Danny Valencia Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections
A Great Value if He Starts
If you do decide to play some Baltimore bats, I will prioritize Danny Valencia, Tim Beckham, and Jonathan Villar, likely in that order. All three should be hitting in the top four spots in the batting order, and they have the best splits on the team against LHP this year. I’ve tagged Valencia as a core value today with his .372 wOBA and .208 ISO against lefties this year, and he’s also the only one of the three with a sub-$4,000 price tag on DraftKings.
A Cheap Lefty Masher
I know that this Bal lineup has been up in down for the last few weeks (or months), but one of the constants has been Valencia mashing lefties. Since 2017, Valencia owns a .198 ISO and .366 wOBA. He draws a matchup against Minor who has been less than spectacular this year. Vs. righties, a crazy amount of FB's (46%) and hard contact (41.2%) and is only striking out guys at a 20% clip. With the weather conditions being so great today in Arlington (around 95 degrees) its all but a garuntee that Valencia is going to crush his price tag.
Watch The Weather
If the weather holds off here, it's going to be humid and the wind is going to be blowing out to left field. Pomeranz will be making his first start off the DL, and while the Baltimore offense has struggled in general this season, Danny Valencia continues to crush left-handed pitching. Pomeranz has a .410 wOBA with a .258 ISO and a 34.4% hard-hit rate against right-handed hitters in 143 PAs this season, while Valencia has a .227 ISO with a .372 wOBA and a .464 CXwOBA against lefties in 2018. If Kevin Roth gives us the green light on hitters in this game, the value is really nice with Valencia tonight.
Lefty Masher against a High Splits Pitcher
Valencia is a guy who I like to target often against a lefty. On the year, Valencia owns a .244 ISO and .371 wOBA vs. LHP and a tiny 13.3% K%. He draws a matchup vs. Minor how doesn't really do anything well vs. righties. On the year he owns a 46.2% FB% and a 42.4% hard hit rate and doesn't get a whole lot of K's or soft contact. With Minor pitching in a hitters ballpark, a high FB and hard hit rate can cause some problems against Valencia.
Lefty Masher in a High Implied Team Total
I know BAL has been horrible this year, but you have Valencia facing a lefty in favorable hitting conditions. on the year, Valencia owns a .244 ISO and .371 wOBA and gets a matchup against a pitcher with only a 10.9% K rate who owns a 47.8% hard hit rate and a 6.22 xFIP. Everything about this matchup screams mispricing and so you should be rolling with Valencia if you want to pay up for some Coors bats.
Why does Baltimore have one of the higher run totals on the board against Wade LeBlanc?
The Orioles have been one of the worst offenses in baseball this year (90 wRC+ at home, 80 wRC+ vs LHP), while Wade LeBlanc has been pretty good (19.8 K%, 3.76 FIP) and even has a reverse split (.286 wOBA vs RHBs since last year). Vegas seems to have unjustified confidence in the Baltimore lineup though. Their 4.67 implied run line is sixth highest on the board. It starts to come apart a bit with LeBlanc's .369 xwOBA over the last month. He's both dominated and been punished by the Red Sox in his last two starts with two more difficult matchups against the Angels and Astros preceding that. The reverse split is also picked apart by xwOBA though which has batters from either side either two or three points above .340 since last season. Manny Machado (113 wRC+, .235 ISO vs LHP last calendar year) is the obvious candidate here, but has some hot bats behind him. Danny Valencia (126 wRC+, .218 ISO) costs $3.2K or less and has a 165 wRC+ over the last week. Mark Trumbo (99 wRC+, .211 ISO) has a 231 wRC+ with four HRs and a 76.9 Hard% over the last seven days.
Fly Ball Pitcher To Attack
I don't think you'll need a ton of value at third base tonight, but Danny Valencia makes a lot of sense if you want to pay down. He has a .198 ISO with a .357 wOBA and a .452 CXwOBA against left-handed pitching this season. He's not striking out a lot and his average exit velocity is over 90, plus he only has a 14.5% soft contact rate. LeBlanc has pitched well this season, but he benefits from pitching at home. LeBlanc is a fly ball pitcher that gives up a lot of hits over 95 mph exit velocity. I don't love Baltimore, but I'll get exposure to Valencia and Machado tonight.
Wei-Yin Chen sports a -0.7% K-BB% and 6.61 xFIP versus RHB through nine starts
Chen is set to make his 10th start since being activated from the disabled list in late-April, and he's generally been pretty atrocious outside a couple of outlier outings, as evidenced by a 6.13 ERA and an inability to make it past the fifth inning in all but three of his 2018 appearances. Chen has been absolutely shelled in several of those starts, and that is currently reflected in his 5.68 xFIP and 5.38 SIERA, numbers that appear to be well deserved considering he has been relatively on par with his career averages with a .289 BABIP and 71.2% left-on-base-percentage thus far. A large majority of his troubles are stemming from significant control issues (12.0% BB%) that had initially led him to walk more batters than he struck for a brief stretch of the season, and on top of that, both right-handed and left-handed hitters have combined to generate hard contact 38.0% of the time, which becomes a recipe for disaster when combined with a 47.2% fly ball rate and uninspiring 16.9% strikeout rate. The lack of command to batters on both sides of the plate makes this Baltimore Orioles offense an intriguing one to target in all formats, especially with a lineup chock full of right-handed bats, and Vegas has taken notice since the Orioles currently tied with the Cleveland Indians for the highest implied total on Saturday's afternoon slate of games. Even though Baltimore has largely struggled during the first half of the season, Manny Machado (42.7% HH%, 0.264 ISO, 0.423 xwOBA vs LHP since 2017) remains the obvious top option of any Orioles hitter given his strong splits against left-handed pitching to this point in his career, but he's closely followed by Jonathan Schoop (0.226 ISO, 0.426 xwOBA vs LHP since 2017), who may be overlooked by the masses due to his slow start to the year, despite his own impressive numbers against lefties the last two seasons. Then, just a tier below, Danny Valencia (0.182 ISO, 0.425 xwOBA vs LHP since 2017), Trey Mancini (0.402 xwOBA vs LHP since 2017), and Austin Wynns (0.455 xwOBA vs LHP in 10 career PA) are all perfectly fine options as members of a stack or as one-offs in large-field tournament formats.
A Cheap Splits guy
We all know that the Orioles are a dumpster fire at this point, but Valencia is one of the guys that's actually hitting the ball decent. On the year, he owns a CXwOBA that is .130 higher than his wOBA (.332 compared to .469) vs. RHP. He draws a matchup against Chen who might be the worst pitcher in the majors this year. Chen is only striking out righties at a 13.6% clip and walking them at 14.3% rate. Add in Chen's 41.7% hard hit rate and you can assume that Valencia is in for a monster day.
Manny Machado is surrounded by right-handed salary relief against an occasionally HR prone lefty
Jaime Garcia has allowed four runs or more in fewer than four innings in three of his last five starts. He has, at times, struggled with both walks (9.8%) and HRs (14.8 HR/FB) this season with a ground ball rate that's down to 42.4%. RHBs have a .346 wOBA (.347 xwOBA) against him since last season. The Orioles have a 4.4 implied run line that's right in the middle of tonight's board and will attack him with the platoon advantage in eight out of nine spots tonight. Manny Machado (132 wRC+, .267 ISO vs LHP last calendar year) is the top bat in the lineup, but nobody else in the lineup is above $3.8K on either site. Salary relief can be found with Trey Mancini (100 wRC+, .143 ISO), Adam Jones (121 wRC+, .137 ISO), Danny Valencia (115 wRC+, .217 ISO) or Jonathan Schoop (154 wRC+, .246 ISO). Austin Wynns (103 wRC+ at AAA) costs just $2.5K or less behind the plate and could be a competent punt behind the plate as well.