Brandon Finnegan Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

The Brewers have a surprisingly low 67 wRC+ against LHP without a lot of power (8.8 HR/FB vs LHP, 4.2 HR/FB last seven days), but that could change tonight against Brandon Finnegan, who sports the highest xwOBA on today's board (.411). He has just a 1.6 K-BB% with a board worst 45.6 Z-O-Swing% among pitchers with more than one start this year. It's not that he can't miss bats, but he can't find the plate often enough to induce batters to swing at pitchers outside of the strike zone. The Brewers have a 4.91 implied run line that's third highest on the board. In just seven starts over the last two seasons, Finnegan has not been able to get anyone out (LHBs .418 xwOBA, RHBs .349 xwOBA). Though the top of the order for Milwaukee is expensive, anyone with a competent bat against southpaws is in play. Lorenzo Cain (139 wRC+, .219 ISO vs LHP since 2017) is not only the top bat in the order vs LHP by xwOBA (.379), but also doubles as a significant stolen base threat tonight. Premium subscribers can great stolen base upside tonight on the Stolen Base Threat Ratings page. Domingo Santana (106 wRC+, .189 ISO, 43.1 Hard%) is the value play here. Considering Flannigan's substantial control issues, this lineup may work better as a stack.

The Cardinals have a 5.06 implied run line that compares favorably with teams playing at Coors tonight when they host the Reds and Brandon Finnegan in a much more negative run environment. Finnegan made his first major league start since last June and walked four, allowing two HRs to the same Cardinals he faces tonight. Right-handed batters have a 17.0 career HR/FB against him. That's 33 HRs in 802 PAs with a 41 GB%. Cincinnati is a much more power friendly park than St Louis, though Finnegan's home runs are split fairly evenly home and away (though more PAs away). He also can't find the plate against anyone and RHBs have a career 35.7 Hard% against him. Jose Martinez (220 wRC+, .517 xwOBA, .403 ISO vs LHP career) still costs less than $4K on either site. In fact, only Marcell Ozuna (102 wRC+, .111 ISO) has a wRC+ below 110 and an ISO below .250 against southpaws since last season among the seven right-handed hitters in tonight's lineup. Considering Finnegan's control issues, this lineup should play well as a stack, moving around the bases.

The top hitters over the last week are off the board for the night slate, but there are still four batters with a wRC+ above 200 over the last seven days on the board tonight. Two of them come from the Washington lineup. Daniel Murphy (.224 wRC+, 42.9 Hard%) has not struck out in 18 career PAs against Adam Wainwright and interestingly, he had a conversation with Ryan Zimmerman (203 wRC+, 28.6 Hard%) on taking advantage of his 95.8 mph aEV last year by finding a swing that allows him to elevate more. The early season returns have so far been strong. Additionally, he has three career HRs in 29 PAs against Wainwright. Other hot hitters include David Freese (203 wRC+, 54.6 Hard%), a potential contrarian consideration against Brandon Finnegan tonight, and Howie Kendrick (202 wRC+, 43.8 Hard%) with a much less enviable appointment with Jacob deGrom.

Rotogrinders Projections favor Jose Altuve and Mark Trumbo as the top hitters tonight as they flip flop the #1 and #2 spot on each site. Trumbo had just a 54 wRC+ vs LHP last year, but with a .212 ISO and he went deep last night. Altuve had a 141 wRC+ vs LHP, but faces an interesting young arm in James Paxton. Value hunters might look to Tommy Joseph on FanDuel ($2.0K), who projects for over 4 points per $1K of salary. He hammered LHP for a 140 wRC+, .281 ISO and Brandon Finnegan certainly had his trouble with RHBs (38.3 Hard% and 27 HRs). DraftKings projections like Matt Joyce ($2.4K) the most for value. Chris Sale, Jacob deGrom, and Rich Hill are in a virtual tie for the top pitching performance on either site.

Brandon Finnegan has not been the good Brandon Finnegan over his last couple of outings. His SIERA of 6.24 points to how badly he has struggled and how viable the Brewers stack may be today. Although Finnegan has a higher xFIP against LHBs, he has allowed RHBs to elevate the ball more frequently, holding a flyball percentage of 40%. The game today will be played at Miller Park, a field with a 1.16 rating for RHB home run power on the RotoGrinders Ballpark Factors tool. Domingo Santana, Ryan Braun, and Chris Carter have wRC+ totals versus LHP of 164, 157, and 138, respectively. Domingo Santana is batting second in the order and makes a great play in the OF as a single play, or as part of a Brewers stack.

Brandon Finnegan suddenly presents an interesting dilemma. Do players buy into striking out 29 of his last 72 batters or his previous season stats with a high walk rate and tons of hard contact (37.1%). More trust and usage of his secondary offering has led to more swings and misses over his last three starts, but a .248 BABIP still has his ERA 4.19 ERA over half run lower than his estimators. Are we really ready to pay $8.8K for Finnegan at home against a decent offense vs LHP (33.7 Hard%, 15.1 HR/FB), even if they do strike out 22% of the time. Usage of the new Fangraphs Splits Tool shows us that while RHBs do have a 40.1 Hard% with 26 HRs against him this season, that's dropped significantly with just one HR over his last three starts. With that said, we still want to look at several Mets bats here, who can provide some value at reasonable prices in a small park. Cespedes, Flores, and Reyes all have a wRC+ above 180 with an ISO above .300 vs LHP this season. Reyes is obviously not that kind of batter from the right side, but there's certainly some value in the other bats mashing lefties right now. Asdrubal Cabrera adds a red hot bat (243 wRC+ last seven days) to a 128 wRC+ and average power (.147 ISO) vs LHP this year. Travis D'arnaud has been terrible against LHP this season (40 wRC+, 0 ISO), but has a 171 wRC+ over the last week and costs just $2.3K on Fanduel.

The game log of Brandon Finnegan looks mighty impressive as the 20 strikeouts in his last two starts really jump off the page. The first reaction naturally might be to stay away from Angels bats. However, with the recent success, and the fact that Finnegan was widely expected to develop into a good pitcher, we should have no hesitation taking a chance on Angels hitters in tournaments with the suppressed ownership. We can’t just overlook that Finnegan has an 11.3% walk rate, 40.4% hard hit rate, 39.9% fly ball rate, and a 4.88 xFIP against right-handed batters this season with a 5.04 SIERA in total. Jett Bandy (162 wRC+, .406 wOBA, .316 ISO vs LHP), C.J. Cron (.185 ISO vs LHP), and Jefry Marte (.245 ISO vs LHP) should be at least considered in a tournament mini-stack, along with Andrelton Simmons for his minuscule price tag batting lead off.

The Reds and Diamondbacks are set to meet in a contest that checks-in with one of the heftier run totals on the board. This is a tough task for Brandon Finnegan, pitching on the road in a great hitters’ park against a Diamondbacks lineups that quietly now leads the majors in wOBA against left-handed pitching. Finnegan is also quite awful from a pitching perspective, accumulating a meager 17.5% strikeout rate, a 11.6% walk rate, a 37.6% hard hit rate, and a 5.21 SIERA this season. Finnegan has allowed a hard hit rate of 40.6% against right handed hitters this year. Just let that sink in. We can stack up the Diamondbacks with confidence tonight, and there is a case to be made for nearly every hitter in that lineup. A.J. Pollock (137 wRC+, .379 wOBA, .185 ISO vs LHP since 2015), Paul Goldschmidt (186 wRC+, .459 wOBA, .263 ISO vs LHP), Wellington Castillo (155 wRC+, .413 wOBA, .308 ISO vs LHP), and Rickie Weeks Jr. (156 wRC+, .415 wOBA, .322 ISO vs LHP) are the core options here hitting in the heart of the Arizona order.

The Marlins may be quite a bit more pleasant for a LHP without Giancarlo Stanton for the rest of the season, Brandon Finnegan still has the second highest walk (11.7%) and hard hit (38.3%) rates among qualified pitchers making that thought much less appealing. RHBs have a .334 wOBA against him since last season with that same 38 Hard%, while the Marlins retain two strong RHBs against LHP in this lineup. One without power in Prado (158 wRC+, .138 ISO vs LHP since last season), but with 145 wRC+ and 40.9 Hard% over the last week and one with power in Ozuna (157 wRC+, .251 ISO vs LHP since 2015), but currently slumping (14 wRC+ over the last week). However, Ozuna costs $700 less than Prado and is under $4K on DraftKings, which has to make him a strong value play there, while both may add something beyond a price tag $500 cheaper than that on FanDuel. You may wonder why Ichiro is hitting sixth against a LHP and we can only guess it's his 112 wRC+ against them since 2015, though with absolutely no power. J.T. Realmuto has just an 85 wRC+ vs LHP since last season and even worse this year with very little power.