Ryan Raburn Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

Players looking to pay up for Clayton Kershaw and several expensive bats have a lot of cheap options at the tops of some decently projected lineups tonight to help them along. Ryan Raburn bats second for the minimum on DraftKings against the R.A. Dickey in one of the two lineups projected for six runs tonight. The Padres open with Jose Pirela ($3.1K DK, $2.5K FD) and Franchy Cordero ($2.5K DK, $2.4K FD) against Scott Feldman tonight. Jaycob Brugman ($2.2K either site) leads off for Oakland against Jose Urena. Joey Rickard ($3.2K DK, $2.5K FD) leads off against Derek Holland. We've covered several OF options, but there are some infield cheapies as well. Wilmer Flores has three HRs against Jon Lester and bats second. Further down in the order, we find Matt Davidson ($2.9K DK, $2.4K FD), who homered last night and has a .250 ISO vs RHP since last season.

Despite tossing a gem against an exploitable Philadelphia Phillies lineup his last time out, R.A. Dickey continues to be an extremely hittable pitcher at this stage of his career, allowing at least five runs in two of his last three starts, but he seems to somehow do just enough, consistently enough, to limit damage that the Atlanta Braves are able to keep utilizing him as an innings eater for their young and eventually up and coming squad. This year, Dickey has seen a drastic drop in his already low strikeout rate, down to 12.4% to go along with a 10.6% walk rate. As usual with his knuckleball, Dickey has managed to induce groundballs at a respectable clip (51.1%) and limit hard contact to just 28.4% of the time. With the aforementioned low strikeouts and high walks, it's difficult to imagine Dickey's 4.86 ERA improving with a terrible 5.52 SIERA. When attacking Dickey with opposing batters, a problem arises with a bit of guesswork in figuring out which individual batters to utilize against him, as the nature of a knuckleball makes at bat outcomes relatively unpredictable. This makes the Washington Nationals more of an offense to stack or fade in tournaments tonight since there should be plenty of baserunners with a high probability of home runs but difficult to predict where said production will come from. Bryce Harper (183 wRC+, .454 wOBA, .371 ISO vs RHP), Ryan Zimmerman (178 wRC+, .447 wOBA, .301 ISO vs RHP), and Daniel Murphy (142 wRC+, .391 wOBA, .204 ISO vs RHP) are the top hitters to target in tournament stack, while Trea Turner (117 wRC+, .354 wOBA, .203 ISO vs RHP) and Ryan Raburn, who is minimum priced on DraftKings, are more logical fits as hitters to round out a Nationals stack in tournaments opposed to individual one-offs.

Robbie Ray allows the fourth highest rate of hard contact in baseball (36.4%), which is a great concern in this park, but he’s countering that with the fifth highest strikeout rate (28.4%) in the majors. An 8.7 BB% keeps him the only one in the top eight with a K-BB below 20% though (19.7). While there's still occasional hesitation to use him at home, this is one of the better spots he’ll find. The Rockies are a terrible road offense (85 wRC+) in a park that’s still a major downgrade from Coors and they strike out 22.6% of the time with an 87 wRC+ vs LHP. It's not perfect, but a price tag around $8K is a bit too low for the potential upside in this spot. For the Rockies, because he does allow so much hard contact, players could look at Ryan Raburn (103 wRC+, .231 ISO vs LHP this season) and D.J. LeMahieu (133 wRC+, .172 ISO vs LHP this season) at a reduced cost on DraftKings tonight. Nolan Arenado is slightly reduced as well, but has just a 91 wRC+ (.204 ISO) vs LHP since last season.

Matt Moore followed up his near no-hitter against the Dodgers with another strong performance, striking out seven of 21 Diamondbacks with just one walk. Still, he brings merely league average strikeout and walk rates into a dangerous spot in Colorado, where the Rockies are projected for the second highest run total today (5.9). Moore has very little platoon split with RHBs (.320 wOBA) just 15 points ahead of LHBs since last season with batters from both sides hitting him hard at a league average 31% of the time. However, RHBs have 23 of his 31 HRs allowed since last season. Charlie Blackmon is out today, but is unfortunately replaced with another LHB in the rookie Raimel Tapia, who players still have to strongly consider for just $3K on DraftKings. The lineup spot and park make him worth that cost in just about any spot. The top bats are Arenado (113 wRC+, .248 ISO vs LHP this season) and LeMahieu (139 wRC+, .183 ISO vs LHP this season) with Raburn (111 wRC+, .241 ISO vs LHP this season) and Cardullo (312 wRC+ last seven days) bringing the value for $3.3K or less on either site.

Chase Anderson has estimators a run above his 3.00 ERA over the last month with 22.2 K% above an 8.0 SwStr% that hasn’t budged. Not much seems to have changed except the results. RHBs (.360 wOBA, 35.5 Hard%) have hit him much better than LHBs (.312 wOBA, 27.1 Hard%) since last season, moving Nolan Arenado (124 wRC+, .300 ISO vs RHP since 2015) to the top of our wish list in this lineup. He adds three HRs in just 21 career PAs against Chase Anderson with 95 mph aEV on the last 14 batted balls. Many of the other Colorado bats are aggressively priced. Milwaukee is still a hitter's park, but it's not Coors. Ryan Raburn is the Colorado answer to Anderson's reverse split and we might have to take a look at any starter for less than $3K on DraftKings in a good spot, but he has just a 55 wRC+ and .148 ISO vs RHP since last season.

The Rockies are projected for 5.6 runs tonight (third highest), but that's almost entirely park related because they aren’t very good against LHP (90 wRC+, 22.5 K%). In fact, Gio Gonzalez may almost be too cheap on DraftKings ($5.9K). He does have a 22.5 K% (matching the Rockies vs LHP) this season with a 4.24 ERA and league average estimators. Even if we don't expect him to pitch well, he doesn't have to do too much to cover that price, while he's been very tough on LHBs (.274 wOBA since last season) and the Rockies run three of them out there tonight (two of the top four). DJ LeMahieu (134 wRC+, .168 ISO vs LHP this season) may be tonight's top second base option, while Nolan Arenado (126 wRC+, .283 ISO vs LHP this season) is always a strong bat at home. Ryan Raburn has not been as good vs LHP this year (93 wRC+), but still has a .234 ISO against him, while the cost (below $3.5K on either site) and environment make him a decent value play.

Perez has allowed a minimum of five earned runs in four of his last six starts. It can sometimes be frustrating to attack Perez because he occasionally finds a way to limit the opponent's damage with a high ground ball rate (53.5%), but has a frightening 9.7% against right-handed batters that just needs to be targeted. Perez has a much higher ground ball rate to left-handed hitters, knocking them down a peg as viable options, but the 33.4% hard contact rate and 4.96 xFIP to righties exhibits his vast downside. Nolan Arenado (137 wRC+, .404 wOBA, .296 ISO vs LHP) is the only Colorado bat that can really be considered in any format. The remaining Rockies righties, D.J. LeMahieu (129 wRC+, .392 wOBA, .162 ISO vs LHP) , Ryan Raburn (.243 ISO vs LHP), Nick Hundley (.197 ISO vs LHP), and Mark Reynolds, should be reserved for tournaments if stacking Colorado.