DFS Alerts
The Unplayable Became Playable
Eric Hosmer has been a first baseman that we’ve been avoiding in DFS for years. He doesn’t have nearly as much power as other first baseman and in the past we could only roster one player at each position. With first base being so deep, Hosmer was rarely rostered in DFS and it didn’t look like a move to San Diego was going to help his cause. Luckily, he gets to play in Coors Field tonight, which is the best hitter’s park in baseball. He draws a favorable matchup against Chad Bettis, who has allowed a 34% hard contact rate to left-handed hitters over the last two seasons.
Batted Ball Profile
There is an unwritten rule to never target hitters against pitchers that have high ground ball rates. Obviously, it’s harder for a ground ball to turn into an extra-base hit, but we shouldn’t apply that rule to everyone. Even though Trevor Cahill has a high ground ball rate, Joey Gallo has one of the highest fly ball rates of any hitters in baseball. This will negate Cahill’s biggest strength. Gallo also boasts a .375 xwOBA and a .332 ISO against right-handed pitching since the beginning of last season.
Flying Under the Radar
The Mariners are one of my favorite offenses to target tonight. They see a ballpark bump playing in Chicago and they draw a favorable matchup against Carson Fulmer. Since the beginning of last season, Fulmer has allowed a .371 xwOBA to left-handed hitters. During that same time frame, Kyle Seager has a .366 xwOBA against right-handed pitching. Seager is cheap, his ownership should be reasonable, and the matchup bodes well for him.
Truly Elite Start to the Season
Gerrit Cole is pitching better than he ever has in his career. All it took was a change of scenery. In his first four starts with the Astros, he has a 2.04 SIERA with a strikeout rate of 40% and a walk rate of 6%. He’s been attacking batters from the very first pitch in the count, which has allowed him to stay aggressive in every game. The Angels weren’t a high-strikeout offense last season, but they do have four batters in their projected lineup with a strikeout rate of at least 22% against right-handed pitching.
Bad Luck = Discounted Price Point
Masahiro Tanaka doesn’t give up a lot of hard contact, which is why it’s so strange that he gives up so many home runs. His HR/FB rate last season was over 20%, which is nearly double the major league average. Positive regression made sense heading into this season, but through four starts his HR/FB rate is over 20% again. The rest of his numbers all check out — 3.31 SIERA, 25% strikeout rate, 4% walk rate. We get all of this at a discounted price point in an exploitable matchup against the Twins.
Batting Order Doesn't Matter
It will be really interesting to see where they hit Pinder in the lineup tonight, as it will likely dictate his ownership. I like him either way, and I know people go crazy when someone is not towards the top of the order. The fact is, he’s on the visiting team and should still get four at bats here. He has a .460 xwOBA with a .190 ISO against lefties since the start of last season. Moore throws his fastball over 50% of the time, and Pinder had a .477 ISO against fastballs from lefties last season.
Let's Get Some Fly Balls
Jarlin Garcia is a bullpen pitcher that was turned into a starter this season. I would expect his numbers to get worse, and the xwOBA already suggest that could happen sooner than later. I really like the price on some of the Dodgers. Hernandez is projected to hit third for the Dodgers tonight, and he’s just too cheap for his upside. He has a .392 xwOBA with a .298 ISO against left-handed pitching since the start of 2017. He should benefit from Garcia being a fly ball pitcher, and we typically see groundball hitters do better against fly ball pitchers.
Low Owned In A Great Stack
I love Seattle tonight, and I like the middle to bottom as a sneaky way to stack them. I’d likely do it more on DraftKings with Seager, Haniger, Vogelback, Zunino and Gamel. I like Vogelback as a one off or part of the stack on either site. In 62 PAs against right-handed pitching, he has a .148 ISO with a .335 wOBA, but he has a .523 xwOBA. In his career, Carson Fulmer has a .362 wOBA with a 6.69 xFIP and 1.86 WHIP against left-handed hitters. He has a higher strikeout rate than Gonzalez, but this Seattle stack is still very much in play.
Khrushing Hard
Matt Moore….not good. Moore has carried over his struggles from last year as he’s allowed 14 runs (12 earned) over his first four starts of the season. Moore continues to struggle with control (9.9 BB%) and squares off against an Athletics team that will likely run out eight right handed hitters on Monday night. Khris Davis and his .259 ISO highlight the A’s righty bats, while Marcus Semien, Stephen Piscotty, Jed Lowrie, and Matt Chapman offer strong skill-sets versus LHP.
Other tagged players: Marcus Semien, Stephen Piscotty, Jed Lowrie, Matt Chapman
It's Actually A Sneaky Spot
We have some great spots to attack tonight, but not enough value pitching to do it with. I expect Stratton to be very low owned against the Nationals tonight, and while I like his upside in this matchup, he is very risky. This is one of the best if not the best pitcher’s ballparks in baseball, and the matchup is better than most will think. The Nationals projected starting lineup has six right-handed hitters in it. Stratton has a .281 wOBA with a 23.1% strikeout rate against right-handed hitters in 43.1 innings since 2017. He’s only allowed three home runs to righties in that span. The wOBA goes up and the strikeout rate decreases against lefties, but the hard contact rate and home runs decrease. Outside of Harper, I’m not too worried about this lineup. They have a .287 ISO against lefties but a .140 ISO against righties, and Harper has a .442 ISO against righties on his own.
Chalk Stack
The Rockies will be the chalkiest stack of the night and for good reason. Colorado will take on Bryan Mitchell who has struggled mightily to start the year. Mitchell has a 5.03 ERA through four starts and has pitched much worse than his ERA indicates. Mitchell’s walk-rate (18.3%) is 2.5x that of his strikeout rate (7.5%) and he has a 14.3% home run to fly ball ratio. The only thing saving Mitchell from extreme implosion is that he’s done a good job at keeping the ball on the ground (51.5 GB%). If Mitchell continues to struggle with his accuracy and the Rockies are able to get some lift, this one is going to get ugly fast.
Other tagged players: Charlie Blackmon, Ryan McMahon, Mike Tauchman, Trevor Story, David Dahl Same Handed Power
Jake Odorizzi is a rarity – a starting pitcher that has been significantly worse against same handed hitters over a decent sized Big League sample (.326 wOBA vs .288 wOBA). That’s good news for the trio of Yankees right handed power sluggers who may go overlooked on Monday’s slate with no lack of hitting options. The Yankees have the third highest implied run total at the time of this writing but are my top GPP stack of the night because of how they can score those runs – via the long ball.
Other tagged players: Gary Sanchez, Aaron Judge Non-Buehler Value SP2
Cheap starting pitchers with upside are tough to come by on Monday night. Walker Buehler (not available on FD) stands out as the top low priced option on DK but worries about how deep he’ll actually throw (unlikely to top 80) limit his upside. That leaves us with some cheap options with poor matchups (Kevin Gausman, Chris Stratton) or Trevor Cahill. I wrote Cahill up his first start of the year and he did not disappoint against the White Sox (7 IP, 0 ER, 8 K). Cahill has a similarly good matchup, in a more hitter friendly environment, against the Rangers who have posted a 85 wRC+ and 24.3% strikeout rate against right handed pitching to start the year. Whether you believe Cahill’s 2018 debut start was a blip, or if you think there’s a chance he’s back to his early 2017 self, there’s no question that Cahill has the highest upside of the cheap non-Buehler options.
Another Salary Too Good To Pass Up
I would have never imagined writing up Austin Hedges as a core play on a site where we don’t even need to use a catcher, but this is what the slate is giving us. FanDuel simply mis-priced these Padres bats, and Hedges just has too much power to be sitting at minimum salary in Coors Field. I was tempted to put Eric Hosmer or Manny Margot as this next Padres Core Play, but with Bettis’ biggest weakness historically being right-handed power, this is where I’m ending up. The one clear weakness in Hedges game is contact, he just strikes out too much, but when he hits it, it goes in the air. The one thing Bettis cannot do is strike guys out. For $2,000, I want balls hit into the air at Coors Field.
A Different Set Of Mis-Pricings
Each site has something that looks clearly mis-priced tonight. On FanDuel, it’s the Padres bats. They did not get the Coors Field bump that they should have, and I can’t make any case to fade them in cash games. Wil Myers is my preferred play here, as Chad Bettis has shown reverse splits for power. His low strikeouts offset the one weakness for Myers. Myers is once again hitting the ball extremely hard and has all kinds of power upside at Coors Field.