Brandon Belt Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

Despite the 28 team board on Friday night, with cheap San Francisco bats separating from the rest of the board by a full run (6.09 team run total) at Coors, the Giants are expected to be the most popular stack on the board with a bit more separation than you normally see on a full slate. They also project to smash the slate around 20% of the time or around two and a half times as often as the next “smashiest’ stack tonight (although projections are fluid and updated throughout the day). The affordability of San Francisco bats projects then as the top value stack by a more overwhelming margin than we’ve seen on any other slate this year on DraftKings, while the Reds don’t project too far behind the Giants on FanDuel. Of course, the Giants project one of the best stack ratings on the board tonight, but to find out which stacks may be the top pivots, check out today’s PlateIQ Live Blog.

The entire conversation is going to revolve around San Francisco Giants’ bats at Coors tonight. It’s completely unavoidable considering pricing (both theirs and the lack of high priced quality arms) and projections. The top implied run line of the day (and perhaps the season) by more than a full run belongs to the Giants (6.56) with the Rockies (5.44) and Dodgers (5.22) also about half a run separated from the rest of the board. The top three raw point total projections for batters tonight and four of the top 10 are San Francisco Giants: Brandon Belt (159 wRC+, .315 ISO vs RHP since 2021), Joc Pederson (102 wRC+, .223 ISO), LaMonte Wade Jr. (131 wRC+, .244 ISO) and also Mike Yaznothankyou (123 wRC+, .248 ISO). Antonio Senzatela’s control has been nearly elite (5.4 BB%) and yet he has just a 0.8 K-BB% because he’s struck out just eight batters over six starts including exactly one in each of his last three. Consider that his ground ball rate is down to 40.9% with a 91.4 mph EV and he’s allowed…just seven barrels (6.2%)??? Something doesn’t add up here. None of his non-FIP estimators fall below his 4.88 ERA, while including the contact profile emits a 7.03 xERA. Batters from either side of the plate exceed a .330 wOBA and xwOBA against him since last year. Flip it over to point per dollar projections (PlateIQ), you’ll also find half the San Francisco lineup, all $4.5K or less on DraftKings tonight.

Stretch out the arbitrary endpoint a single spot and both the Dodgers and Yankees (4.7) are the only other teams with multiple top 11 projected bats. Trea Turner (180 wRC+, .275 ISO vs LHP since LY) and Freddie Freeman (118 wRC+, .177 ISO) are expected to lead the charge against Madison Bumgarner. His 1.78 ERA is less than half every single one of his estimators, ranging from a 3.80 xERA to a 5.26 DRA. He’s struck out just 16.1% of batters with nearly a double digit walk rate (9.7%) for a 6.5 K-BB% that’s barely more than one-third of his career rate. He does have a bit of a split though with RHBs owning a .317 wOBA against him and LHBs a .282 mark since last year. Both increase slightly, but by less than 20 points using xwOBA. Mookie Betts (127 wRC+, .206 ISO) isn’t too far behind.

Aaron Judge (151 wRC+, .253 ISO vs RHP since last season) and Anthony Rizzo (111 wRC+, .212 ISO) are top projected bats because they’ve both mashed for a 140 wRC+ or better overall over the last 30 days, but Kyle Bradish hasn’t been that bad. After striking out just five of his first 41 major league batters (9.3 SwStr%), he struck out 11 of 23 Cardinals (15.6 SwStr%) in his last start without a walk. The contact profile has been a bit underwhelming with five barrels (11.4%) and an average exit velocity above 92 mph in each of his three starts. Bradish has never had a strikeout rate below 25% at any level of minor league competition and cut his AAA walk rate from 10.3% last season to 5.3% over 15 innings this year before receiving the call. Scouting reports still project. A pre-season Fangraphs report suggested he’s the type of guy who can run through an order twice with good stuff, but just a 45+ Future Value grade. He has exhibited an extreme small sample reverse split with RHBs above a .400 wOBA and xwOBA against him so far and LHBs below .300. That may or may not end up being something over a longer run, but is now opposite to the way Camden Yards plays since they pushed the left field wall back into a new zip code. This shouldn’t affect Rizzo much and Judge’s fly balls often travel through several zip codes.

On a nine game slate, no offense currently reaches the double digits in our Smash% simulations, but there are some interesting teams with strong Leverage and Value% numbers. On DraftKings, the Giants currently feature a strong leveraging spot against Yu Darvish, who didn’t allow a single hit or barrel in his first start, but did walk four Diamondbacks, while striking out only three of 22 batters. Darvish also suffered through a horrendous mid-season slump last year. In fact, LHBs have a .305 wOBA against him since last year that’s nearly league average. Brandon Belt (167 wRC+, .342 IS0) and Brandon Crawford (153 wRC+, .235 ISO) have both smashed RHP since the start of last season and both are fairly expensive on DK (though much less on FD), which should keep their ownership numbers down. Mike Yastrzemski (121 wRC+, .270 ISO) is much cheaper.

Along with the Giants, the Blue Jays and Royals look like strong leverage spots on FanDuel. Nestor Cortes came out of nowhere to establish himself as a key member of the Yankee rotation with a 20.1 K-BB% after being thrust into a starting role mid-season. Concern about repeating that performance starts with just a 9.8 SwStr% in that role last year, along with a 25.5 GB% and 85.2 LOB%. Toronto is expected to stack the lineup RH against Cortes (RHBs .283 wOBA) with each of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Alejandro Kirk, Teoscar Hernandez, George Springer and Bo Bichette exceeding a 150 wRC+ and .200 ISO against LHP since last season. Getting this lineup at low ownership seems like a steal.

The Royals present an interesting case. Remember, with leverage, we don’t expect to succeed very often, but when we do, the cash should flow in to more than make up for the failures. Dakota Hudson (2-3 IP this spring) worked his way back from Tommy John surgery at the very end of last season, but has totaled just 47.2 innings since 2019. He’s an extreme ground baller (57.6 GB%), but has produced strikeout (18.1%) and walk rates (11.3%) far worse than the league average through 249.2 career innings. He also has a near 50 point platoon split with LHBs owning a .323 wOBA against him. Another key here is that Kansas City bats are cheap. Andrew Benintendi (109 wRC+, .175 ISO vs RHP since 2021) is their only above average hitter against lefties, but with Hudson’s control issues, Bobby Witt Jr. ($2.5K or less) or Carlos Santana ($2.9K or less) could both pay off with a couple of walks and a run scored.

With Nick Martinez being somewhat of an unknown, who last threw a major league pitch in 2017 and has 415.1 innings of work with a 4.9 K-BB%, projection systems may not be sure how to handle him. While some season long projection systems suggest he could be a near league average starter after his work in Japan, the truth is, we don’t really know how his work will translate. He may be worth taking a flyer on for just $5.9K on DraftKings, but he’s much tougher to trust on FanDuel, where you only roster one pitcher. However, something to note on FanDuel is that no projected San Francisco starter tonight costs more than $2.7K. As such, we find several Giants projected near the top of the board in terms of points per dollar in LineupHQ tonight (PlateIQ projections). Brandon Belt (164 wRC+, .342 ISO vs RHP since 2021), Mike Yazstremszki (122 wRC+, .273 ISO), Wilmer Flores (109 wRC+, .187 ISO) and Joc Pederson (93 wRC+, .203 ISO) are all top 10 projected values on FanDuel tonight. In fact, nobody in the projected lineup has an ISO lower than Flores’s .187 vs RHP since the start of last season and Belt is the only one of those four batters above $3.8K on DraftKings as well. If you’re not using Martinez as a cheap secondary arm on DraftKings, consider sprinkling some cheap Giants into your lineup as well, although they do find themselves on the lower half of the board at just 4.37 implied runs tonight.