DFS Alerts
Positive Strikeout Regression
Chris Archer slots in nicely as SP2 on DraftKings and a weather dictated SP1 on FanDuel. Archer has an unsightly 6.05 ERA through 38.2 IP this season but his 3.69 SIERA indicates he’s been pitching much better than his ERA would indicate. The batted ball profile is a little rough (40.5% hard hit balls) which is likely attributing to his high .373 BABIP. The strikeouts haven’t been as high as years past (24.6 K%) but his Swinging Strike % is actually at a career high (14%) indicating some positive regression may be coming in that area.
Weather Dictates SP1 On DK
As weather may be an issue for Max Scherzer and the Nationals you’ll have to look elsewhere for your SP1. Sale is the next guy up and a perfectly fine consolation prize on DraftKings. Sale isn’t available on FanDuel, so you’ll have to look elsewhere once again and you’re left with more uncomfortable options there. The Rangers injury depleted lineup has done a good job battling thus far but they remain a strong lineup to pick on with opposing starting pitchers – despite allowing five runs last night, Eduardo Rodriguez struck out 10 Rangers. Sale and the Red Sox are the biggest favorites on the slate and is the only high priced option that doesn’t have to deal with weather issues this gloomy Sunday.
Other tagged players: Max Scherzer Mini-Stack These Lefties
There are not a lot of full stacks that jump out at me on this slate, but I do like a mini stack of lefties Travis Shaw and Christian Yelich for the Brewers against Chad Kuhl. Kuhl has shown average strikeout ability to lefties, but allows a ton of hard contact and fly balls that had led to a career 1.48 HR/9 against lefties, and so far this season he has already given up five homers to lefties in just 65 PA. Both Yelich and Shaw have hard hit rate near 40% against righties with above average contact rates. Kuhl is better against righties, but certainly not a must avoid, and if you wanted to add to a stack here, both Jesus Agiular and Domingo Santana are at very nice price points.
Other tagged players: Travis Shaw
Back To The Stack
It’s right back to a Twins stack again today with James Shields on the mound. Shields had a quality start last week, but had been awful prior to that start and has an attackable skill set from both sides of the plate. He has low strikeouts and high walks to left-handed batters and allows hard hits and fly balls righties. This Twins team is well suited to make life tough on him with patient left-handed hitters with high on base upside, and the ability to hit for power when he throws strikes, and Brian Dozier can be added in for power from the right side. There’s also a bad bullpen behind Shields, adding more appeal to a Minnesota stack.
Other tagged players: Brian Dozier, Eddie Rosario There's Still Upside In This Arm
It has been a frustrating season for Archer, coming in with an ugly 6.05 ERA, but we’ve seen way too much strikeout upside from Archer over the past few seasons, especially at home to give up now. He does allow too much hard contact, but still his .373 BABIP is certain to come down. From 2015-2017 he had three straight seasons of a strikeout rate above 29% at home. While his K rate is down to 24.6% so far this season, his 14% swinging strikes are even higher than usual, and are reason for optimism. He also has one the highest slider rates of any pitcher in the league, a pitch that most of these Blue Jays bats struggle with. There’s plenty of risk here, but I like the points per dollar upside in tournaments.
Too Elite To Fade
I would love to be able to give you a non-obvious choice as the high end tournament pitcher today, but there is just too much to like about Scherzer to try and get tricky here. Even on the full day slate, his strikeout rate is well ahead of Verlander, Sale and Syndergaard, and he has a close to ideal matchup against a Phillies team that comes in with the 2nd highest K rate in the league against right-handed pitching. Scherzer has 65 strikeouts in 45 innings this season and hasn’t allowed more than two earned runs in any of his seven starts. I see his high salary as a plus, since that could help mute his ownership level somewhat. I’d rather take the best pitcher with the highest upside, and try to differentiate with my bats.
Ready for Some Positive Regression
It has been a rough start to the season for Chris Archer, who has posted an ugly-looking 6.05 ERA on the surface. However, his xFIP and SIERA are sitting about two and a half runs better than that, which is a massive differential. This is largely due to bad luck, as he has allowed a BABIP of over .370, which is WAY above league average. There is going to be some positive regression here, and it could very well come today with him pitching at home against a hit-or-miss Blue Jays offense that remains a little banged up.
Top Pitcher on the Slate
Scherzer almost gets the nod as the top pitcher by default every time he takes the mound. He is as consistent as they come, and the strikeouts give him a safe floor in every start. His ratios include a 37% strikeout rate and 17% swinging strike rate, both of which are absolutely phenomenal. I’m not scared of a matchup against the Phillies, especially since Scherzer is pitching at home. Lock him in as the top option of the day, as his numbers remain among the league’s best in basically every single pitching category.
He's Just Really Good, Folks
Francisco Lindor is certainly making his case as the best shortstop in the game, and he is locked in right now with four home runs in the first five days of May. Play the hot streak here. The Yankees are allowing Domingo German to make his first start here, but he likely won’t go too deep into the game. He has decent stuff, but this Indians lineup is a tough task for him. I’ll happily play a locked in Lindor at a premium shortstop position today.
It's All About the Splits
I love attacking the extreme splits of Chad Kuhl. So far in his major league career, Kuhl has really struggled to get left-handed hitters out. He has allowed them to post a .385 wOBA and 39% hard hit rate, and his ground ball rate goes in the tank. Power-hitting left-handed batters are elite plays against Kuhl, so now we bring Travis Shaw into the mix. Along with Christian Yelich, he is one of the only lefties on this Brewers team. They aren’t a great full stack here for that reason, but I like both Shaw and Yelich as options in all formats. Shaw has struggled a bit this year, and now the price tag is reasonable. He posted a solid .373 wOBA against RHP a year ago to go along with 26 home runs against them, and this is a fine matchup for him to get rolling.
Hunting for a Value Home Run
He somehow escaped in his last start against the Cardinals, but don’t expect a long-term miracle from James Shields. He still owns a woeful 12.2% strikeout rate, an 11% walk rate, and a 5.77 SIERA on the year. Shields has benefited from a 6.7% HR/FB rate this year after being at a rate of 17%+ in each of the last three seasons. He generally allows home runs like they are going out of style, and the Twins’ power bats are elite plays this afternoon. Regression is about to hit Shields hard, and it could very well happen today. On a points per dollar basis, both Logan Morrison and Brian Dozier are elite plays for me in cash games this afternoon. Both have reasonable price tags and some home run pop, and I think the Twins get the weekend sweep with a big game against Shields
Other tagged players: Brian Dozier Despite recent struggles, Jameson Taillon still has a 58.7% GB% and 25.5% HH%
Taillon was off to one of, if not, the best start to the 2018 campaign of any starting pitcher in Major League Baseball, as he allowed just two earned runs in 20.1 innings pitched while punching a total of 18 batters through those three outings. However, things have gone south in a hurry after he has surrendered 15 earned runs in his last three appearances combined. Taillon was a highly-touted prospect coming up through the Pittsburgh Pirates minor league system, so the stellar stretches aren’t necessarily surprising, but his early strikeout success was unprecedented considering he has yet to record a strikeout rate above 21.3% over the course of a full season in the big leagues. While an elite prospect can be expected to increase his strikeout numbers as he gains experience, Taillon seems to have settled into the low-20s in terms of strikeout percentage, which matches up with his career 21.0% strikeout rate and 8.3% swinging strike rate. That said, his 6.7% walk rate, 58.7% ground ball rate, and 25.5% hard-hit percentage are all useful statistics that lineup up well with Taillon’s prior sample size in the Majors, though that below-average hard-hit percentage could be due for some gradual regression as the season moves along. The good news is that Taillon doesn’t need to rack up a ton of strikeouts to pay off his middling price tag across the daily fantasy industry, and he becomes a lock-and-load option as an SP2 in cash games on DraftKings this evening. The matchup with the Milwaukee Brewers in a hitters park is admittedly less than ideal, but the combined 0.173 ISO and 0.336 wOBA sported by the confirmed Milwaukee lineup versus right-handed pitching should be more than enough to alleviate doubts that Taillon can succeed from a run prevention standpoint in this spot more often than not.
As reported by: FanGraphs
Bryan Mitchell has an abysmal -6.4% K-BB%, leading to a 6.53 SIERA
Mitchell is set to make his sixth start of the 2018 campaign on Saturday afternoon, and he been less than impressive thus, allowing three earned runs or more in all but one outing while eclipsing two strikeouts on just two of those occasions. Performances like the aforementioned starts have become the norm for Mitchell throughout his career, as he has accumulated just a 13.3% strikeout rate and an 11.4% walk rate in his four big league seasons, numbers that he has yet to improve upon as starter, posting a 10.0% strikeout rate and 16.4% walk rate through five outings. This leaves a career 51.7% groundball rate and 30.3% hard hit percentage as the only discernable skills in Mitchell’s overall pitching profile, which typically forces him to subject himself to the discretion and variance of BABIP on a start-to-start basis. That said, it doesn’t make a whole lot sense to delve too much deeper into his splits against certain handedness since Mitchell has amassed just 128.0 innings pitched in his career with most of them coming out of the bullpen in a reliever role. Further piling on, the matchup for Mitchell couldn’t be much worse, as the Los Angeles Dodgers lineup is loaded with left-handed hitters, and the two righties, Chris Taylor (0.215 ISO, 0.411 xwOBA vs RHP in 2017/18) and Matt Kemp (36.6% HH%, 0.208 ISO, 0.426 xwOBA vs RHP in 2017/18), have been more than competent versus right-handed pitching the last two seasons. The other viable players to target from this squad appear to be Yasmani Grandal (38.9% HH%, 0.232 ISO, 0.384 xwOBA vs RHP in 2017/18), Cody Bellinger (43.4% HH%, 0.298 ISO, 0.437 xwOBA vs RHP in 2017/18), and Joc Pederson (0.209 ISO, 0.379 xwOBA vs RHP in 2017/18), making them each logical members of a full stack in tournaments or even as individual one-offs in cash games across the industry, especially given the conducive hitting environment at elevation in Mexico at Estadio de Beisbol Monterrey.
As reported by: RotoGrinders PlateIQ Other tagged players: Yasmani Grandal, Joc Pederson, Chris Taylor, Matt Kemp, Bryan Mitchell Cheap Power
Justin Bour is a beast and way too cheap. He gets a matchup against Mahle who is giving up a 42.5 hard % against left handed hitters this season. Bour also has a .253 ISO against right handed pitching and is in a great ball park for power. This is a dream spot for Bour and is one of the better values on the slate the only problem is 1b is very loaded tonight, but I do love the Wild Bour.
Ryan Zimmerman (stiff side) scratched Saturday, Rafael Bautista replaces
Zimmerman has been scratched from the Washington Nationals original confirmed lineup and will not start in Saturday’s matchup with the Philadelphia Phillies due to stiffness in his side. He’ll be replaced in the lineup by Rafael Bautista, who will play center field and slot into the seventh spot in the order, which will bump Howie Kendrick, Andrew Stevenson, and Pedro Severino each up one spot in the order. Meanwhile, Matt Adams also will shift from left field to first base defensively, while Stevenson moves from center field to left field. It goes without saying that there have been some noteworthy changes to this Nationals order, so be sure to check out the updated lineup on the Starting Lineups page as they face off against right-hander Vincent Velasquez this afternoon.
As reported by: Chelsea Janes via Twitter