Joe Kelly Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

Joe Kelly has not pitched well to right-handed bats on the road over the last two seasons and faces the O's who have really hit right-handed pitching well this season. Adam Jones is averaging 10.12 FD fpts over his last five games but his numbers suggest that he has been struggling over the past week (.249 wOBA, 49 wRC+). Manny Machado (.423 wOBA, 170 wRC+ vs. RHP in 2016) is an elite target but also the 2nd most expensive player on the slate today. Machado has been on a roll over the past week (.447 wOBA, 187 wRC+) and deserves consideration in both cash games and tournaments against Kelly. Hyun-Soo Kim (.434 wOBA, 178 wRC+ L7) is the cheapest bat atop the order and is cheap on enough on FD to help stack multiple O's. With the game in Baltimore having the 2nd highest run total of the night (9) we can look to target multiple hitters from this game.

Joe Kelly went into the 7th inning with a no-hitter and has struck out 18 of the 75 batters he's faced this season, but he did the same thing last season with a near 30 K% through his first 100 batters last season before finishing with an 18.8 K%. This year, he's added a 17.3 BB% to his normally hard contact (37.2 Hard%), which a number of Blue Jays have taken advantage of in the past. Jose Bautista serves his suspension tonight, but Josh Donaldson (139 wRC+, .251 ISO vs RHP since 2015) has a 93 mph aEV in 11 batted ball events against Kelly since last season and Edwin Encarnacion (139 wRC+, .265 ISO vs RHP since 2015) has 95.3 mph aEV in eight batted balls with both homering once. Toronto hasn't been as potent this season (96 wRC+ at home, 94 wRC+ vs RHP), but still have one of the stronger run projections tonight (4.7). Michael Saunders (148 wRC+, .202 ISO vs RHP this season) has recently proven himself worthy of inclusion into the middle of this lineup, while Troy Tulowitzki (109 wRC+, .246 ISO vs RHP this season) bumps up to 5th at a price in the mid $3K range at SS.

Although the sample size is very small, Joe Kelly has walked 8 batters in 8 IP during his past two starts. This is clearly not a very welcoming site for Kelly, who has struggled with control issues throughout his career. While Kelly has seen a slight increase in his K/9 rate over the past few seasons, he is not by any means somebody we need to avoid in DFS. Although the Ray’s haven’t exactly been lighting up the strip with their bats, there are a few hitters that we can target to exploit the favorable matchup with Kelly. Corey Dickerson (.398 wOBA - .280 ISO – 138 wRC+ vs RHP in 2015) serves as a nice mid-range option with HR potential and Evan Longoria (.373 wOBA - .242 ISO – 154 wRC+ vs RHP in 2016) is seeing RHP well enough this season to be considered.

In his first start this year against Toronto, Kelly was rocked for 7 ER and 5 H in 3 IP. His match up doesn’t get any easier tonight as he is facing the hot hitting Orioles squad. Last year, Kelly gave up a hard hit percentage of 35%, which was the 2nd highest of any SP. To put it bluntly, Kelly gets hit HARD. The O’s are off to a scorching start this season, sporting the league’s top rated statistics against RHP’s (.395 wOBA, .247 ISO, and 159 wRC+). While Machado and Davis are the preferred targets, all hitters 1-6 can be highly considered.

Though Joe Kelly has been about average in wOBA allowed to batters from each side for his career, it should be noted that RHBs popped him for a .365 mark with 10 HRs last year (19.2 HR/FB). That's very dangerous when facing the Blue Jays, especially when you add in his equally distributed 35.5 Hard% in 2015. Encarnacion, Bautista, and Donaldson all had a wRC+ between 149-155 vs RHP last year, while Pillar was only average (96 wRC+), but his new leadoff spot ahead of the big boppers should put him in consideration at a reasonable price as well.

Joe Kelly presents a dilemma in that he throws hard, but doesn't strike anybody out. He allows a lot of hard contact, but most of it is on the ground. He even had a strong reverse platoon split last year, but not historically so. What to do about him may be taken out of our hands anyway today with near freezing temperatures in Cleveland today along with periods of rain. This might best be a situation to avoid altogether.