DFS Alerts
Yankees have an implied run line (6.11) well above anyone else at home against fly ball prone Josh Tomlin (.459 xwOBA)
The Yankees have a 6.11 implied run line that’s tops on the board by more than three quarters of a run. Josh Tomlin has gotten tattooed for a .459 xwOBA that’s somehow only second worst on the board. Not all of his contact is exceptionally hard (88.6 mph aEV) and his 9.2 SwStr% certainly projects a better strikeout rate than his 10.5% this season and his 12.8% Barrels/BBE is indicative of a pitcher who often struggles with hard contact in the air when it all falls apart. While he has a career reverse platoon split, which is absolute death against this lineup, his xwOBA is above .360 for batters from either side of the plate with a ground ball rate below 40% since 2017. Gleybor Torres (95 wRC+, .103 ISO) is the weakest link in this lineup against RHP since last season. Additionally, only Brett Gardner (114 wRC+, .171 ISO) and Neil Walker (108 wRC+, .167 ISO) are below a 120 wRC+ and .215 ISO vs RHP since the start of 2017. Either as a stack or individually due to HR potential, players need to find ways to gain exposure to Yankee bats tonight. Aaron Judge (176 wRC+, .440 xwOBA, .342 ISO, 44 Hard%) has not been having a great week (20 wRC+), but could break out in an ideal matchup tonight.
Other tagged players: Neil Walker, Brett Gardner, Gleyber Torres, Josh Tomlin
A Little More Savings
I originally had Jose Berrios as my SP2 tonight, but with the White Sox rolling out six lefties, I’m leaning towards moving down to Walker Buehler against San Diego. There are more strikeouts to be had in this Padres lineup tonight, and the combination of Buehler’s strikeout ability along with high ground balls give him a nice floor/ceiling combo. My first lean is to pay up for two pitchers on DK/FDRFT, but if your bats don’t allow for that, Buehler is my choice.
Justin Bour (138 wRC+, .405 xwOBA vs RHP since 2017) faces a pitcher with a 4.5 SwStr% in a power friendly park
Players are not going to be looking at a lot of Marins in a lot of spots this year, but it’s important to highlight the one Miami bat with significant power in this matchup in Cincinnati. Justin Bour (138 wRC+, .405xwOBA, .253 ISO, 40 Hard% vs RHP since last season) has a 181 wRC+ and 60 Hard% over the last week. He faces a pitcher (Sal Romano) with just a 4.5 SwStr% this season and a .345 wOBA (35.2 Hard%) against LHBs since last season. Best of all, Bour costs just $3.5K or less on either site tonight.
Other tagged players: Sal Romano Chris Stratton faces a red hot Atlanta offense (145 wRC+ last seven days) that isn't just Freddie Freeman anymore
Chris Stratton has had some success, but an xwOBA above .330 against batters from either side of the plate speaks more to the quality of his performance without the park assist in San Francisco. He has to travel to Atlanta to meet one of the better offense and more contact prone offenses in baseball. The Braves the lowest of six teams with an implied run line above 4.8 runs tonight (4.82). Freddie Freeman (159 wRC+, .272 ISO vs RHP since 2017) may have some company among the stars on this team soon with Ozzie Albies (105 wRC+, .200 ISO) and Ronald Acuna (193 wRC+, .259 ISO), thought the latter has an xwOBA 112 points below his .446 actual wOBA against RHP. The six batters in this lineup with more than 10 PAs over the last week (minus Tyler Flowers and the debuting Jose Bautista), all have a wRC+ above 115 over the last week. As a team, the Braves have a 145 wRC+ over the last seven days.
Other tagged players: Freddie Freeman, Ronald Acuna, Tyler Flowers, Jose Bautista Zach Wheeler has struck out 16 of 47 Padres and Marlins, finds himself in another great matchup hosting Rockies
Aside from the high priced arms, pitchers in the mid-tier price ranges come with more risk obviously, but there are a few on the board who might be able to do some damage tonight. Zack Wheeler likely has the top matchup on the slate. He faces the Rockies (81 wRC+ on the road, 62 wRC+ vs RHP) at Citi Field and costs less than $7.5K (just $6.1K on FD). While he’s struggled in tougher matchups, he’s struck out 16 of 47 Padres and Marlins in favorable matchups this season. Aside from the higher priced options of Berrios and Porcello, he’s been the top contact manager on the board too (84.4 mph aEV, 26.3% 95+ mph EV), while running the first single digit walk rate of his career. Another point in favor tonight is that the Met bullpen has been so over-worked in recent days, he should get every chance to go deep in this game with any show of competence. Nick Pivetta allowed RHBs a .400+ wOBA last season and had a 24 K% with a below average SwStr%. Not only has he raised his swinging strike rate (11%) to support his 25.4 K% this season, but his issues against RHBs seems to have entirely evaporated (29.8 K-BB% and -7.1 Hard-Soft%). He faces a dangerous Washington offense, but for just $7.5K on either site. German Marquez is essentially a league average pitcher when stripping out Coors effects. Adding a negative environment to those results, he’s probably worth more than a cost around the $6K mark in this spot against the Mets. Garrett Richards will generate lots of ground balls and strikeouts when he’s on, but he’s also had some massive control/command issues this season that have limited his ability to work deep into games. There’s some risk in facing a good Seattle offense, but he does so in a favorable run environment and has more than enough upside to consider for less than $8K, despite his 10.8 SwStr% not entirely supporting his 29.1 K%. Joey Lucchesi and Walker Buehler face off in a matchup of impressive rookies and the Padres have a ridiculous 27.4 K% against RHP. However, this game is being played in Mexico, as Kevin notes in his early forecast, one in which he seems to have some serious weather concerns regarding this game.
Other tagged players: Nick Pivetta, German Marquez, Garrett Richards, Walker Buehler, Joey Lucchesi Gerrit Cole is the only pitcher to exceed $10K on both sites tonight
Friday night is our first full 15 game slate of the season, but that does not bring with it an extraordinary number of strong pitching options. Gerrit Cole is the only pitcher above $10K on both sites and the easy solution to your pitching problems tonight. Find a way to pay up and he’s more likely to give you seven innings with double digit strikeouts than anyone else on the board. He’s reached 11 strikeouts four times and just missed seven innings for the first time this year, by a single out. Even with ordinary contact management, his .253 xwOBA is third best on the board. There are four more pitchers above $9.5K on DraftKings (less than that on FanDuel). The highest upside of those remaining arms belongs to J.A. Happ. He’s struck out at least eight in five straight starts, elevating his fastball with darn near perfect changeup location as players can see by clicking on the Statcast option on individual player pages on Baseball Savant. One interesting aspect is that he has allowed six HRs this season, the price you sometimes pay for living up in the zone and the Tampa Bay Rays re-arranged their roster to replace those who have trouble hitting fastballs with those who do. Happ is not a flame thrower and probably not who they had in mind with this process, but it’ll be an interesting experiment none the less. Players still probably need to side with the high upside of Happ on a board without a lot of it. Jose Berrios struggled to locate in his last start, walking three Reds and not striking out any of the 17 batters he faced. At this point, it needs to be treated as an isolated incident, though his velocity was down a bit too. While many are aware of the strikeout upside, he really doesn’t miss bats at much higher than a league average rate (10.8%), but has by far been the top contact manager on the board (80.9 mph aEV, 2.9% Barrels/BBE, 13.2% 95+ mph EV, .217 xwOBA), something he excelled at last year as well. He takes on a White Sox lineup with Yoan Moncada back, but still down Welington Castillo. Gio Gonzalez is always a risk at a high price and that cost reaches $10.2K on DraftKings. He can occasionally toss a gem and the Phillies do strike out quite a bit (23.3% vs LHP), but also has control issues and can be out of the game after five innings (Phillies 15 BB% vs LHP). Rick Porcello has made some changes to his pitch mix this year after allowing a ton of HRs last season. He’s throwing a career high 40% changeups and sliders with a few more sinkers, which has all bumped his ground ball rate back up 10 points and keep the ball in the yard much more often. While it’s also increased his strikeout rate to 24.2%, his 9.2 SwStr% is similar to what it’s been in recent seasons when he’s had a league average strikeout rate. The Rangers represent a matchup with some upside, but he’s still not a pitcher with a ton of upside at a high cost in a dangerous park.
As reported by: Baseball Savant Player Pages Other tagged players: J.A. Happ, Jose Berrios, Gio Gonzalez, Rick Porcello Bad Issues to Have
I’m not entirely sure which Reds catcher will get the nod behind home plate on Friday night but both have similar price tags and should be presented with some run producing opportunities as the Reds host southpaw Wei-Yin Chen. Chen only allowed one run (solo shot) his first start of the season but had a lot of hard contact against him and was unable to generate swings and misses. Chen has historically had issues with the long ball (1.27 HR/9, 11.6% HR/FB) which is a bad issue to have when pitching at GAB.
Other tagged players: Devin Mesoraco
Elite Power Matchup
Bour gets written up as a “value” option quite a bit and it’s because he’s great against right handed pitching (career 130 wRC+, .233 ISO) but bad enough against left handed pitching (84 wRC+, .128 ISO) that his price tag stays low. This is an elite power matchup for Bour against Sal Romano at Great American Ballpark – don’t overthink it.
Cheap Pop, Good Park
Shortstop continues to be a position that I prefer saving salary at on almost a nightly basis and Crawford is my preferred salary saver at the position on Friday night. Not only does Crawford get a massive park shift in his favor with this game taking place at SunTrust Park in Atlanta, there’s also an outside shot he finds himself hitting in the top half of the order if injuries break his way – the already short handed Giants may be without Andrew McCutchen who is DTD with an elbow contusion. Crawford moves from a good play to an excellent one if he does find himself in a favorable spot in the order.
Another Slate, Another SP2
Another slate, another time a low priced Garrett Richards is in play as a SP2. Richards has had terrible control this year (15% walk-rate) but he’s also shown the highest strikeout upside of any option in this price range (29.1 K%). Outside of his bookend starts, Richards has been real good – averaging 23.6 DK pts over his other four starts. The matchup against the Mariners isn’t particularly strong but the run support should be there as LAA tees off against Mike Leake.
Average Is All You Need
At the time of this writing there are only two teams with lower implied run totals than the Rockies (3.9). To say the Rockies have been bad against right handed pitching this year would be an understatement – they are last in the league with a 62 wRC+ and are bottom third in the league in strikeout rate (23.7%). Wheeler isn’t going to be a guy that you’ll feel comfortable rostering but his price is nice – he’s priced as SP14 on DK and SP22 on FD (Bartolo Colon is more expensive than him on FD!!). Wheeler’s 2018 has been pretty average all around (22.1 K%, 4.09 ERA) but average is about all you need for this price in this matchup.
Home Run City
I really have no idea which high end bat to call the Core Play tonight. The outfield is absolutely stacked with Stanton, Judge, Betts, Martinez, Trout, Harper and more all in great spots. So rather than try to pick the right one there, I lean towards taking Gary Sanchez who is the clear standout play at his position. While you can always find an OF pivot from your top play, no catcher can touch Sanchez’ upside. Josh Tomlin is the most home run prone pitcher in the league, throwing a ton of hittable strikes and allowing extreme fly balls and hard hits. Take the upside at the scarce position.
Don't Sleep On This Lineup
The Twins could go a bit overlooked tonight with all the high end offense, but they face a control challenged pitcher backed by a terrible bullpen in a hitters park. On FanDuel, leadoff hitter Brian Dozier is noticeably underpriced at $3,300. It’s been a slow start to the year for Dozier, but we’re looking at a guy with four stright years of 100+ runs and back-to-back 30-HR seasons. He hits a lot of fly balls with solid contact skills and is just too good a hitter to ignore at this salary.
Savings All Over This Position
First base looks like an ideal spot to save some salary tonight on FanDuel. Justin Bour, Matt Olson, Logan Morrison, the list goes on and on. I lean towards Bour with a huge park shift in his favor for left-handed power in Cincinnati. Sal Romano has shown no plus skill against lefties, and Bour has a .253 ISO with 40% hard hits against right-handed pitching since the start of 2017.
A Fine Sneaky Stack
With all the other fine spots that are out there tonight, we won’t see much traffic on the Twins, especially since Carson Fulmer has pitched fairly well over his last two starts. I am still not going to completely buy in on Fulmer, though, as he has a meager 18/13 K/BB ratio over 25 innings this year. He’s had some good BABIP luck over his last two starts, and the Twins could give him some trouble tonight. I like the power potential and reasonable DFS price tags here, along with likely low ownership in GPPs. As such, this is my sneaky stack for tonight.
Other tagged players: Logan Morrison, Eddie Rosario