DFS Alerts
Big Discount with Upside
The Royals always seem to have a high implied total and I’m not exactly sure why. Their offense is far from elite and their home ballpark is best suited for pitchers. While they are playing in Fenway Park tonight, I still have little faith in Kansas City. Eduardo Rodriguez offers solid upside and is cheap across the industry. He should benefit from this matchup, as he is a fly-ball pitcher and the Royals rarely hit home runs, especially against southpaws.
Ace at a Discount
Charlie Morton is arguably the most talented pitcher on the slate, but he draws one of the worst matchups. While the Yankees are always scary to target pitchers against, their big bats have been a little cold over the last couple of weeks. Morton has the tools to pitch well in any matchup — he owns a 29% strikeout rate and a 59% ground ball rate. That combination is lethal, both from a fantasy standpoint and from a real life baseball standpoint. The line for this game isn’t bad, as Morton is a -150 favorite with the over/under set at 8.5 runs.
Top of the Heap at Pitcher
There’s very little separating the top three arms tonight, with Greinke, Arrieta, and Morton all having their positives and negatives. Arrieta has the safest floor with a matchup against the feeble Marlins, while Greinke and Morton have more difficult matchups. If I am looking for upside, I prefer Greinke at home with his low walks and high ceiling as long as he can keep the hard contact in check. Arrieta feels like the best play for cash games. I’ve tagged both Greinke and Arrieta as potential core plays, but it certainly depends on the format in which you are playing.
Other tagged players: Jake Arrieta
The Top Cheap Arm
I like the way Eduardo Rodriguez matches up with a relatively punchless Royals offense. Surprisingly, the Royals rank near the bottom of the league in walk rate and have the ninth highest strikeout rate in the league against left-handed pitching so far this season. That plays well in Rodriguez’ hands, as walks are sometimes his biggest issue. His strikeout rate is above league average, his swinging strike rate has soared to over 14% this year, and his peripherals are pretty solid. He has also done a good job of limiting hard contact, and the point-per-dollar potential is definitely there. When you combine the matchup with the numbers, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Rodriguez be one of the top five pitchers this evening in terms of gross fantasy points. Don’t sleep on him tonight.
Attacking a Weak Lefty
The Wrigley Field bats will get all the attention tonight, but the Brewers present one of the best non-Wrigley spots to target. They face a talented but woefully inconsistent Brandon Finnegan, who often struggles with his control and against hitters from both sides of the plate. Lorenzo Cain is my favorite target here, as he has strong skills against LHP and has mashed against them to start 2018 with a .440 average, a .538 wOBA, and a .320 ISO. Those are video game level numbers, and he could very well get five at bats tonight in this road matchup. The Brewers also have some possible value plays that generally start against lefties like Jesus Aguilar, so he is also in play as a value, while the likes of Ryan Braun and Hernan Perez could round out a Milwaukee GPP stack.
Attacking the Wrigley Wind Narrative
We have our first game this year with the wind blowing out at Wrigley Field, and that should lean to some more offense after both the Rockies and Cubs had poor offensive weekends. The Cubs swept the Brewers despite not scoring more than three runs in any game. They should fare better tonight, and I love the right-handed power bats with the wind blowing out to left field. Even though Kyle Freeland has reasonable ground ball skills, I am banking on having a couple of the Cubs RHBs in every lineup tonight, with Bryant and Almora (and very nearly Contreras) earning core play status.
Other tagged players: Albert Almora Expensive Stack
Another slate of games, another high implied run total for the Boston Red Sox (5.6). Jason Hammel is exactly the type of pitcher to stack against – a guy who isn’t shy to give up the long ball (1.13 HR/9, 11.2% HR/FB) and a guy who doesn’t have wide splits (.338 wOBA vs LHB, .319 wOBA vs RHB). Even splits allow you to more comfortably roster hitters without the platoon advantage. Provided Mookie is in the lineup, the Red Sox represent one of the more expensive stacks of the night. Complementing Sox stacks with Brewers cheapies (Hernan Perez, Jesus Aguilar) is one of my favorite (also somewhat chalky) GPP approaches of the slate.
Other tagged players: Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi, Rafael Devers, Hanley Ramirez, Eduardo Nunez
Cheap Stack
Brandon Finnegan has had a rough go of it in the Big Leagues. Through 252 IP Finnegan has posted a 4.03 ERA (4.70 SIERA, 5.89 xFIP) and has given up 1.46 HR/9. Calling Great American Ball Park home doesn’t help with Finnegan’s HR problems as GAB is one of the best parks in the league for power. The Brewers make for a strong team stack but guys like Jesus Aguilar, Hernan Perez and Domingo Santana make for good cheap fillers if you’re looking for ways to complete a higher priced stack.
Other tagged players: Hernan Perez, Ryan Braun, Domingo Santana, Lorenzo Cain HR + SB = Woohoo
As mentioned in the Lester blurb, both Lester and Rockies hitters make for strong GPP options on Monday night. If creating multiple lineups, I would recommend exposure to both. While temps in Chicago won’t be as hot as we’ll see at times this summer, there should still be favorable hitting conditions on Monday night with temps in the 70’s and strong winds blowing out. The wind-aided boost in power combined with Lester’s stolen base woes give Rockies hitters a ton of event-based (HR + SB) upside.
Other tagged players: Charlie Blackmon, Ian Desmond, Nolan Arenado, Trevor Story, DJ LeMahieu Jekyll and Hyde
It’s not very often that a pitcher AND the team he’s facing make strong GPP plays but alas, this is Jon Lester we’re talking about. The two biggest concerns if rostering Lester here: 1) We may be getting our first Wrigley wind of the year. 2) Lester’s inefficiency will tilt you like no other. The two most favorable things about rostering Lester here: 1) The Rockies just made southpaws Caleb Smith and Wei-Yin Chen look like Cy Young candidates and continue to be poor against LHP (27.3 K%). 2) Lester’s cheap price tag.
2018 Debut
Straily is set to make his 2018 debut on Monday night and will square off against the Phillies in Miami. Being his debut, Straily comes at a discount across the industry but shouldn’t see much limitation – he threw 88 pitches in his final rehab start on April 24. While Straily is about average in the strikeout department (20.5 K%) he does have some upside in this matchup as the Phillies have been striking out in bunches against RHP this season (27.2 K%).
Cheap With A High OBP and AVG
Two of my favorite value plays on the slate come from the same team. I really like Aguilar and Perez against the Reds tonight. In a small sample size, Brandon Finnegan has struggled with right-handed hitters. He has a 1.80 WHIP with a .346 wOBA against righties in 21.2 since 2017. He’s giving up a lot of hard contact in three starts this season, and faces a right-handed heavy Brewers team. Like Aguilar, I think Perez makes a lot of sense on this slate. Perez hasn’t shown the big power numbers against lefties, but he has a .293 AVG against them since the start of last season. At his price, I like his chances to get multiple hits.
Power? Check. Ballpark? Check. Plus Matchup? Check.
Two of my favorite value plays on the slate come from the same team. I really like Aguilar and Perez against the Reds tonight. In a small sample size, Brandon Finnegan has struggled with right-handed hitters. He has a 1.80 WHIP with a .346 wOBA against righties in 21.2 since 2017. He’s giving up a lot of hard contact in three starts this season, and faces a right-handed heavy Brewers team. Since the start of 2017, Aguilar has a .392 wOBA with a 52.4% hard contact rate against left-handed pitchers. He has a big strikeout rate, but we don’t have to worry about that in this matchup.
Cheap Hitter On A Top Stack
I’m going to be way overweight on the Cubs tonight, as we’re getting one of our first windy games in Wrigley of the season. Even though Freeland is more of a groundball pitcher, he’s just not very good against righties. He has a 4.01 ERA with a 5.02 xFIP against righties since the start of 2017. He also has a 12.6% strikeout rate against righties in that same span and struggles with walks. Almora should hit leadoff for the Cubs, and he’s been really good against lefties. He’s hitting .348 with a 406 wOBA and a 152 wRC+ against left-handed pitching since the start of 2017. He’s super cheap and is a nice high floor guy on this stack.
Will He Use the Fastball?
On paper this is a really good spot for Faria, but he has to almost ditch his fastball to make it a great spot. His fastball hasn’t been great against right-handed hitters this season, as he has a .278 ISO with a .394 wOBA with it right now. He has a .071 ISO with a .258 wOBA against his slider, to go with a very good 12.5% swinging strike rate. A lot of the Tigers are righties, and most of the righties struggle with sliders from right-handed pitching. Faria isn’t a core play for me, but with his 24.6% strikeout rate against righties since being called up last season, he’s certainly someone I’m taking a look at in large field tournaments tonight. Hopefully he throws his slider more than 30% of the time.