Jeff Hoffman Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

One glance at his 7.35 ERA and it’s hard to even consider rostering Hoffman, but it does come over a small sample of 45 innings on the year, and 6 of his 10 starts have been in Coors. He has a 5.17 xFIP and 4.85 SIERA which suggests he’s been much better than the ERA does. Hoffman also has a respectable K-BB% of 12.8% and his 9.9% SwStr isn’t exactly terrible, either. Hoffman will get the start in pitcher-friendly Petco Park tonight versus a Padres team that just isn’t very good, especially without Fernando Tatis Jr. Since Tatis Jr. was placed on the IL (8/14), the Padres have a league-worst .267 xwOBA vs. RHP with a 24.7% K rate. Their projected lineup doesn’t have a single batter with an xwOBA greater than .330 vs. RHP on the year, and just 5 batters have an xwOBA vs. RHP greater than .290. Hoffman is obviously not without risk, but he gets a cake matchup here and is priced $5.5k or less on both major sites tonight. He is especially intriguing on DK where he can be paired with a guy like Verlander to free up some salary for decent bats. The Padres currently have an implied total of 4.82 for tonight.

Once a promising prospect, Jeff Hoffman hasn’t really put together a good season at any level since 2016. In 35.2 innings in AAA this year Hoffman had a 7.20 ERA / 5.36 xFIP with a 2.02 HR/9 and a 10.2% walk rate. Most projection systems have Hoffman at a 5+ ERA at the MLB level for 2019. The Orioles have a healthy 5.27 implied total currently vs. Hoffman, but maybe that’s too low given the matchup and environment. Dwight Smith Jr. (.343 xwOBA vs. RHP this year), Trey Mancini (.337), Pedro Severino (.331), Chris Davis (.322), Rio Ruiz (.317), Jonathan Villar (.310) and Stevie Wilkerson (.309) are all in the O’s projected lineup and have been decent bats vs. RHP this year. Rio Ruiz (.364 xwOBA over the past 10 days) and Trey Mancini (.360) have been the Orioles’ hottest hitters of late, while Chris Davis (.144) has seemingly fallen into another cold streak. Rio Ruiz is just $3.8k and is easily the best value in the lineup. Villar and Wilkerson project to bat 1-2 in the order and are both under $4.8k. Davis and Severino are all available under $4k tonight.

At first glance, one might wonder why the Mariners have a 5.68 implied run line more than a full run below the home team at Coors tonight despite the obviously better offense when both teams are utilizing spot starters tonight. Then you realize it's an NL park, which means no Nelson Cruz. Jeff Hoffman is the new pitcher. His only July action was eight days ago, when he faced 16 AAA batters. He's faced a bit over 300 batters from either side of the plate in his major league career. RHBs (.392 wOBA, 12 HRs) have hit him better than LHBs (.323 wOBA, 10 HRs), while he's been below a 10% K-BB with a 43 GB% in both rates. LHBs (36.4%) have made slightly harder contact than RHBs (32.7%). A disappointing bullpen is likely to see a lot of action in this one. Mitch Haniger (140 wRC+, .238 ISO) and Denard Span (119 wRC+, .182 ISO) have been the best hitters in the lineup against RHP over the last calender year. Dee Gordon (88 wRC+, .071 ISO), Jean Segura (101 wRC+, .124 ISO) and Kyle Seager (95 wRC+, .212 ISO) all have some value as upper half of the lineup bats in this spot.

The RotoGrinders Player Projections like Coors bats tonight with Charlie Blackmon, Paul Goldschmidt, Jake Lamb, and Nolan Arenado all among the top five overall point projections along with Aaron Judge at home against Ricky Nolasco. Colorado and the Yankees are the two offenses with implied run lines above six tonight with Arizona a bit lower a 5.44 currently. The pitching at Coors does have the talent to foil plans. Jeff Hoffman has a 28.4 K% and 2.25 ERA with an 11.3 SwStr% and 3.37 SIERA that are only slightly less optimistic. Taijuan Walker had a strong April before a poor May led to a DL stint. He bounced back with a strong start last time out and is a talented pitcher when healthy. Among players projected for at least seven DK points, Wilmer Flores (vs Rich Hill) and Miguel Sano (vs David Holmberg) project as top values (both at 2.54 Pt/$/K). Sano costs just $3.9K! Projections for FanDuel like Robbie Grossman (3.74 Pt/$/K) from the same lineup and Jedd Gyorko (3.69 Pt/$/K) as top values.

Chris Sale is the unquestioned king of this slate. The Daily K Predictor (8.75) has him with a one strikeout lead over Verlander and three more than anybody else with a double digit point projection lead via the RotoGrinders Player Projections against all other pitchers. Fade at your own risk against the Phillies because massive ownership concerns are really the only reason one can think of not to use him tonight. If not him, then who else though? While also considering you'll need a second pitcher on DraftKings. Though Justin Verlander may project to accumulate a few strikeouts against the Rays (25.7 K% vs RHP), he's been struggling this year, allowing way too many walks with a lot of hard contact in the air and fewer strikeouts. Jeff Hoffman has faced three poor teams on the road and generates a lot of fly balls (50.8%), but is facing one of the worst offenses in the league (San Francisco) at Coors and has struck out 34 of 102 batters with a 13.0 SwStr%. Even expecting a step backwards, he could pay off at $7.5K on DraftKings or $900 less on FanDuel. Jordan Montgomery has a 23 K% and has limited hard contact to 25%. At a reasonable price, he pitches in Oakland against an offense striking out 25.3% of the time against lefties. On the other side of that matchup, Sonny Gray may have the toughest matchup on the board (Yankees 125 wRC+ vs RHP, 175 wRC+ over the last week), but has increased his slider usage to 30% in two of his last four starts resulting in a combined 21 strikeouts in those efforts. Might he do the same again tonight against a predominantly RH Yankee lineup?

The first thing that jumps out on DraftKings' main slate tonight is the price gap between Chris Sale at $14.1k and the next closest guy, Gio Gonzalez, whose salary is a whopping $5.1k cheaper. Following Gio, there are six guys between $7.3-8.6k, one of them is Hoffman ($7.5k). Considering he's made eight total starts in the bigs, we have a small sample size, but his velocity is up a tick this year and he's been excellent in all four starts this season - including a SwStr% of 13.0% and overall strikeout rate of 33.3%. Those are giant leaps of 6.3% and 13.3% from his four starts last year. His SIERA is down from 5.22 to 2.7, which is nearly as good as Sale (2.55). The numbers are a bit suspect though - his Soft% is down to 17.2% and he has a 32.8% Hard, even more striking is his tiny 28.6% GB%. He also enters tonight's game with a .230 BABIP. It's going to be warm in Coors Field tonight (86 degrees) and pairing park factors with his batted ball statistics makes him appear risky. Fortunately, San Francisco has a very low ISO of .128 against RHP in 2017 and a high ground ball rate of 48.5%. That's exactly what we'd like to see. They don't strike out a ton though, just 19.2% this year, which could potentially limit the upside. If we look at Hoffman's four matchups this year, we see more favorable situations - Cubs (22.3% vs. RHP this season), Padres (25.8%), Phillies (23.4%), and Dodgers (23.5%). The case could certainly be made to spend up for a better strikeout matchup like we'd get with Jordan Montgomery (12.7% SwStr%, 23.0% K%) against Oakland (25.4% vs. LHP this year). Montgomery has been provided a lower opponent projected run total (4.18 vs. 4.89), but Hoffman is the second biggest favorite on the slate (145) as Colorado is expected to provide plenty of run support (6.11). Hoffman will providing a savings of $1.1k on DK of Montgomery and that matters for those trying to get up to Sale tonight. While he isn't the safest option, he does offer plenty of upside and his velocity bump and high SwStr% suggests he can maintain a solid strikeout rate.