Roansy Contreras Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

With several flawed, struggling and/or regressing arms at the top of the board, it might not be the worst idea to pay down for pitching tonight, especially in GPPs with a couple of high upside arms costing less than $9K. One guy who may have the stuff to stand on his own on FanDuel ($7.7K) is Roansy Contreras. He has allowed eight runs (six earned) over his last nine innings, but his last start was certainly his worst with a season/career high three walks to just two strikeouts. He may not yet be a finished product, but you can certainly see the upside in a 25.2 K% and 13.2 SwStr% through 32 innings without too much to complain about in the overall numbers, though the barrel rate is a bit high (12.2%), resulting in his only estimator above four (4.38 xERA). It’s hitter friendly weather in a generally pitcher friendly park in Pittsburgh tonight, but that may be neutralized by a pitcher friendly umpire. We also like the matchup against the Cubs here (96 wRC+, 23.3 K% vs RHP). Contreras is the second best projected value on FanDuel and fourth best value on DraftKings, where he’s even a bit cheaper.

Spencer Strider has a similar overall projection at a slightly higher price tag. He’s also in a much tougher spot, facing the Giants (107 wRC+, 22.3 K%, 10.4 BB% vs RHP) in Atlanta with temperatures in the mid-90s with a more hitter friendly umpire. It’s extremely rare for a pitcher to throw his four-seam fastball 69.7% of the time and make it work in a starting role, but with an improved slider (25.3% with a 51.2 Whiff%) Strider has been doing just that for now. He’s struck out 31 of 81 over four starts with exactly half his contact on the ground and an 85.9 mph EV. The only issue is that he’s walked 10 as well. Perhaps it’ll be a problem when he runs through the division a couple of times, but he all non-FIP estimators are within one-third of a run of his 2.45 ERA and the Giants haven’t seen him yet.

At bottom of the board prices, we’re seeing guys like James Kaprielian, Reid Detmers and Marco Gonzales show up near the top of the board in point per dollar projections, but we’re talking about low upside arms, high risk arms for the most part. Thirteen of Kaprielian’s 27 strikeouts have come in just two of his nine starts, resulting in a 4.9 K-BB%, while he’s allowed nine home runs over his last six starts and multiple barrels in four straight. His 6.31 ERA matches his FIP (6.49) and all other estimators are well above five as well, while the Mariners have a 108 wRC+ and 22.2 K% vs RHP. The upside is that it’s a great park and Seattle has a 62 wRC+ over the last week. BABIP wizard (.199) Detmers struck out a season high six of 18 Dodgers in his last start, but did so with just an 8.4 SwStr% and also allowed multiple home runs for the fourth time this year and third time in his last five starts. He’s only gone beyond five innings one other time besides his no-hitter and gave up five runs in that effort. Suddenly, he can’t find the plate either, walking eight of his last 57 batters. All estimators are above his 4.25 ERA with a 4.44 xERA being the only one within even half a run. The Royals are a great run prevention matchup (90 wRC+), but with a board low 17.5 K% against southpaws. Gonzales is running a 4.8 K-BB% with 12 of his 19 barrels (8.4%) leaving the park. The rate of barrels itself isn’t so much worse than average, but with the poor walk and strikeout rates, there’s so many more of them, even with an 87.8 mph EV, and often with men on base. Somehow, he’s produced six Quality Starts in his last nine tries with an ERA two runs below estimators over that span (.229 BABIP, 83 LOB%). He doesn’t have a single estimator within a run and a half of his season 3.41 ERA. However, great park and matchup (A’s 92 wRC+, 23.8 K% vs LHP).