Rubby De La Rosa Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

Rubby De La Rosa has shown impressive skills against right-handed batters over the past couple seasons with high strikeouts (29.8%), low walks (3.5%), and high ground balls (49.3%). It's difficult to advise against using Nolan Arenado (130 wRC+, .394 wOBA, .293 ISO vs RHP), but the Colorado left-handed batters should be the priority. De La Rosa drops his strikeouts totals significantly when facing lefties (18.0%), and though his ground balls are up in a limited sample this year (54.5%), historically he has not been able to keep the ball on the ground as well to lefties. Carlos Gonzalez (120 wRC+, .380 wOBA, .215 ISO vs RHP) and Charlie Blackmon (131 wRC+, .396 wOBA, .266 ISO vs RHP) are worth paying up for, and Gerardo Parra (.159 ISO vs RHP) is cheap and another strong play in tournaments. Feel free to load up on Rockies as a part of a stack in tournaments.

Rubby De La Rosa is returning from an elbow injury to make a brief start tonight due to a strict 50-pitch limit, and Braden Shipley is expected to follow him out of the bullpen. De La Rosa has only made eight starts this year, but he allowed hard contact at a 32.8% clip and will likely not have his best stuff in his return. De La Rosa has also struggled mightily against left-handed batters in his career (4.67 xFIP, .366 wOBA allowed). It’s also a tough matchup against the resilient, patient Giants offense in a hitter-friendly park in Arizona. As for Shipley, he has allowed hard contact at a 41.7% rate and has a 5.52 SIERA in his eight starts. In other words, feel free to load up all the Giants left-handed batters in tournaments. Brandon Belt (128 wRC+, .359 wOBA, .188 ISO vs RHP), Angel Pagan (115 wRC+, .339 wOBA, .142 ISO vs RHP), and Brandon Crawford (.193 ISO vs RHP) would be our top targets.

Rubby de la Rosa has improved upon his issues against LHBs (.404 wOBA, 20 HRs 2015 - .250 wOBA, 1 HR 2016), but the Pirates have just two in the lineup and are a difficult matchup more due to making contact (18.1 K% vs RHP) and plate discipline (9.1 BB% vs RHP). de la Rosa has an 8.2 BB% near his 8.5% career rate and that could pose some problems here against an offense with a 122 wRC+ at home and 116 wRC+ vs RHP. A $6.7K price tag on FanDuel is more reasonable than his $7.6K in a tough spot on DraftKings. Players can still look to a couple of strong LH bats atop the Pittsburgh lineup here. Gregory Polanco (157 wRC+, .227 ISO vs RHP this year) may be their best bat this year, but John Jaso (136 wRC+ vs RHP this year) is more affordable atop the lineup. Both have a wRC+ above 160 over the last week. Andrew McCutchen has struggled a bit more (118 wRC+, .188 ISO vs RHP this year), but both he and Starling Marte (149 wRC+, .157 ISO vs RHP in 2016) in the cleanup spot today are a bit discounted from normally higher prices at $4.3K or less.

Joe Panik, Brandon Belt, and Brandon Crawford are batting 2nd, 4th, and 5th, respectively. With Rubby De La Rosa pitching for the Diamondbacks, the Giants have elected to stack the top of the order with more left-handed batters than usual. The game is in Arizona and according to the RotoGrinders Ballpark Factors tool, Chase Field is the 6th most optimal park for left-handed batters. De La Rosa has been better so far this year, but any DFS players using Giants lefties today will be hoping that today, De La Rosa will regress towards his 2015 wOBA against LHB of 0.404.

It's really just a question of which of the two teams in Colorado will have the top run projection and tonight the Rockies (5.3) just edge out the road team (5.2). Rubby de la Rosa has more efficiently used his 10.6 SwStr% to put away 24.8% of batters on strikes this season and upped his ground ball right to 53% as he's been more efficient vs LHBs early on (.296 wOBA), but in a much larger sample has allowed a .392 wOBA with 21 HRs since last season, while holding RHBs to a .274 wOBA. This makes Carlos Gonzalez (145 wRC+, .303 ISO vs RHP since 2015) one of the top plays on the board with a price decrease below $5K accounting for his recent cold streak (43 wRC+ last seven days). Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story have hit same handed pitching well and are top overall projected performers at their positions, though it's difficult to call them a great value at over $5K. Charlie Blackmon is always a strong option in the leadoff spot at home against a RHP, especially at a similar price to Gonzalez. Similar to Arizona, this lineup is stackable all the way through depending on how much you're paying for pitching.

Are de la Rosa's last two starts just an anomaly or has he actually turned a corner? His strikeout rate has been very good (27.5%, 12.0 SwStr%) and he's generating more ground balls, but both of his past two starts have come against teams that boast stronger bats from the right side. He's historically struggled with left-handed bats to a much larger degree, and while Miami isn't a terribly scary offense against RHs, they do have a few bats that could give de la Rosa some trouble (most notably Christian Yelich and Derek Dietrich). Justin Bour is out of the lineup which is a plus for DLR, but he should still be considered a GPP-only play. His shot at the win is relatively low given the pitcher on the other side (Jose Fernandez, who is a -180 favorite as of this writing). If you are targeting any of the Miami bats, Yelich (.405 wOBA, .186 ISO, 150 wRC+) is the top overall option with Dietrich (.495 wOBA, .351 ISO through 37 ABs this year) being playable in any format, especially on sites that still have him priced towards the minimum. He'll hit fifth tonight with J.T. Realmuto staying put in the leadoff spot.

Jeremy Hazelbaker and Randal Grichuk sit tonight in the revolving St Louis lineup. Rubby de la Rosa has held RHBs to a .271 wOBA since last season, but lefties have torched him for a .402 wOBA and hit 10 HRs just in Arizona against him last year. The Cardinal bats are smoking with a 136 wRC+, 16.7 HR/FB vs RHP this year and a 149 wRC+ over the last week. All seven batters in the lineup with at least 10 PAs over the last week have at least a 132 wRC+ over that span with Yadier Molina pulling up the rear. Carpenter, Moss, and Adams (the lefties) should be popular tonight. Each present as strong values for their price point with Adams even costing just $2K on FanDuel. Holliday (132 wRC+ vs RHP since 2015) and Piscotty (126 wRC+ vs RHP) hit RHP well enough to be included as well. SS Aledmys Diaz is tearing up RHP for a 242 wRC+, .340 ISO in a small sample this year. Molina and Gyorko are the only players in this lineup with an average batted ball distance below 240 feet this year. Diaz also has a 94.16 average exit velocity.

Rubby de la Rosa gets roasted by LHBs (.378 career wOBA) and fares about average (.304 wOBA) against RHBs. The finally healthy Dodgers lineup stacks six LHBs, all of whom are strong hitters, against him and that should spell trouble. In addition, the two RHBs, Turner and Puig, handle RHP just fine with Turner having a reverse platoon split (147 wRC+ vs RHP since last year). Corey Seager (177 wRC+ vs RHP) and Adrian Gonzalez (134 wRC+ vs RHP) lead the way, but every bat in this lineup is a threat tonight. Chase Utley (82 wRC+ vs RHP) is the only below average hitter vs RHP, but even he has started strong and sits in a great spot atop the lineup.

Rubby de la Rosa dominated RHBs on the road, but allowed a 21.1 HR/FB at home and 21.7 HR/FB to LHBs at home, including 20 HRs to LHBs overall. The interesting thing, though, was a 23.9 K% at home vs RHBs and an 11.1 SwStr% overall that suggests more than an 18.5 K%. The Cubs strike out a lot, but have tonight's top projected run line (4.85) on our Vegas Odds page. You're going to want a lot of exposure to their primarily LH lineup and possibly also the only RHB in the first seven lineup spots as Kris Bryant hits RHP well (140 wRC+). Rizzo and Schwarber are your top power targets while Zobrist, Heyward, and Fowler should be high on your radar as well. Rubby de la Rosa may give a couple of bombs tonight, but also may generate a few strikeouts, so you might even consider a small amount of GPP exposure, especially now with Salazar out of the picture.