Hunter Wood Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

Five teams are starting a pitcher who has accumulated fewer than three career starts, two of which have one and two more without a single major league start. Of the five, only the famous explorer Daniel Poncedeleon, who is making his major league debut, can be considered a starter. Heath Fillmeyer, Hunter Wood, Luis Santos and Luke Farrell are all relievers who may not even make it past three innings. Bullpens for those starters include the Royals (4.83 FIP, 3.7 K-BB% last 30 days), Rays (3.97, 11.6%), Blue Jays (3.96, 19.7%), and Cubs (4.95, 10.3%). One of those bullpens has been surprisingly weak over the last month, one surprisingly strong, but players know the attack spot is generally Kansas City, but that would require utilizing Detroit bats. Attacking the Cubs would require Arizona bats with an 82 wRC+ and 24.5 K% vs RHP, but with Pollock and Souza recently back in the mix. Three bullpens are above a five FIP over the last month, but there are problems there too. The Indians (5.87, 15.2%) have a nice K-BB rate and have recently added a couple of big arms. The Mets (5.47, 8%) are starting deGrom against the Padres. The Angels (5.06, 10.4%) could see some action with Jaime Barria averaging just five innings per start this year, but the matchup is with the White Sox in a tough park. One other bullpen to acknowledge is Oakland with Brett Anderson in a tough park and averaging less than five innings in his six starts, but they have a team 3.35 FIP and 17 K-BB% over the last 30 days and added Jeurys Familia over the weekend.

Although there are four afternoon games, both FanDuel and DraftKings are only including the first three on the afternoon slate. Pitching choices run from sub-optimal to unusable to not even really known. Both the Royals (Burch Smith) and Rays (Hunter Wood) will be working entirely out of the bullpen today. Among the remaining choices, Trevor Williams (17.3 K%, 4.75 SIERA, .344 xwOBA) will face a Washington lineup with a 4.88 implied run line. Lance Lynn (21.5 K%, 4.66 SIERA, .338 xwOBA) employs his 13.2 BB% in a great run prevention spot (Royals 81 wRC+, 7.9 HR/FB vs RHP) against a team that doesn't accept many free passes (6.7% vs RHP), but one that doesn't strike out either (19.6% vs RHP). The remaining options are Gio Gonzalez and Jordan Zimmermann. Gonzalez has an 8.14 ERA and 6.66 FIP over his last six starts with a -0.8 K-BB% and will be facing another somewhat contact prone team (Pirates 21.2 K% vs LHP). He hasn't struck out more batters than he's walked in three starts and hasn't struck out more than four in a start since his first of June. Jordan ZImmermann is your top pitcher for Wednesday afternoon. He struck out 11 Rangers in eight innings last time out and is now up to a 24.8 K% for the season. He's thrown 20 innings, allowing just two runs over his last three starts and is down to a .302 xwOBA and 3.64 SIERA for the season. The Rays have just a 22.8 K% vs RHP, but that's actually the highest split on the board this afternoon. Months ago, nobody thought they'd be happy to pay $9.5K for Jordan Zimmermann right before the All-Star break, but here we are.