Jake Marisnick Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

Not usually a guy that we’d look to target, Heaney is a talented arm but has struggled since coming off the IL. This, combined with the fact that the night slate is stacked at SP, puts the Astros as the highest implied total tonight. Over the past month, Heaney has struggled to a 5.96 ERA, 5.72 xFIP and 5.15 SIERA with an uncharacteristic 12.5% BB rate. Heaney has been very susceptible to the long ball this year as he has a 53.3% FB rate and a 2.21 HR/9. Heaney is much more vulnerable to right-handed batters; since 2018, he’s allowed a .320 xwOBA to righties compared to a .268 xwOBA vs. lefties. The Astros will stack their lineup with 7 righties tonight: Jose Altuve (.450 xwOBA vs. LHP this year), George Springer (.444), Robinson Chirinos (.397), Alex Bregman (.377), Yuli Gurriel (.312), Jake Marisnick (.301) and Tyler White (.259) are all right-handed bats that are in play. Yordan Alvarez has a .516 xwOBA vs. LHP this year, though in just 18 PA; he’s a tough fade even given Heaney’s splits. Josh Reddick (.318) is also an option. The Astros currently have a 5.41 implied line for this matchup with the Angels.

Brad Peacock and James Paxton sounds like a pitcher’s duel or at least a high upside daily fantasy pitching matchup. They have a combined 54.7 K% with neither owning an xwOBA above .300. Take a closer look though. Peacock combines just an 8.8 SwStr% with a 90 mph aEV, but somehow has allowed just 6.7% Barrels/BBE and struck out 24.2% of batters faced. Over the last month, he’s down to a 21.2 K% with a 4.90 FIP even though his ERA has remained below four. On the season, he has a 5.01 DRA. There appears to be some luck in his game. However, since he has a massive platoon split over the last calendar year (RHBs .251 wOBA, LHBS .373), the best bets to exploit this potential edge appear to be Brett Gardner (97 wRC+, 188 ISO vs RHP last calendar year), if out of the leadoff spot, Aaron Hicks (133 wRC+, .214 ISO) and Didi Gregorius (125 wRC+, .232 ISO). With Aaron Judge (113 wRC+, .174 ISO) expected back tonight, the Yankee lineup could lean predominantly right-handed and if this is the case, it would be something more in Peacock’s favor, although Yankee righties hit same-handed pitching extremely well.

James Paxton is one of the highest upside pitchers in the league, but does not escape scrutiny here either. He rebounded from troublesome starts against the Mets and Blue Jays to fan seven White Sox in six innings with two runs, but his 5.71 ERA since returning comes with a 4.61 SIERA and FIP, along with a .334 xwOBA. He has a 41.4% 95+ mph EV mark on the season and even admitted that his knee still wasn’t 100% upon returning from the DL. A Houston lineup not at full strength still has enough right-handed pop to punish a compromised pitcher (RHBs have a .304 wOBA against Paxton last calendar year). Jose Altuve (158 wRC+, .255 ISO) is back, joining Alex Bregman (180 wRC+, .313 ISO), Yulieski Gurriel (135 wRC+, .210 ISO), Robinson Chirinos (117 wRC+, .194 ISO) and even Jake Marisnick (176 wRC+, .286 ISO) in southpaw destruction over the last 12 months. Important to note that the wind is blowing out to right tonight, giving a dangerous park a further run and power boost tonight.

Cole Hamels is off to an interesting start. Through three starts, he has a 32.4 K% and 15 SwStr% despite being down two miles per hour. He's also allowed five HRs (46.2 Hard%, 38.5 HR/FB) with nine walks (12.7 BB%). All that extra work has kept him from completing six innings in any of his starts. The enormous strikeout rate might entice players in a better spot, but he also still costs $9.1K on DraftKings. The Astros pummeled left-handed pitchers last year and are off to a 151 wRC+ start against them in 2018. There is only one left-handed batter in the lineup and no easy outs for a pitcher who has allowed a .335 wOBA (.347 xwOBA) with a 39 Hard% to right-handed batters since last season. The first four batters in the lineup (George Springer, Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa) all exceed a 150 wRC+ and .200 ISO against LHP since last season with Altuve (.204) the only one below a .228 ISO. The surprise here might be Jake Marisnick (131 wRC+, .240 ISO, 52.3 FB%), who's sudden found power could make him an interesting play at a cost of $3K or less despite batting ninth. The Astros have the second highest implied run line on the board (5.28).

Bryan Mitchell is set to make his second start of the 2018 campaign, and he was less than impressive in his first start against the Colorado Rockies, allowing five earned runs and striking out zero hitters in five innings pitched. Though those numbers seem relatively lackluster, performances like that have become the norm for Mitchell throughout his career, as he has accumulated just a 13.6% strikeout rate and a 10.0% walk rate in his four big league seasons. This leaves a 51.3% groundball rate and 29.5% hard hit percentage as the only discernable skills in Mitchell's overall pitching profile and typically leaves him at the discretion and variance of BABIP on a start-to-start basis. That said, it doesn't make a whole lot sense to delve too much deeper into his splits against certain handedness since Mitchell has amassed just 103.1 career innings with most of them coming out of the bullpen in a reliever role. Further piling on, the matchup for Mitchell couldn't be much worse, as the Houston Astros possess power bats up and down their lineup that also do a fairly decent job at making contact consistently, evidenced by a combined 19.7% strikeout rate versus right-handed batters last season. The best individual players to target from this squad appear to be George Springer (0.227 ISO, 0.398 xwOBA, 36.3% HH% vs RHP), Jose Altuve (0.200 ISO, 0.401 xwOBA vs RHP), Carlos Correa (0.238 ISO, 0.445 xwOBA, 39.0% HH% vs RHP), Marwin Gonzalez (0.218 ISO, 0.367 xwOBA vs RHP), and Jake Marisnick (0.289 ISO, 0.342 xwOBA vs RHP), though their hitting position goes a long way in determining their viability as one-offs or part of a stack of tournaments. The elevated price tags of most of the Astros will also work as a natural pivot away from hitters in the Coors Field game and makes them a logical stacking candidate in all daily fantasy formats on Saturday's main slate.

Outside of a couple of recent anomalies and a seven-inning shutout his last time out against the Los Angeles Angels on the road, Martin Perez has mostly been unable to keep up the magic act that has continuously frustrated daily fantasy players for the last couple of years. If unaware of this madness, Perez typically has had the uncanny ability to work himself out of jams and limit the overall damage to somewhat respectable totals in an unsustainable amount of starts. However, he has shown cracks in this aforementioned armor lately, allowing six or more earned runs in three of his previous six outings. So much of what makes Perez "successful" is his solid pitching profile to left-handed batters, evidenced by a 21.9% strikeout rate, 55.1% groundball rate, and 24.4% hard hit rate, all of which are above-average numbers. These skills are something Perez will have an impossible time relying on Tuesday night as the Houston Astros have exactly zero lefties in their lineup this evening. His previously mentioned skillset takes a drastic downturn against right-handed batters, posting just a 12.4% strikeout rate in 114.1 innings pitched this season while surrendering hard contact 37.1% of the time, leading to a lofty .364 wOBA and 1.34 HR/9 allowed to righties. This all sets up perfectly well for this Astros lineup, as many of their right-handed bats possess discernible skills against southpaws, with George Springer (167 wRC+, .416 wOBA, .278 ISO), Alex Bregman (161 wRC+, .408 wOBA, .235 ISO), and Jose Altuve (155 wRC+, .398 wOBA, .223 ISO) decisively leading the way for this Houston squad. On top of that trio, virtually any righty cracking the Astros order is more than viable on this slate with Marwin Gonzalez (108 wRC+, .330 wOBA, .204 ISO vs LHP), Jake Marisnick (119 wRC+, .345 wOBA, .209 ISO vs LHP), and Evan Gattis (.232 ISO vs LHP) being the other definitive players to target, while Yulieski Gurriel is better reserved as a last resort option to round out a Houston stack in large-field tournaments considering his overall struggles with left-handed pitching thus far this season.

Matt Shoemaker has the highest SwStr% (13.6) on the board over the last month for anyone with more than three starts and has been above 11% in each of those five starts, but allows a lot of hard contact in the air and faces the top offense in baseball. He’s allowed 13 HRs pitching in a power suppressing park and has only even pitched in one power friendly park this season with road starts in Miami, Tampa Bay, Seattle, Houston, Kansas City and Oakland. He allowed two HRs in that last start in Houston. Tonight, he faces a lineup without a top bat in George Springer, but we know he likes to throw that splitter down below the zone (whether he gets there often enough is another question), so we should be able to use PlateIQ to see if there are any strong matchups here. While the Splitter is not a common pitch with small sample sizes over the last two years for hitters, only the last four batters in the lineup have a below average Hit% against the pitch over the last two seasons. However, Josh Reddick, Carlos Correa, Brian McCann, Marwin Gonzalez, Alex Bregman and even Nori Aoki and Jake Marisnick match up well low in the zone where Shoemaker likes to ideally be with Brian McCann perhaps matching up best, excelling where Shoemaker likes to work lefties, down and away.

Gomez injured himself diving into second base recently further aggravating an injured rib cage and today the Astros placed him on the 15 day disabled list. 3B prospect Colin Moran will be called up and Jake Marisnick should be in line for more at bats with Gomez gone. No official time table yet on Gomez's return but he was struggling so expect the team to take their time bringing him back into the fold.