DFS Alerts
Carrasco on the road equals success
It’s no secret by now that Carlos Carrasco is a very good pitcher, oddly enough his splits indicate how much better away from home he is compared to pitching in Cleveland. On the road he features some of the top marks this season with a .223 wOBA, .209 avg, and a K% of 29.9. Carrasco’s career marks on the road continue to show his dominance, for fantasy purposes he is hitting value at a 72% consistency mark and an avg/actual DK fppg of +6.70(thats an average of 24.60!). Talk about a floor! This makes him a great play cash but also versus a weak Detroit team he brings in the highest ceiling of players on todays slate, making him a GPP option as well.
Lucchesi is still too cheap
Lucchesi faces Colorado in the friendly confines at home. His price tag of $8100 makes him one of the top value plays on tonights slate. Lucchesi is hitting expected value at a 72% rate this season while averaging +6.85 avg/actual fantasy points. He carries a respectable .303 wOBA and is only allowing hitters to hit at a .234 clip, while carrying a top 30 xFIP at 3.44. He has faced Colorado twice this year and put up 22.85 DK points at home and an impressive 19.8 at Coors. The Rockies opened with the 2nd lowest team total of the night at 3.6 and is still dropping, Padres have also seen some early positive line movement as well. Lucchesi may go overlooked due to his opponent which makes him a great GPP play and his floor this season along with his price will make him a staple in most of my cash lineups.
Derek Holland has benefited from a .242 BABIP this year, despite a 43.1% HH%
Holland has yet to have a true blowup outing thus far in the 2018 campaign, but he has consistently been surrendering offensive production to opposing lineups, allowing fewer than three earned runs in just one of his first seven starts. Holland is no longer doing a solid job of limiting hard contact as he’s allowed at least a 41.2% hard-hit percentage in each of his last five starts, and after surrendering a hard-hit ball 52.9% of the time in his previous start, his hard-hit percentage on the season is all the way up to a 3whopping 43.1%, a number that could become a recipe for disaster if he continues to all fly balls at a 49.0% clip. From a matchup perspective, the Pittsburgh Pirates are rolling out a lineup with just one left-handed hitter for Sunday’s contest in an effort to take advantage of Holland’s abysmal splits against right-handed hitters, evidenced by a 17.5% strikeout rate, 12.5% walk rate, 43.2% fly ball rate, and a massive 40.8% hard-hit percentage last season. All in all, those metrics led to a whopping .408 wOBA, 5.97 xFIP, and 2.26 HR/9 versus righties in 2017, essentially, nothing out of the ordinary for Holland over the last few years. Obviously, with an almost full lineup of righties, there aren’t many soft spots iwn the order for Holland to bail himself out of trouble, elevating the Pirates to one of the top stacking candidates on Sunday’s main slate, and makes Josh Bell (0.211 ISO, 0.373 xwOBA vs LHP in 2017/18), Sean Rodriguez (53.1% HH%, 0.258 ISO, 0.480 xwOBA vs LHP in 2017/18), and Jose Osuna (0.212 ISO vs LHP in 2017/18) all fantastic options for daily fantasy formats this afternoon, while Francisco Cervelli (0.171 ISO vs LHP in 2017/18) is also an intriguing option at the catcher position batting leadoff for a highly projected offense.
As reported by: RotoGrinders PlateIQ Other tagged players: Sean Rodriguez, Jose Osuna, Francisco Cervelli, Derek Holland
Start of Sunday's OAK-NYY game will be delayed due to rain
The start of the matchup between the Oakland Athletics and New York Yankees on Sunday afternoon will be delayed due to rain. There’s yet to be any confirmation of an official start time, and the Yankees have not committed to a specific timeline for providing further updates. The late start is better news for the prospects of the starting pitchers like Luis Severino not being pulled from his start early because of a mid-game delay, but as Kevin Roth has detailed in the latest update to his MLB weather forecast, the game is pretty risky all around and a late postponement cannot be entirely ruled out of the equation.
As reported by: the New York Yankees via Twitter
Cheap Stud in the Middle of a Potent Offense
It looks like Hicks is going to be batting 6th in the lineup today and draws a matchup against a not so great lefty in Brett Anderson. This is a plus matchup for Hicks considering Anderson gives up a .366 wOBA and .196 ISO to righties, K’s batters at a 14.2% clip and gives up large amounts of free passes. With Andersons stuff, the ball’s gonna be put in play a whole lot and there’s going to be plenty of baserunners for Hicks. Hicks owns a .168 ISO and .330 wOBA since the beginning of last season. Add in that the Yanks have a 5.59 implied team total and its a pretty safe bet that Hicks will end up with 4-5 AB’s
Cheap Coors Exposure
There isn’t a whole lot in Parra’s numbers to get too excited about, but in Coors that’s not something matters when you’re the only cheap guy. Parra draws a matchup against Freddy Peralta who makes his first career start in the majors. Peralta has show great stuff so far in the minors with a 30% K%, but has tended to get wild at times (10%+ BB% in each level of the minors). One of the places I like to roster Parra is against a guy that makes a lot of guys swing and miss. Parra owns a pretty good 14.6% K% so he should be putting the ball in play, which in Coors can lead to a lot of points. Considering that this is Peralta’s first career start and he tends to get wild we can almost guarantee that runners are going to be on base, so a 3 hit 3 RBI game is a good possibility for Parra in this matchup. Parra is safe for cash and is never that highly owned in GPP’s so he is playable in both.
Sneaky in Seattle
The Mariners are one of my favorite sneaky stacks today. I don’t love the ballpark but everything else makes me love this matchup. Seattle is awesome vs lefties with 6 players over a .200 ISO since the beginning of 2016 with Healy and Cruz being over .300. It’s a team that smashes lefties against a bad young lefty and a lousy Tigers pen. I will be rotating Mariner mini stacks throughout my lineups today led by Cruz, Haniger, Healy and Cano and I suggest you do the same.
Other tagged players: Mike Zunino, Kyle Seager, Robinson Cano, Mitch Haniger, Ryon Healy, Jean Segura
A Top 1B play at a Bare Bones Price
I don’t know what it is about Justin Smoak, but the DK algorithm always seems to be priced way too low. He draws a matchup against Pomeranz who does have pretty decent K stuff (22% vs righties), but he gives up a decent amount of hard contact (33.3%). Smoak on the other hand mashes lefties. Since the beginning of 2018, the Smoak Monster owns a .205 ISO and .404 wOBA vs. LHP. He draws this matchup in the Rogers Center which means that he’ll likely end on the higher end of that average and is priced cheaper than any other decent 1B on the slate. If you need to save a little bit of cash for some Coors bats, Smoak is the way to go.
Just because they are popular doesn't mean you need to fade in GPP's
I expect the Yankees to be very popular today and for good reason. They destroy lefties (and righties for that matter) at home. The righties in the lineup average a .221 ISO vs southpaws led by Stantons absurd .497. Brett Anderson is not as bad as some may think but he will get hit hard in this outing. I will be stacking all the Yankees 1 through 9 and rotating 2 and 3 man stacks throughout my lineups. I just expect the Yankees to hit at least 2 home runs (likely more) and Vegas agrees. So they may have ownership more than we’d like to see, I’m not letting that affect me at all as the matchup is too good and hopefully Coors will limit some of that ownership.
Other tagged players: Miguel Andujar, Aaron Judge, Didi Gregorius, Brett Gardner, Gary Sanchez, Aaron Hicks, Tyler Austin, Gleyber Torres Matt Moore still has a 5.88 xFIP and 47.3% HH% versus RHB through seven starts
It’s more than an understatement to say that Matt Moore is off to a rough start to the 2018 campaign, as the left-hander has made it past the fifth inning in just two of his seven starts and has allowed a whopping 15 earned runs in his last 9.2 innings pitched, spanning two outings. Moore is having the same issues as he did last season, surrendering a 50.0% hard-hit percentage and 42.3% fly ball rate thus far, and while those numbers may be a bit fluky due to sample size, Moore did finish the 2017 campaign with a career-high 34.7% hard-hit percentage, possibly indicating a continued trend moving forward. Even with the presumed positive regression in those departments, Moore is an extremely attackable pitcher at this stage of his career, evidenced by an abysmal 13.1% strikeout rate to right-handed batters that was accompanied by a 9.0% walk rate, 47.3% hard-hit percentage, and 5.88 xFIP this season. Now that Moore is out of the friendly confines of AT&T Park in San Fransisco for half of his starts, he’s likely to continue seeing his advanced statistics decline at a rapid rate and a matchup with this righty-heavy Houston Astros lineup doesn’t appear to be a spot for him to begin getting back on track. In fact, George Springer (0.458 xwOBA, 0.281 ISO vs LHP in 2017/18), if he’s able to return from a left elbow contusion that kept him out of Saturday’s lineup, Carlos Correa (43.5% HH%, 0.467 xwOBA, 0.200 ISO vs LHP in 2017/18), Jose Altuve (0.392 wOBA, 0.193 ISO vs LHP in 2017/18), and Alex Bregman (0.386 wOBA, 0.244 ISO vs LHP in 2017/18) all have the ability to cause him a plethora of trouble at the top of the batting order, while Evan Gattis (0.204 ISO vs LHP in 2017/18) possesses the necessary pop at the bottom third of the order to become viable as a contrarian one-off target in tournaments. This vast diversity of stacking combinations make the Astros an ideal stack in tournaments on Sunday’s early main slate as well, so feel free to load up on their bats in all formats this afternoon.
As reported by: RotoGrinders PlateIQ Other tagged players: George Springer, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Evan Gattis, Matt Moore A Bit Unlucky
Nelson Cruz has the fourth highest exit velocity (95.3 mph) of hitters with at least 75 ABs. While Cruz has been crushing the ball, he’s been a bit unlucky this year (.250 BABIP) and he owns one of the widest gaps between wOBA (.337) and xWOBA (.392). His price on DraftKings is simply too cheap ($4,300) for a matchup against the lefty Blaine Hardy and his $3,700 tag on FanDuel is easy to roster as well.
Is that price correct?
Wow.. I had to do a double take when I saw that price on DK! I know the guy gave up 4 HRS in the first inning last time out and really struggled the 2 starts before, but this is absurd. Bundy had been excellent his first 5 starts this season and 11 of his last 13 overall dating back to last year. Since the start of 2017 he has a 26.1% K rate with just a 7% walk rate.. Hes a good pitcher! Even though Tampa got to Bundy last time they aren’t an offense to shy away from targeting pitchers against. The Rays strike out 21.2% of the time against righties and as mentioned, Bundy is a much better than average strikeout pitcher. I can’t say I’m not at all concerned but Bundy will be my primary SP 2 on Draftkings in GPP’s allowing me to pay up for Coors, The Yanks and a number of other excellent big bats.
Catcher in Cash
I rarely advocate playing a catcher in cash games on FanDuel but I’ll make the exception for a min priced Evan Gattis against Matt Moore. Moore is the owner of the 11th highest xWOBA (.401) of pitchers who have thrown at least 100 ABs and allows the 7th highest exit velocity (90.7 mph). Gattis has had a slow start to the season but hit a HR last night and has mashed southpaws throughout his career (110 wRC+, .219 ISO). Considering his price, I’m not too concerned about where he winds up hitting in the order but if he should move up to fifth he would become close to a must play across the industry.
Thrift Shopping
I know Keuchel hasn’t been great this year but his $8,000 price tag on DraftKings sticks out like a sore thumb, especially given the matchup against a weak Rangers offense. Keuchel is difficult to properly value from a daily fantasy perspective because he’s never been a guy that really racks up strikeouts – his career strikeout rate is lower than that of an average starting pitcher (19.4%). Much of Keuchel’s value in the past has been his ability to limit runs and pitch deep into games. Both of those things seem possible on Sunday as the Rangers have the third lowest implied run total on the slate (White Sox has yet to be released) behind only the Royals (vs Kluber) and A’s (vs Severino). The Rangers do own the second highest strikeout rate in the league versus LHP (26.8%) so despite Keuchel’s low numbers this year (17.5%) there is somewhat of a strikeout floor in this given matchup.
Discounted Ace
The main concern heading into this game for deGrom is not his short 10-day stint on the DL but whether or not weather will play a role in shortening his start. I don’t expect to see any sort of hard limitations placed on deGrom on Sunday – in fact, Mets manager Mickey Callaway stated such. So if weather concerns are alleviated, we’re left with a full-go deGrom against a Phillies team that strikes out a ton versus RHP (26.8 K%) for $2,800 less than Corey Kluber on DraftKings. That seems like an easy choice to me. The only $900 difference between the two on FanDuel makes it a little more difficult to choose but I still side with deGrom should there be no real weather concerns leading up to first pitch.