DFS Alerts
Volatile, but Hard to Pass on in this Matchup
Jose Berrios has been incredibly volatile this season. After four subpar outings in a row, Berrios bounced back in a big way against the Cardinals, striking out ten batters in seven innings of work. He owns a 26% strikeout rate against right-handed hitters and gets to face a right-handed heavy Tigers’ lineup tonight at home. He’s the largest favorite on the board, he has plenty of upside, and his volatility has kept his price at a playable level across the industry.
Elite Talent in a Great Matchup
Buehler struggled a bit in his last start, but is showing why he is one of the top pitching prospects in baseball. In his five starts this season, he owns a 3.02 SIERA with a strikeout rate of 30% and a ground ball rate of 54%. I always love pitchers that have two outs if you will — an ability to strike out batters at a high rate and an ability to induce ground balls at a high rate. The Rockies have not fared well on the road this season and their projected lineup has a .289 xwOBA with a 23% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching this season.
Great Value In This Matchup
I could sit here and go through all the numbers, but I’m just going to make it simple, Jason Vargas has been awful this season. While it’s hard to stack the Marlins, I’ll probably end up doing it on a few teams, though I like looking at them for value play one offs a lot more. Brian Anderson has been great against lefties in a small sample size, as he has a .408 wOBA with a .200 ISO. His average exit velocity is 95.2 against southpaws this season. I like the price a lot, so Anderson is certainly someone I’m looking at in all formats.
Take Advantage Of This Price
If people just look at Matt Carpenters wOBA (.289), they’re going to think he’s having a down season against righties. However, his average exit velocity (89.9), exit velocity over 95mph (44.6%), and hard-hit rate (47.2%) suggest otherwise. He’s only hitting the ball on the ground 26.4% of the time against righties, and I think it’s just a matter of time before he gets it rolling. Kennedy is a fly ball guy that struggles with home runs. He has a .170 ISO with a 38.6% hard hit rate against lefties this season.
High Upside Against These Righties
Jose Berrios will face a right-handed heavy Tigers team tonight, and he has a lot of upside in this matchup. His numbers are fantastic against right-handed hitters this season. Berrios has a .257 wOBA with a 26.1% strikeout rate and a 2.7% walk rate against RHB, and the most impressive part is his -3.1% hard to soft contact ratio against righties. His hard to soft contact ratio overall this season is -0.7%, which is elite. Berrios is still not priced like an ace and faces a team with a .157 ISO and a .307 wOBA against right-handed pitching. I really like this spot for Berrios and think he’s in play in all formats.
Cheap Tag
It will be interesting to see how Tanaka’s ownership plays out on Monday night as he passes the eye test as a strong play but both SiS and THE BAT projections hosted on RG seem a bit down on him – SiS gives Tanaka the 6th highest raw projection on the slate and THE BAT gives him the 8th highest. His ownership will have some say into just how “good” of a GPP play he is but stripping out all contextual factors, the matchup alone makes him a strong play in all formats for me. Targeting the Rangers with SP is going to be a profitable strategy over the course of a season as the Rangers offense is just #bad – they have the fourth highest strikeout rate in the league versus RHP (26%) and are fourth worst in the league with a 77 wRC+. Tanaka has underwhelmed at times this year but that has just given us a cheap price tag to take advantage of.
WHIP Tilt
So here is the thing about Gio – I hate him, but he’s been good this year. Gio is the owner of a 2.36 ERA (3.93 SIERA), modest 25.2% strikeout rate, and is doing a good job at limiting hard contact (30.7 Hard%). He’ll still tilt you like crazy (especially on DK) due to his high WHIP (1.41) but he’s been able to string together three straight 22.7+ DK point performances thanks to decent strikeout stuff and strong run prevention. Gio’s tag is probably too high to consider in cash games which should lead to a bit of an ownership discount in a favorable matchup against the strikeout heavy Padres (25.5 K%).
Below League Average
It wouldn’t be right if Andrew Cashner was pitching and I didn’t recommend at least a couple of hitters against him. Cashner’s strikeout rate has actually spiked this year to a still below league average 20.6% – just about every other stat recorded for Cashner is below league average as well. Moncada is the best overall play at the second base position for Monday’s slate and this is another great spot for Abreu who had himself a weekend against the Rangers posting DK totals of 20 and 28 points on Friday and Saturday.
Other tagged players: Yoan Moncada Power Stack
You gotta give it to ole Bartolo at this point – the near 45 year old has been great for the Rangers, posting a 2.82 ERA over 7 starts and 51 IP. While his 3.85 SIERA and .332 xWOBA are also above average among starters that’s about where the good news ends. Colon is giving up a bunch of hard contact (42.3% – league average among starters is 35.2%) and the ball is getting put into play a ton versus him as he’s simply unable to generate any swings and misses (6.1%) or record strikeouts (16.6 K%). This is close to an ideal matchup for the Yankees power hitters who will also get a favorable weather boost as temps will be in the mid-80’s around first pitch down in the already hitter friendly GlobeLife Park in Arlington.
Other tagged players: Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez Sneaky Stack
The Diamondbacks are far from the “best” stack of the day – they have just the ninth highest implied run total at the time of this writing – but their low cost + favorable park shift have them on my radar as a sneaky team to stack. Jake Lamb returned from the DL over the weekend and he and Goldschmidt provide some big power upside in this matchup versus Chase Anderson who had already given up 10 HRs in 45.1 IP prior to going on the DL for food poisoning. Anderson is the owner of a 5.05 SIERA and while he has been generating soft contact he’s still been a bit lucky with a .210 BABIP and 85.7% strand rate. The Diamondbacks are in play as a stand alone stack but I do prefer using Goldy/Lamb/Peralta as fillers for your other stacks.
Other tagged players: Jake Lamb, David Peralta A Good Place To Be Leading Off
The Twins are getting a bullpen game against one of the worst bullpens in the league. Brian Dozier leads off and should get a couple at bats against a beatable lefty in Blaine Hardy. While it’s been a slow start for Dozier, his plate skills against LHP are as good as ever with 14.7% K and 11.8% BB, and he has a long history of dominating lefties with a career .249 ISO and 137 wRC+. After Hardy leaves the game, it should be a parade of beatable relievers, leading to the possibility of multiple big innings for the Twins.
Perhaps A Turn-Around?
If you don’t like struggling Cardinals, then you are not going to like my Core Plays tonight on DK/FDRFT, and there are plenty of other ways to go. But these salaries on Carpenter and Ozuna are just way too low for the long-term skill sets. We have seen the strikeouts up for Carpenter this season, but he’s also hitting a ton of line drives along with a 44% hard hit rate, and it was only a matter of time before his BABIP started catching up. He is certainly at risk for fly ball outs against Ian Kennedy, but I see a guy with a 58% hard hit rate and 34% line drives in the past two weeks, and it may well be working, as he has 10 hits including six doubles in his last five games.
Too Much Of A Salary Drop
Marcell Ozuna has been struggling at the plate, with his batting average dropping to .234, but I really don’t see anything to be overly concerned about here. His strikeout rate is the same as it was last year, and his hard hit rate has increased substantially. He really doesn’t look like a much different hitter, things just haven’t gone his way yet. His salary has dropped to a point where it’s just too good to pass up against a home run prone pitcher like Ian Kennedy. Ozuna has a 47.5% hard hit rate with just a .263 BABIP against righties this season. That is going to change.
The Bat To Pay For Tonight
Without the need to pay up for expensive pitching, we should be able to afford a big bat tonight. While the Yankees power certainly looks intriguing, Manny Machado is my top hitter of the night. He has taken his game to another level adding power while lowering his strikeouts. He faces a left-handed pitcher with a high fly ball lean and below average strikeouts, followed by a weak bullpen in a good hitters ballpark.
An Ideal Matchup
Prior to his last start, Berrios was struggling badly, having allowed 18 runs over four starts. But he rebounded in a big way against a right-handed heavy Cardinals team, striking out 10 batters and allowing just two hits in 7 innings. He gets another right-handed heavy opponent tonight, where his splits should be able to shine. Since the start of 2017, Berrios has a 25.1% K rate with just 4% walks and 25% hard hits allowed to righties. Because of the rough stretch prior to his last start, I’m not going all in, but he is clearly underpriced for the matchup based on his long-term skills.