Jake Thompson Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

Amir Garrett (90.1 mph), Ian Kennedy (89.9 mph), and Ricky Nolasco (89.9 mph) have the highest average exit velocities on the board tonight. Kennedy (11.4%) and Jake Thompson (11%) have the only double digit Barrels/BBE rates. Garrett (41.8%), Nolasco (40.9%) and Matt Moore (40.2%) have allowed the highest rates of contact above a 95 mph exit velocity. Garrett allowed 18 HRs over his last nine starts before being banished to the minors, where he had basically league average peripherals and a 10.1 HR/FB. Two Mets batters tonight have both an above average wRC+ and ISO vs LHP this year. They are Jose Reyes (112 wRC+, .189 ISO) and Travis D'arnaud (150 wRC+, .239 ISO). The latter is a great option at Catcher on FanDuel for just $2.6K. Ian Kennedy multiple HRs in four of last five and has just one strikeout in three of his last four starts. Kansas City is not a power friendly park, but Max Kepler, Eddie Rosario and Brian Dozier all exceed a .200 ISO vs RHP this year. Batters from either side have a 330+ wOBA and 35+ Hard% against Kennedy. Ricky Nolasco's 33 HRs are the third most in the majors. His hard hit rate has been at least 33.3% in six of his last eight starts. Nelson Cruz and Robinson Cano each have multiple HRs against him. Jake Thompson is coming off the best start of his career, 6 IP - 1 ER - 7 K in Miami. He allowed five HRs with 5 BBs and 6 Ks in his two previous, one vs Miami. Batters from either side have a .350+ wOBA and 35+ Hard% against him this year. Daniel Murphy (135 wRC+, .231 ISO vs RHP) is the top play from the Nationals, though a top half of the lineup stack could be potent. Matt Moore has allowed a .444 wOBA (34.1 Hard%) to LHBs. The White Sox have just one (Nick Delmonico) in the lineup. RHBs have a 35% hard hit rate against Moore too though. Jose Abreu has smashed LHP this year (187 wRC+, .282 ISO).

Jake Thompson has logged 23 innings versus lefties this year and has struggled to put away LHBs, holding a horrendous 5.92 xFIP on the year. Thompson's 13% strikeout rate versus lefties provides DFS players confidence that bats like Asdrubal Cabrera and Curtis Granderson will be able to put the ball in play. Asdrubal Cabrera has been locked in at the plate, hitting the ball hard in 42% of at-bats that have ended with contact over the last seven days. Over that period, his 7% strikeout rate is a testament to how well Cabrera has been seeing the ball.

Jake Thompson has allowed two runs or less in each of his last four starts, but still has just a 7.8 K-BB% over that span. LHBs have a .393 wOBA against him, but RHBs have a 37.5 Hard% through eight starts. White Sox batters don't generally have a lot of DFS appeal, but there are three fairly affordable ones players can look at on FanDuel in the $3K to $3.5K range. Adam Eaton (125 wRC+, .172 ISO vs RHP since 2015) and Melky Cabrera (104 wRC+, .135 ISO vs RHP since 2015) have a nice matchup in a small park from the left-side, while Jose Abreu (134 wRC+, .204 ISO vs RHP since 2015) is finishing the season strong and hits RHP better than LHP.

The Nationals are projected for a slate high 5.7 runs against Jake Thompson, who has not pitched very well despite allowing just three runs over 14 innings in his last two starts (five walks, nine strikeouts). In fact, no other offense is even projected to score more than five runs. Batters from the left side have a higher wOBA (.381 to .340), but RHBs have hit him harder (37.3% to 31.6%). The normal candidates - Harper (124 wRC+, .204 ISO vs RHP this season), Murphy (161 wRC+, .262 ISO vs RHP this season) and Turner (148 wRC+, .227 ISO vs RHP this season) - all project well, but cost above $4K on Fanduel and $5K on DraftKings. The top half of the Washington order would be nice to roster (sans Werth), but are players going to be able to afford them among a plethora of expensive pitching options tonight?

Reason # 1: Over the last month, Jake Thompson is striking out only 13% of the hitters he faces, with both LHBs and RHBs whiffing at about the same rate.

Reason# 2: Over that same period of time, Thompson’s batted profile is not making him any worse of a pitcher to target with batters. When balls are put in play, he is giving up hard contact 39% of the time, and they are fly balls 38% of the time.

Reason # 3: We have a pitcher with a low strikeout rate and a poor batted ball profile, meaning we only need quality hitters to have a recipe for offensive production. Over the last week, the Braves have two hitters with wRC+ totals over 200, including Adonis Garcia and Freddie Freeman. Adonis is feeling it right now, only whiffing 10% of the time over the past seven days.

Jake Thompson brought a 16.8 K% from AAA that hasn't transitioned well to the majors over four starts so far as his 7.2 BB% has doubled as he's struck out as many as he's walked (14% each) with a 40.9% hard contact rate. Batters from both sides have hammered him equally well. The Nationals are one of several offenses projected for more than five runs tonight with several viable options. Aside from Harper (132 wRC+, .216 ISO) and Murphy (166 wRC+, .279 ISO), Turner (157 wRC+, .250 ISO) and Rendon (111 wRC+, .190 ISO) now give them two more formidable bats vs RHP this year. They're all fairly expensive bats though. Perhaps Clint Robinson (99 wRC+, .158 ISO vs RHP since 2015) is a punt 1B option for $2.3K on FanDuel if necessary.

It’s an unusual night, as a majority of the top spots for hitters give us teams we don’t typically like targeting hitters from. Fitting into that them are the White Sox against Jake Thompson. In his first three major league starts, Thompson has failed to record any sort of significant strikeout totals (16.2% K%), and while he owns a great 59.3% ground ball rate to left-handed batters, he also surrenders a 44.4% hard contact rate to them. Meanwhile, Thompson has a below-average ground ball rate (38.9%) and a 35.0% hard-hit rate to righti-handed batters (with a hard-minus-soft of 30%). This tells us Thompson has shown almost no ability to limit hard contact whatsoever. While there are no White Sox hitters that we really love to roster, there is possibly big upside to be found from Tim Anderson, Jose Abreu (118 wRC+, .349 wOBA, .167 ISO vs RHP), and Todd Frazier (.223 ISO vs RHP). We would would prefer to run out a full stack here in tournaments and hope the lineup as a whole gets into the action as the game moves along instead of picking and choosing one off hitters.

Jake Thompson should eventually develop into a solid major league starter, but he is clearly not ready at this point. Through his first two starts, Thompson has a 5.24 SIERA accompanied by a 15.9% strikeout rate and 11.4% walk rate. He has an extremely small sample size of innings versus left-handed batters, making it impossible to put much stock in the numbers, but he has surrendered an atrocious 53.3% hard contact rate to lefties thus far. We can make a case for nearly every hitter in the Dodgers lineup but our primary exposure will want to come from Corey Seager (149 wRC+, .391 wOBA, .228 ISO vs RHP), Joc Pederson (145 wRC+, .385 wOBA, .280 ISO vs RHP), Justin Turner (139 wRC+, .375 wOBA, .241 wOBA vs RHP), Yasmani Grandal (123 wRC+, .353 wOBA, .270 ISO vs RHP), and Josh Reddick (133 wRC+, .364 wOBA, .178 ISO vs RHP).

Jake Thompson was/is a highly regarded prospect that came over in the Cole Hamels trade. In fact, he may have been the prize at the time of the trade, though other arms have stood out more and may have passed him since. He had just an average K% split between the Phillies and Rangers AA systems last year and has dropped to 16.8% at AAA this season. His first start in San Diego was a disaster, striking out just one of 22 batters and lasting less than five innings with four runs on the board before he got out of the first. In a small park, though not incredibly positive run environment in Philadelphia, players can look towards a few bats in the top half of the order who have been at least average on the road and better than that against RHP on top of being hot over the last week. Those include Blackmon (117 wRC+, .209 ISO vs RHP this season) with a 243 wRC+ over the last week, Arenado (122 wRC+, .277 ISO vs RHP this season) with a 209 wRC+ over the last week, and Dahl (151 wRC+, .280 ISO vs RHP) with a 129 wRC+ over the last week. Only Dahl doesn't carry a very high price tag though. With Carlos Gonzalez and Mark Reynolds out, Ben Paulsen returns to the lineup and costs just $2.1K on FanDuel.