DFS Alerts

Stacking in Cleveland

The Indians are one of the top stacks on the board and their ownership will be suppressed thanks to the fact that there is a game in Coors Field. They draw an excellent matchup at home against Jason Hammel, who is a fly-ball pitcher that gives up a lot of hard contact. Hammel isn’t particularly effective against left or right-handed hitters, which bodes well for the Indians in this matchup. As for Francisco Lindor, he owns a .368 xwOBA against right-handed pitching.

It's the big three and then some higher risk/high upside, perhaps smaller workload guys on the mound tonight

The big three are easy tonight. Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer and Chris Sale are top three in K%, SwStr%, SIERA, and xwOBA on today’s board. Chris Sale and Justin Verlander are the only two on the board to combine elite Z-Contact with elite Z-O-Swing%. Verlander (vs the Rangers 82 wRC+, 26.2 K% vs RHP) and Scherzer ( Arizona 88 wRC+, 24.6 K% vs RHP) have the better matchups, but Sale (Toronto) is a bit cheaper and struck out a season high 12 in his last start. He’s facing an offense with a 55 wRC+ and 19.5 K-BB% over the last week. If it looks like he may go undersold tonight (premium subscribers can check out Projected Ownership later), he certainly has the upside to compete with anyone on the board. Beyond those three, Trevor Bauer is the next best arm and the only other one of the board who has averaged at least six innings per start over the last two calendar years. Drawbacks are Kansas City’s board low split 16% strikeout rate against RHP and a forecast that currently suggests a mid-game delay. Tyler Skaggs has struck out 15 of his last 44 batters and has allowed more than two runs in just one start so far. He’s also gone more than 5.1 innings just once in his last six. This is not due to pitch count (93 last time out was a season low) or walk rate (6.9%). Maybe foul balls? The Twins have a 107 wRC+ vs LHP, but are without Sano and the peripherals tell a different story (25.3 K%, 8.0 HR/FB, 5.2 Hard-Soft%) along with a park downgrade for the offense here. Kenta Maeda has some similar issues with workload at a similar cost, but his 29.2 K% and 14.1 SwStr% are both fourth best on the board and he’s in a decent spot to prevent runs and reach six innings against the Reds in LA, though the contact management has been just average after being elite last year. Below them, Jameson Taillon and Luke Weaver have both struggled, but could be due for a bounce back. The former has a 55.5 GB% with a hard contact rate above 25% in just two starts this year. He has three or fewer strikeouts in four of his last five, but a 9+ SwStr% in three of his last four. The Giants have been better recently, but lean mostly right-handed and have an 18.8 K-BB% vs RHP (20.1 K-BB% on the road). The latter (Weaver) has allowed at least four runs in four straight starts, but his chase rate (O-Swing%) has actually been above his season rate in all four of those starts, while his 86.1 mph aEV is actually one of the better marks on the board today. The most enticing thing is his matchup in San Diego (split high 27.1 K% vs RHP). Marco Gonzales could be another interesting guy with reduced fastball usage, but the forecast for that game is high risk.

Affordable Exposure

Jason Hammel is undoubtedly one of the worst starting pitchers of Friday night’s slate (5.15 SIERA, .393 xWOBA) and Kipnis represents the most affordable way to get exposure to the Indians offense. Kipnis has been brutally bad this year but does have the ninth largest gap between wOBA (.235) and xWOBA (.321) of all hitters with over 100 ABs indicating that he may be in line for some positive regression moving forward.

Value Play With Upside

Favorable park shift: check. Platoon advantage: check: Pitcher that struggles keeping the ball in the yard (8 HRs over 43 IP this year, career 1.28 HR/9, 13.5% HR/FB): check. Add to that Miller’s respectable career 108 wRC+ and .191 ISO versus RHP and you have yourself a value play with some strong upside.

Value Hunting Against This Joker

With the need to pay up at pitcher, we’ll have to find a couple cheap bats. Along with a couple affordable Rockies and Cardinals OF, Joc Pederson stands out as a FanDuel value at $2,400 against Matt Harvey. Pederson has good plate patience which gives him on base upside against Harvey, as well as the power to hit home runs. Harvey has been beyond awful against left-handed pitching, making this a clear under-pricing.

Significant Discount

Despite Weaver’s underwhelming start to the year, he is completely mispriced on FanDuel where they have him listed for $5,900 in a great matchup against the San Diego Padres. The matchup also makes Weaver a strong SP2 play on DraftKings where he’s closer to appropriately priced ($7,900). Instead of talking about how bad the Padres are, the more interesting discussion is if Weaver is cash viable on FanDuel, and I actually think he might be despite some of the studs pitching on this slate. I’ll typically never 1) fade Scherzer in a spot like this (@ARI) or 2) prioritize bats over pitching, but I do think you’re getting a significant enough of a discount on Weaver in a prime spot that you need to consider it.

The Ace of Aces

Max Scherzer, Chris Sale, and Justin Verlander are all strong plays. On separate slates, they would all be considered the top pitcher on the board. With Sale pitching in Toronto and Scherzer pitching in Arizona, I’m giving Verlander the slight nod over the other two. He owns a 2.76 SIERA with a 35% strikeout rate on the season. He draws the best matchup of the three, as he squares off against the Rangers at home. The projected lineup for Texas has a 25% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching.

Taillon is more talented than his current numbers suggest. When all is said and done this season, I expect him to have better than a 3.96 SIERA and a strikeout rate of 19%. He has a high ground ball rate and he induces a lot of soft and medium contact. If he can improve his strikeout rate, he’ll be a pitcher on our radar every time he takes the mound. His matchup against the Giants is better than you would expect, as six of their projected starters have a strikeout rate of at least 22% against right-handed pitching. I’ll take Taillon at this price and in this spot time and time again.

They Are Both So Elite

Before you yell at me that you can’t fit both Scherzer and Verlander in your lineups, please read – I know you can’t fit them both in your lineups. But, quite simply put, the lower tier options are just too jumbled and miles below Scherzer and Verlander, that it would be disingenuous for me to call any one of them a Core Play. The only thing that deserves being locked in as a close to 100% Core Play is one (or both) of Scherzer or Verlander. While I prefer Scherzer, Verlander is just the slightest tick below with the high strikeout Rangers coming to town. Like Scherzer, the huge strikeout numbers give Verlander both a high floor and a huge ceiling. His 35% K rate is the 3rd highest among all starters this season and the Rangers 26.2% K rate against righties is the 3rd highest of any team.

Price Highlight

This is far from a good matchup for Odor who has been on the DL since April 10th with a hamstring injury but Odor’s price is worthy of highlighting. FanDuel specifically has struggled with accurately pricing players returning from injury and have done so again with Odor expected to be activated from the DL on Friday night. Odor is min-price on FanDuel ($2,000) and $2,900 on DraftKings. While the matchup isn’t a favorable one against Justin Verlander Odor does possess some pop (.195 ISO) and is an intriguing lineup filler if looking to spend salary elsewhere.

The Night Is Darkest Just Before The Home Runs

Matt Harvey has been so terrible against left-handed batters, that these Dodgers lefties take priority even above Coors Field tonight. With low strikeouts, high walks, low ground balls and high hard hits, Harvey has allowed a .421 wOBA and .288 ISO to lefties since the start of 2017. The Dodgers are fully stackable, but Cody Bellinger is the top play with his 43% hard hits and .294 ISO against right-handed pitching.

Does One Thing Well

There aren’t many things that Lance Lynn does well, but one thing he has exceeded at over the course of his career is getting right-handed hitters out. Lynn’s L/R splits are about as wide as you’ll see for a veteran pitcher with a large sample of work – .346 wOBA, 5.03 xFIP, 17.6 K%, 12.8 BB% versus LHB and .279 wOBA, 3.08 xFIP, 26.3 K%, 6.1 BB% versus RHB. I don’t want to paint this as a favorable matchup for Lynn against the Angels but do want to point out that the Angels primary lineup is very righty-heavy – they ran seven right-handed bats out against Berrios last night. Also in Lynn’s favor is pitcher friendly Hunter Wendelstedt who will be calling Friday night’s game. You can’t get close to touching Lynn in cash games, but I do like him quite a bit in GPPs as his extremely low salary allows you to load up on bats.

The Real Hero Behind The Mask

Matt ‘The Dark Knight’ Harvey is back in our lives, and so are left-handed hitters against him. Since the start of 2017, Harvey has Chris Tillman-esque numbers against lefties with a 14% K rate, 12.4% walks and 38% hard hits allowed leading to a .421 wOBA against. Grandal is a top play at the catcher position with his .235 ISO against righties. He is playable in tournaments on all sites, and in cash games as well on DK.

All Trends Point to Scherzer

Coming off a 15 strikeout outing vs the Phillies, Scherzer heads to Arizona to take on the DBacks at a $13300 price tag. Scherzer leads the slate with a K prediction of 11, the next highest being Sale at 8.7, he also has the lowest opponent run total expectancy with the Backs projected for only 3.2 runs(and dropping). The line has also already moved in the Nationals favor moving from -190 to -195 early. Mad Max has hit his expected point value in his last 6 starts and has been even more impressive on the road. Away from DC, Max is hitting his expected point value at an 80% clip putting up a +6 avg/actual points when he is this expensive. You can expect at least a 25 point floor tonight with Max if all trends stick to their path and makes him an obvious candidate for cash and a GPP target.

Brewing Up Runs

The Brewers are an offense to target tonight in Coors Field against Chad Bettis. Bettis is an average pitcher against lefties, with a 19.2% K rate, a slight ground ball lean and average hard contact allowed. Travis Shaw bats cleanup behind several strong hitters that should give him RBI opportunities, and he has the highest ISO, wOBA and hard hit rate in this lineup since the start of 2017. He is a strong play in all formats on all sites.