Bobby Dalbec Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

The Red Sox are at it again. Or at least the odds makers are. For the third straight night they are the top projected offense outside Coors by a large margin in Baltimore (facing a lefty). At 6.02 implied runs, no other team is within half a run on a nine game slate. In fact, only two other teams (Dodgers, Giants) have run totals above five tonight. While the Red Sox failed spectacularly on Tuesday night, at least they hit their run total last night, shutting out the Orioles 6-0. It’s virtually the same spot tonight. Alex Wells has thrown 36.2 innings with just a 13.7 K%, 28.4 GB% and 47% of his contact at a 95 mph exit velocity or higher. His only estimator below six is a 5.62 SIERA. RHBs own a wOBA and xwOBA above .400 against him, though LHBs are within five points of .350 too. And the O’s still have the worst bullpen in baseball over the last 30 days and by far the worst on the board (6.35 ERA/5.22 FIP/5.29 xFIP/4.78 SIERA). The right-handed core of this lineup are among the top bats on the board, including Xander Bogaerts (120 wRC+, .162 ISO vs LHP), J.D. Martinez (114 wRC+, .212 ISO) and even Hunter Renfroe (135 wRC+, .233 ISO) and Enrique Hernandez (124 wRC+, .220 ISO) with Bobby Dalbec (126 wRC+, .260 ISO) the lower priced value play. Jose Iglesias (117 wRC+, .151 ISO) is also worth a look at a low cost.

A Dodger stack is also great, but probably more expensive in a more neutral to negative run environment. While Vince Velasquez has a 50+ point wOBA split, Statcast closes the gap to less than 10 points with batters from either side still above .330. Vince Velasquez has faced 37 batters over three starts for the Padres. He’s struck out nine, but also has a 94.2 mph EV. The plan seems to be aimed towards less than twice through the order, but then it’s also shocking how poor the San Diego bullpen has been over the last month (4.97 ERA/5.07 FIP/4.79 xFIP/4.12 SIERA). Every batter in the projected lineup for the Dodgers exceeds a 100 wRC+ vs RHP. In fact, Gavin Lux is the only one below either a 120 wRC+ or .165 ISO vs RHP this year, but he does have a 164 wRC+ over the last 30 days.

The Red Sox are at home with hitter friendly weather conditions and have the highest implied run line on the slate (5.58). If you didn’t already have enough incentive to jam Boston bats into your lineup, Drew Smyly’s velocity and strikeout rate (20.8%) are both down this year, while the bombs are up (36.4 GB%, 90.6 mph EV, 21.2 HR/FB, 11.6% Barrels/BBE). Perhaps a bit unfortunate that 11 of 13 Barrels have left the yard, but the 5.27 xERA does nothing to absolve his actual results (5.11 ERA). He doesn’t have a single estimator below four and a half and RHBs have a .344 wOBA (.359 xwOBA) against Smyly since last year. The Atlanta bullpen has provided little actual relief (4.76 ERA, 4.50 xFIP last 30 days) as well. The way to differentiate here, might be towards the bottom of the order, where we expect Bobby Dalbec (176 wRC+, .384 ISO vs LHP since 2020) and Hunter Renfroe to reside (168 wRC+, .224 ISO). Dalbec costs less than $3K on either site.

A March 9th MLB.com article from David Adler was eye opening when it compared the first major league looks of two young players and found many similarities. Bobby Dalbec struck out in 42.4% of 92 PAs last year, but Aaron Judge struck out in 44.2% of his first 95. Also like Judge, when Dalbec did make contact (41 BBE), it was often loud and hard, connecting on nine Barrels. His xwOBA on contact was a hearty .577. No doubt the strikeout rate needs to improve substantially, yet the Judge comparison serves as proof that it can be done and if so, Dalbec could be the next great Boston slugger. While he’s dropped that rate below 40% this pre-season as of this writing, the bad news being it’s just barely (19 Ks in 51 PAs), but he’s also continued smashing the ball with seven HRs this spring.