DFS Alerts
Value Pivot
It was Opening Day 2018. Baseball was finally back. I was excited for the sweat. Excited to watch baseball. Excited to smash. And then Danny Duffy against the White Sox happened. For those of you smart enough not to roster Duffy against the White Sox on Opening Day, here’s what you need to know – 4 IP, 7 H, 5 ER, 3 HR, 5 SO. It wasn’t pretty and it turned south real quick. Unfortunately for Duffy, his last outing against Detroit on April 21 mirrored his 2018 debut. So far this season, Duffy has been more bad than good but he did have a couple of strong fantasy starts sandwiched between the two terrible performances previously mentioned. The moral of the story: Duffy is not a “safe” option but he does have significant upside, even against a White Sox team that shelled him already this year. Including their Opening Day fireworks, the White Sox have been poor against LHP (87 wRC+) and have struck out an absolute ton (29.2%). If given the choice, I prefer Marcus Stroman over Duffy, as I think most people will, but the two being at a similar price point could lead to very low ownership for Duffy, making him a strong GPP option.
Paying up at Shortstop
Manny Machado is off to a solid start this season. He bats third in a potent offense and he hits both left and right-handed pitching well. The Orioles have one of the highest implied run totals of the slate tonight, as they square off against Mike Fiers in the hitter-friendly Camden Yards. Fiers has allowed a .345 xwOBA to right-handed hitters over the last two seasons, while Machado boasts a .372 xwOBA against right-handed pitching.
Bounce-Back Start for this Pitcher
Drew Pomeranz struggled a bit in his first start of the season. He failed to make it out of the fourth inning and he gave up three runs to the A’s. While it wasn’t the best start, he did strikeout seven batters. His SIERA for the game was 2.85, so we shouldn’t worry about him moving forward. He’s listed as a huge favorite tonight against the Rays, whose projected lineup has a .252 xwOBA and 26% strikeout rate against left-handed pitching. At only $7,500 on DraftKings, Pomeranz is one of the best SP2 options on the board.
Elite Arm at a Discounted Price
Do I want to play Corey Kluber tonight against the Mariners? Absolutely, but we have to treat each slate independently. Stephen Strasburg has a similar raw projection, yet he is $1,100 cheaper on FanDuel and $2,100 on DraftKings. Strasburg currently owns a 3.23 SIERA with a strikeout rate of 27%. A matchup against the Diamondbacks is better than it sounds, as their projected lineup has a .288 xwOBA and a 24% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching.
Control Problems
Stroman has been far from good to start the season – he’s allowed 21 runs (19 earned) over his first four starts (20 IP). A lot of his issues stem from his lack of control. He has a massive 14.4% walk rate in 2018 compared to his career 6.8%. Despite his struggles, Stroman has shown strong strikeout upside (21.7%). If he’s able to show control more similar to his career numbers this is a smash spot for a massively cheap Stroman against an injury riddled Rangers squad that more closely resembles a AAA roster.
The Position To Spend On
There are big bats everywhere, but shortstop has less intriguing values than the other positions, and just as much upside at the top. Detroit’s Mike Fiers has struggled with reverse splits power his entire career, and this Baltimore team and ballpark will not do him any favors. Machado, already an elite hitter, has ramped up his fly ball rate this season, leading to an early season 8 HR and .316 ISO. He makes tons of contact, with a strikeouts rate at just 14.3% currently after a 16.7% mark last season.
Take The Free Square
FanDuel has made another pricing mistake by forgetting to bump Suarez’ salary after coming off the DL. This is nothing more than a pricing error, and there is no need to overthink it. Against Phil Hughes, Suarez would be my top 3B at $3,000, just plug him in and move on.
Keep Attacking This Pitcher
Every Reds batter is in play against Phil Hughes, but after Joey Votto, Scooter Gennett is the guy I’m most interested in at his DK/FDRFT salary. He is hitting the ball with authority, coming in with a 42% hard hit rate this season after a 2017 where he posted a .261 ISO and 138 wRC+ against right-handed pitching. The combination of low strikeouts and hard hits from Hughes along with Gennett’s hard hit ability and middle of the order lineup spot, I will be playing Gennett in cash games and looking to go overweight in tournaments.
The Best Against The Worst
No pitcher has been more hittable than Phil Hughes over the past few years. He has three straight seasons with a strikeout rate below 15% and has back-to-back years with a SIERA of 5.04, and ERA’s of 5.87 and 5.95. He allows a ton of hard contact with no swing and miss ability. Joey Votto started out a little slow, but there was never any cause for concern here with his consistently elite plate skills and line drive ability. He has officially gotten back on track with home runs in three straight games, and it’s really hard to imagine Hughes getting him out unless he gets some extra fielders.
Another Friday Night Ace
There is a significant savings from deGrom down to Strasburg on DK/FDRFT tonight, and there is very little separation in skills. Strasburg is coming off his best start of the year with a 10-K outing against the Dodgers and his usual all-around strong skill set with a 27.1% K rate, 6% walks and 26% hard hits allowed. He is working on his 4th straight season with over 21% soft contact and has been above a 29% strikeout rate for three straight years. This Arizona team is nothing special against right-handed pitching with above average strikeouts and average at best power. At this salary, he’s my top cash game play on DK/FDRFT and a top tournament play across the industry.
The Ace With The Best Matchup
With four aces on the mound tonight, and not much separation between them, I’ll side with the best matchup, which goes to Jacob deGrom at San Diego. The Padres find themselves sitting at the top of the strikeout list against right-handed pitching this season with a 28.4% K rate and sit at 26th in wOBA and 27th in ISO. deGrom has also been in the best recent form of the aces, piling up 22 strikeouts in his last two starts and coming in with a 31.5% K rate for the season along with low 6.3% walks and a very low 23.1% hard contact rate. There is no flaw in his skill set right now and the matchup is in his favor.
There are no weather issues for Thursday night
Kevin has given us the all clear for all four games on Thursday night. Players can read this report on find more specific conditions for all games on the Weather page. Premium subscribers can also join Kevin on Crunch Time at 6:30 ET to see what he’ll talk about on a quiet weather night and also because you never know what can pop up.
As reported by: RotoGrinders Crunch Time
Nick Delmonico (neck stiffness) scratched Thursday; Trayce Thompson replaces
Delmonico has been scratched from the Chicago White Sox original confirmed lineup and will not start in Thursday’s matchup with the Kansas City Royals due to neck stiffness. He’ll be replaced in the lineup by Trayce Thompson, who will play right field and slot into the eighth spot in the order, moving Tim Anderson all the way up to the second spot, while Daniel Palka and Matt Davidson both slide up one batting position to fifth and sixth, respectively. Consequentially, this means that Yolmer Sanchez will now hit out of the three-hole while Leurys Garcia gets bumped down to the seventh spot. It goes without saying that there are some noteworthy changes to this White Sox order, so be sure to check out their updated lineup on the Starting Lineups page as they face off against right-hander Jakob Junis this evening.
As reported by: James Fegan via Twitter
Kyle Hendricks has allowed two HRs five time since 2017, three of them against Milwaukee
Kyle Hendricks has been doing Kyle Hendricks things this season. He doesn’t go very deep in to many ball games (five or six innings in all four starts) and doesn’t strike out a ton of batters (19.2 K%), but manages contact well (82.2 mph EV best on the board) and generally keeps his team in ball games. That’s more real life valuable than fantasy against a dangerous Milwaukee lineup, even without Eric Thames. In fact, Hendricks has allowed as many as two HRs in a game five times since the start of last season (and twice in his last three starts) and three of those five times it’s been against Milwaukee. While BvP is a controversial subject among DFS players, let’s look at the…oh, hello Travis Shaw (138 wRC+, .262 ISO vs RHP since 2017)! Three home runs against Hendricks in 17 PAs with just two strikeouts. He would seem like a reasonable play tonight. Hendricks does have a platoon split of about 30 points with LHBs at a .323 wOBA and .326 xwOBA against him since last season with a 34 Hard% and 41.3 GB%. Christian Yelich (125 wRC+, .169 ISO) would need to get the ball in the air at a cost of $4K or above on either site, something he often struggles to do. Jonathan Villar (80 wRC+, .121 ISO) costs less than $3.5K and would have significant stolen base upside here at the top of the lineup, but is just borderline in the sixth spot.
Other tagged players: Kyle Hendricks, Christian Yelich, Jonathan Villar The Royals have one of the top implied run lines on the slate (4.7) because Lucas Giolito has a -10.1 K-BB%
Remember the day because it’s not very often you’ll see the Royals sharing top implied run line honors (4.72), but that speaks volumes about how Lucas Giolito’s season has started (at least three runs in all four starts, more strikeouts than walks just once). He has a -10.1 K-BB%, which means he could add the top K-BB rates in the game to that and still might not be league average. With somewhat average contact management (just one HR allowed) he still has an atrocious .385 xwOBA. If you’re looking at Kansas City bats, it’s probably as some type of stack or mini-stack, where they keep the line moving and a big hit or two allows players to pile up the points. Jon Jay (97 wRC+ vs RHP since 2017) and Abraham Almonte (96 wRC+) are the cheaper top of the order bats (useful if paying up for pitching), while Mike Moustakas (129 wRC+, .286 ISO), Sal Perez (106 wRC+, .226 ISO) and Lucas Duda (127 wRC+, .281 ISO) are the likely run producers. Only the Moose with his Tacos costs more than $3.6K on either site.
Other tagged players: Lucas Duda, Salvador Perez, Jon Jay, Abraham Almonte