Mark Leiter Jr. Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

With all the uncertainty that goes along with pitcher workloads during the last week of the season, players could consider dropping down in price and considering a few arms who are very unlikely to any kind of limitation tonight. Michael Wacha is working for a Cardinal team that is still hanging on, but though that could work for or against him as there won’t be much margin for error. He seems to do everything just a little bit better than league average: miss bats (22.2 K%), generate ground balls (47.9 GB%) and limit hard contact (27.7%). There’s motivation and animosity on both sides of this affair against a league average Cubs’ offense. Brandon Woodruff is a decently considered prospect in a similar spot for the Brewers. He started well and has struggled more recently, but has been a strong contact manager (49.2 GB%, 2.5 Hard-Soft%) with a hard hit rate above 22% in just one of his last four starts. While his SwStr rate has been above 11% in four starts, it’s been below 5.5% in each of his other three. There seems to be no in between, but there does seem to be some upside. The Reds are an average offense as well, but have a 28.4 K% over the last week. Mark Leiter has struck out 50 of 208 batters (19.7 K-BB%) over his last nine appearances (seven starts), but has also allowed 10 HRs in 49.1 innings, though his 30.1 Hard% is actually slightly better than league average. Philadelphia can’t be blamed for those long balls either, as six of them have come in road parks with marginal power factors (Washington, New York NL, San Diego). The good news is that he’s facing a Washington team just looking to stay healthy with a 27.9 K% over the last week, though the recently confirmed lineup shows that they are starting most of their regulars tonight. All of these pitchers are below $8K on either site tonight.

Chris Sale may feel his Cy Young slipping away, but is still the top projected pitcher on the board (RotoGrinders Player Projections) by a decent margin tonight. He followed up three HRs and six strikeouts against the Yankees with six shutout innings and eight strikeouts against the Rays. It's the Rays again tonight and they whiff a ton (26% at home and vs LHP, 29.8% over the last seven days). Has “just” a 31.1 K% and 12.6 SwStr% over his last four starts, but has above 13% in three of the four though. Luis Severino has a 33 K% (13 SwStr%) over his last nine starts, while maintaining his ground ball rate around 50% with a hard hit rate below 30%. Striking out one-third of batters faced is one way to solve a HR problems inherent in Yankee Stadium. Baltimore has a 24.0 K-BB% over the last week. Robbie Ray has double digit strikeouts in three straight starts. He has struck out 45 of 97 batters since returning from taking a liner off his head, while walking just six. His SwStr rate has exceeded 18% in three of those four starts, though his hard hit rate has been at 40% or higher in three of the four as well. Strike out half the batters you face though, and the rest doesn’t matter. San Francisco presents slightly less potential for his strikeout rate (19% at home and vs LHP), but an enormous upgrade form a contact management aspect (6.6 HR/FB, 4.5 Hard-Soft% at home). Those are the high end pitchers tonight. Charlie Morton has not exceeded five innings in any of his last three starts, but has struck out 17 of his last 46 batters and has been over 100 pitches in each of his last two. Since returning from the DL, he’s dropped a mile per hour on his heater, but has maintained his 50 GB%, 27 K% and 11 SwStr%. He’s also greatly improved his contact authority (-4.4 Hard-Soft% in 11 starts). While RHBs have a .364 wOBA against him over this span (155 BF), he’s allowed just two HRs to them with an 11.6 K-BB%, 51.9 GB%, 15.4 LD%, -7.7 Hard-Soft% and .372 BABIP. F-L-U-K-E!! Seattle has a 37.9% hard hit rate over the last week, which includes a series in Texas. Jeff Samardzija has allowed only eight of his 28 HRs at home (two to RHBs with a -2.0 Hard-Soft%) and Arizona has an 82 wRC+ with a 24.3 K% on the road. Mark Leiter might be your low end starter tonight, especially with Khris Davis being replaced by a pitcher in the lineup tonight. He has faced at least 15 batters in seven straight appearances (first two were relief). He’s struck out more than 20% of batters faced in five of them, but has allowed multiple HRs in three of the last five.

Dominic Smith (71 wRC+, .209 ISO vs RHP) is probably not the ideal choice of a cleanup batter for the Mets at this point in his career, but the real goal for this team may be survival at this point with Wilmer Flores and Amed Rosario joining the wounded over the weekend in Houston. Smith is actually the only batter in the lineup with an ISO above .160 against RHP this year. Brandon Nimmo (124 wRC+, .099 ISO vs RHP) is one of just two batters with a wRC+ exceeding 90 against RHP (Nori Aoki is the other - 101). Nimmo has been an on-base machine without much power, which is obviously why Terry Collins has Jose Reyes (74 wRC+, .137 ISO vs RHP) leading off with him batting sixth. Mark Leiter has started six games for the Phillies this year, in two batches of three each. He's been serviceable with at least five strikeouts in five of them, but no more than six in any. For the season, he has a perfectly average 20.7 K%, but 25% in August. The Mets are implied for 4.45 runs, but Leiter is facing a confirmed lineup with a .280 wOBA and .120 ISO vs RHP this year (PlateIQ). He's pitched at least 6.2 innings in each of his last two starts and is certainly a pitcher players might want to consider on a weak slate at a reasonable price. The other factor in his favor is the recent schedule for the Mets, who traveled home from Houston after playing a double-header Saturday and a day game Sunday, while also assisting in hurricane relief efforts. While an extremely noble cause, all of this activity and travel could come back to hurt them on the field for an early afternoon Monday start.

Danny Salazar has the top strikeout projection from the Daily K Predictor tonight (8.55). He's been on fire since returning from the DL, striking out 36 of 97 batters with at least eight in each of his four starts with a 19.2 Hard% too. His 16.6 SwStr% for the season is best among pitchers with at least 80 innings. He's in Minnesota tonight, against a Twins' offense with a 155 wRC+, 15.1 K% and 26 Hard-Soft% over the last week though. Alex Wood and Madison Bumgarner are tonight's top projected pitchers. While Bumgarner is rounding into form after a shoulder injury with seven innings in three straight with exactly seven strikeouts in each, Wood has seen some disturbing trends with a total of 19 strikeouts over his last five starts and a sub-50 GB% in each of his last four. He had a 45% hard hit rate last time out, but at least his swinging strike rate rebounded to 14.8%. For the season, his 24.8 95+ mph aEV is still best on the board, his 57.5 GB% is fourth among those with at least 110 innings pitched, his 19.5 K-BB% is 15th. He's in a favorable spot against the White Sox, who lose a DH from an already weak lineup. Jacob deGrom doesn't have an ideal matchup at Yankee Stadium (19.3 HR/FB at home, but 22.7 K% vs RHP). However, his 29.2 K% and 13.9 SwStr% are tops on the board among qualified pitchers tonight. Dinelson Lamet has seen his strikeout rate drop off slightly (26.3 K% over the last month), while walks have increased, but there's been a major improvement in contact management (-5.6 Hard-Soft% last three starts). He’s also in one of the top spots on the slate, hosting the Phillies (15.5 K-BB% vs RHP, 9.9 HR/FB on the road, 2.8 Hard-Soft% last seven days). Mark Leiter is on the other side of that matchup and has made himself very interesting over his last two outings. Neither were starts, but in long relief, he's struck out 16 or 34 Mets and Rockies with increased use of his splitter. He costs less than $7K against the Padres (25.2 K% vs RHP) in San Diego. There's potential for a quality start with several strikeouts, which would allow players to afford most of their desired bats.

Perhaps the drop from 5.65 runs to 5.37 later in the day has some to due with the absence of Cleveland's hottest hitters Jose Ramirez, but they drop to the fourth highest run total now as Arizona (6.18) has moved over six. Their 1.43 run increase since open is the largest of the day by an entire run, while they were at 5.9 runs for a lot of the afternoon. Washington, which has remained fairly steady around 5.6 implied runs all afternoon, is now second highest. Both of the top Vegas offenses are facing rookie pitchers making their first career starts (Luis Castillo and Mark Leiter). Players can see line movement for all games on the Vegas Odds page.

Bryce Harper and Paul Goldschmidt are projected as tonight's top overall bats, both facing first time starters in Luis Castillo and Mark Leiter. Harper may have the more difficult matchup against Castillo, making his major league debut. He was a bit old for the league at 24, but posted a 21.4 K-BB% at AA this year. Evaluations on his major league future seem to be mixed. Leiter has walked more than he's struck out (-2.4 K-BB%) in 19 major league innings in relief in could have a difficult time in Arizona if that continues. Among those projected for more than eight fantasy points, Yonder Alonso may be the top value on FanDuel (3.74 Pt/$/K). He costs just $3.1K in his battle against Mike Pelfrey (LHBs .368 wOBA since last season). Using the same criteria on DraftKings, Jose Bautista (2.48 Pt/$/K) still costs less than $4K and faces Jakob Junis (41.3% of BBEs 95+ mph EV)