvement is on the horizon (.293 xWOBA). However, this seems to be one of those spots where you kind of just stomach rostering Dozier because the matchup is so strong versus Alex Cobb. Despite some improvement, Cobb is still one of the worst pitchers that remains in a Big League rotation and he’s owns the third highest Hard Hit rate of all pitchers with at least 200 batted ball events – he allows a hard hit (95+ mph) on 43.4% of the balls put in play.

SP2 Duel

You’re likely looking at Nathan Eovaldi or Tanner Roark for your SP2 in cash games. Roark gets the better matchup of the two against a Marlins offense that strikes out 23.1% of the time versus RHP and has the league’s seventh worst wRC+ (88) vs RHP. The Mets aren’t an offensive juggernaut by any stretch of the imagination (21.5 K%, 98 wRC+) and Eovaldi (3.58 SIERA, 21.9 K%) has been sharper than Roark (4.47 SIERA, 19.7 K%) this season. Eovaldi also gets the coveted AL pitcher throwing in NL park bump. Neither option will leave you feeling truly comfortable but I do give a slight nod to Eovaldi in this spot.

Buy Low Against Bad Pitching

Austin Bibens-Dirkx has a 5.11 xFIP, 16.5 K% and allowing a Hard% of 43%. He is not a good pitcher and this is someone we should be targeting on today’s slate. Candelario is simply too cheap on FanDuel at $3000 and DraftKings $3800. I typically like playing the Tigers more against left handed pitching but this is a great buy low opportunity on the Candy man.

Cheap Bat From A Top Offense

The Indians are one of the top offenses on the day and expensive as well. Brandon Guyer has been given a nice bump in the lineup at the 5 hole which is a great cash game value and tournament play to help you afford the other top end Indians. Guyer also has hit lefties well this season and has a .224 ISO and .367 wOBA against them.

Insane Numbers

Giancarlo Stanton – Every now and again it’s important to bring up Stanton’s career numbers against LHP just to marvel at how insane they are – 174 wRC+, .346 ISO. Despite what has been perceived as a down year offensively for Stanton, he’s still been absolutely murdering LHP with a .409 ISO and 212 wRC+ in 2018. Ryan Borucki is coming off a couple of strong starts to begin his Major League career but reality is he doesn’t project to be much of a Big League starter and is a massive dog to hold the Yankees bats in check.

Keep Targeting the Mets

When I have an ugly pitching slate, I try to target really bad teams with cheap pitching. That brings me to Nathan Eovaldi against a bad New York Mets lineup. I typically prefer the Mets against left handed pitching but it’s a sunday and we could see a watered down Mets lineup here. Eovaldi has also pitched well this season with a 3.78 xFIP 21.9 K% and only a 3.8 BB%. The big worry with the Mets is that they have some lefty power that can cause some fits but Eovaldi has kept his ISO against lefties down to .159. I think Eovaldi should pitch an efficient 6 innings and have a great chance at the win against a bad pitcher like Chris Flexen.

Table Scraps

With all the studs throwing on Saturday we have a bunch of table scraps leftover that we have to try to make work on Sunday. Despite a poor season, Keuchel leads the way in a posh matchup against a White Sox team that leads the league in strikeout rate versus LHP (26.6%) and has a bottom third wRC+ (89). Keuchel’s strikeout rate is down to 18.5% and unsurprisingly his 8.6% SwStr% is his worse since 2012. Still, due to the matchup I’m not too concerned here as I think Keuchel can pitch deep enough to get a quality start and rack up a couple of K’s along the way.

Cheap Pitcher With K Upside

Odorizzi is not a guy I love to roster, but on this slate I think he is worth considering in this matchup. Odorizzi is striking out right handed batters at 26.4% compared to lefties at 21.8%. This Baltimore team could have up to 8 righties in the lineup and have trouble getting lefties in their lineup. There is some risk here with a flyball guy like Odorizzi but his strikeout upside is higher than normal.