DFS Alerts
Value Play In Coors
Pat Valaika isn’t in the projected lineup, but he’s been starting at first base against left-handed pitchers, and Ian Desmond has been shifting to the outfield. Clayton Richard has a 14% strikeout rate against right-handed hitters since the start of last season, and he has a .373 wOBA with a 38% hard contact rate. In 86 at bats against lefties since the start of last season, Valaika has a 27.7% strikeout rate with a .350 wOBA. When facing a low strikeout pitcher, I don’t worry about the high strikeout rate as much. He has a .279 ISO with a .839 OPS against lefties, and has massive upside at his cheap price across the industry.
Chasing Home Runs
If you have played DFS long enough you likely have a pitcher that you just love to stack against, regardless of your success (or lack thereof) of doing so. One of those pitchers for me is JA Happ. In all fairness, Happ has always been a guy I target in GPPs due to his sporadic HR problems, which have already reared-their ugly head a little too start the year (3 HRs in 10 IP). Once again we’re dealing with not-so-great hitting weather to start the year but Camden Yards is very favorable to right handed power. Camden’s power friendliness in combination with the lefty Happ’s occasional HR problems make O’s power hitters strong GPP options.
Other tagged players: Chris Davis, Adam Jones, Manny Machado, Jonathan Schoop, Danny Valencia, Tim Beckham
Chalk Stack
Hey, chalk stacks can win GPPs too! The Rockies 5.5 implied run total may not be nearly as high as some of the gaudy totals we’ll see in Coors over the summer months but it’s still far and away the highest of the slate. Instead of telling you how good of plays Rockies hitters are, let’s talk a little about how to differentiate your chalk stack. 1) Roster hitters that don’t have the platoon against the opposing pitcher – i.e. lefty bats versus lefty Clayton Richard. People often weight platoon advantage a little too heavily so some of a team’s better hitters (Charlie Blackmon) may go lower owned simply because he’s not facing a righty. 2) Stack the bottom of the order. Just like same handed hitters often go overlooked in stacks, so do hitters near the bottom of the order. In reality, if you think a team is going to score a lot of runs, you’re not losing very many expected plate appearances by using hitters toward the bottom of a lineup.
Other tagged players: Charlie Blackmon, DJ LeMahieu, Chris Iannetta, Ian Desmond, Carlos Gonzalez, Trevor Story Great Spot To Target
Kole Calhoun is probably my favorite value play outside of Coors Field tonight. In 46.1 innings since the start of last season against left-handed hitters, Doug Fister has a .358 wOBA with a 41.1% hard contact rate. Even in his last healthy season (2016), he had a .400 wOBA with a 37.5% hard contact rate against left-handed hitters. The Angels don’t have a lot of left-handed hitters, but we can certainly take advantage of Calhoun. After a hot and cold 2017, Calhoun has a 45.5% hard contact rate in 31 ABs against righties this season.
Too Cheap For This Slate
We have some great pitchers and hitters to pay up for on this slate, and that makes Fowler an elite value play hitting leadoff here. While Jhoulys Chacin was above average against right-handed hitters last season, he has really struggled with left-handed hitters. Since the start of last season, he has a .344 wOBA with a 1.56 WHIP against left-handed hitters. In that same span, Fowler has a .357 wOBA with a .235 ISO against right-handed pitching. Don’t let the slow start scare you off, and take advantage of this value.
Monday’s PIT-CHC game postponed due to inclement weather
The matchup between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs on Monday afternoon has been postponed due to inclement weather. The teams have already announced that today’s previously scheduled game will be made up tomorrow, April 10 at 1:20 pm local time, which was a mutual day off for both clubs.
As reported by: Rob Biertempfel via Twitter
Too Cheap For These Skills
Given the high priced aces with elite bats to pay for tonight, we’re going to need to save salary at SP2, at least in tournaments. Richards is priced as if he is not yet back to full health. He may not be quite 100% of what he was in 2014, but the velocity and K% say he’s just about there. When you combine his strikeout upside with ground balls and soft contact, it’s a nice combo of floor and ceiling. This matchup is not without risk, but everything below the Scherzer/Syndergaard tier has risk tonight.
The Ideal Matchup
There are so many high end bats to pay up for tonight, but along with Arenado, Bryce Harper against Julio Teheran jumps off the page. Teheran is just not good against lefties, and Harper has everything in his favor. In 39 career AB against Teheran, he has eight home runs and a 1.707 OPS. He’s either going to get four walks and likely score runs, or he’s going to get a pitch to hit, and it will be long gone.
Give the BABIP Some Time
Early in the season, we see lots of examples of proven players coming out of the gate slowly. Sometimes there is a reason for concern, but sometimes it’s nothing more than BABIP variance. And in those cases, we get a significant salary savings while we wait for the BABIP to catch up. Fowler has 9 straight seasons of a BABIP over .300. He is still hitting the ball the same as ever, but simply has a .143 BABIP through a small sample size. Take the savings.
Coin Toss For The Top Two
It’s a virtual tie at the top between the elite arms of Max Scherzer and Noah Syndergaard. With Scherzer facing the touger opponent, I’m going to side with Syndergaard going into a good pitching environment in Miami. While his ERA for the season looks ugly from a couple rough innings, 17 strikeouts in 10 innings shows the immense upside. His ground ball and soft contact skills add safety to go along with the upside.
The Top Bat By A Mile
Nolan Arenado falls into the “don’t overthink it” category tonight at Coors Field against Clayton Richard. Richard’s only skill is ground balls via the sinker. At this altitude, where his sinker won’t sink, he is in a world of trouble against the Colorado righties. In 2017 against lefties, Arenado had just a 10.3% strikeout rate and his 45% fly ball rate led to an incredible 16 HR in 150 AB along with a .534 wOBA and .420 ISO
Mike Fiers surrendered 1.98 HR/9 to RHB last season
Fiers is set to make his season and Detroit Tigers debut in Sunday’s matchup with the Chicago White Sox, and he finds himself in an interesting spot where he has the potential to be a viable tournament target at pitcher given his solid strikeout ability (21.8% K% in 2017) and how strikeout prone this White Sox lineup can be at times, evidenced by their combined 25.2% strikeout rate versus right-handed pitching last season. However, there is just as much tournament upside the Chicago power hitters, as Fiers surrendered 1.88 HR/9 during the 2017 campaign, not far off from his career 1.35 HR/9 rate that correlates logically with his career 38.2% fly ball and 32.1% hard hit percentages. Fiers doesn’t walk as many right-handed batters (7.4% BB%), but that’s really the only aspect of his pitching profile that has consistently been stronger against righties than left-handed hitters, indicating a strong lean towards reverse splits tendencies. This is good news for White Sox hitters like Jose Abreu (0.240 ISO, 0.398 xwOBA, 40.3% HH% vs RHP), Avisail Garcia (0.416 xwOBA vs RHP), Matt Davidson (0.245 ISO, 0.457 xwOBA, 39.7% HH% vs RHP), and Welington Castillo (0.202 ISO, 0.428 xwOBA vs RHP), especially given the former’s combined power and contact skills. Nick Delmonico (0.212 ISO vs RHP) and Yoan Moncada (0.209 ISO, 0.429 xwOBA, 41.2% HH% vs RHP) join Davidson and Castillo as prototypical boom-or-bust options from the left-side of the plate, but they both still possess the upside to receive consideration for full or mini stack variations in tournament formats on today’s slates.
As reported by: FanGraphs Other tagged players: Avisail Garcia, Matt Davidson, Welington Castillo, Nicky Delmonico, Yoan Moncada, Mike Fiers Just Too Cheap For Leadoff
As I’m building lineups today, I just can’t keep Fowler ouf of my lineups at this salary on DK/FRDFT. Taijuan Walker is not a bad pitcher, but he’s basically just average against left-handed batters. Fowler hits the ball hard, has the speed to continue posting a high BABIP and just has too much floor and upside for this salary from the leadoff spot today.
Outside of the SEA-MIN PPD, no major issues in Sunday's MLB weather forecast
The matchup between the Seattle Mariners and Minnesota Twins was already postponed earlier Sunday morning, but the rest of the remaining games on today’s slates should play through without any issues, according to Kevin Roth’s latest updated MLB weather forecast. The game in Cleveland did receive a grade of GREEN/YELLOW for the low chance of snow flurries and bitter cold but neither the Kansas City Royals or Indians have expressed concerns about the weather and the matchup appears set to go off without a hitch. That being said, be sure to check out the full updated forecast on the MLB Weather page linked below for all your weather-based daily fantasy needs.
As reported by: RotoGrinders MLB Weather Luke Weaver has recorded a 3.52 SIERA and 20.0% K-BB% in 101.2 career IP
Weaver is coming off of a bit of a disappointing season debut against the New York Mets, recording just three strikeouts in five innings of one-run ball, but he still has the potential to end up as the top value at the starting pitcher position on the early main slates across the industry on Sunday afternoon. Weaver flashed some serious upside in his second stint in the Majors during the 2017 season and, though the sample size isn’t tremendous, posted a 3.29 SIERA that is significantly lower than his career 4.43 ERA, indicating he should be in line for some positive regression in the run prevention department. In addition, his overall pitching profile also checks out to this point, as Weaver recorded a 28.6% strikeout rate, 6.8% walk rate, 50.0% ground ball rate, and just a 25.9% hard-hit percentage in 60.1 innings pitched last season. Weaver did surrender a bit more hard contact to right-handed batters (29.3%) over that stretch, which could be a bit of an issue against this Arizona Diamondbacks lineup that sports some significant power from the right side of the plate, but even if that hard-hit percentage sustains itself into this year, it is roughly the league average and shouldn’t be considered a negative factor when rostering Weaver in daily fantasy formats. One potential red flag with Weaver’s strikeout skill set is the 9.8% swinging strike rate he registered in 2017, and while swinging strikes aren’t the end-all-be-all of predicting future strikeout success rates, it does help to have that in a pitcher’s arsenal since called-strikes can be inconsistent, to say the least. Weaver is priced as a significant value for his aforementioned skillset across the industry and is a logical target in tournament formats as an SP2 on DraftKings or just as a general salary saver on FanDuel.
As reported by: FanGraphs