Seth Smith Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

The Baltimore Orioles top the slate with an implied run line of 6.04 tonight. Chris Smith is their target at home, where they have a team 16.4 HR/FB this year. Smith is allowing a slate high 10.6% Barrels/BBE this year with just a 37.4 GB%. Unfortunately for him, RHBs (.316 wOBA, 44.9 GB%, 33.9 Hard%) have caused more problems than LHBs (.283 wOBA, 33.3 GB%, 32.1 Hard%) since last season, including eight of the nine HRs he's surrendered this year. The red hot Manny Machado (103 wRC, .214 ISO vs RHP this year, 219 wRC+, 53.9 Hard% over the last week) is one of tonight's top projected batters, while Tim Beckham (118 wRC+, .194 ISO vs RHP) may be the top SS on the slate. Chris Davis, Seth Smith, Jonathan Schoop, Trey Mancini, Adam Jones and Welington Castillo all have a wRC+ above 100 and ISO above .185 against RHP this year with Mancini (137 wRC+, .265 ISO leading the offense in both categories. The Minnesota Twins (5.23) are the only other team projected to eclipse five runs tonight, in the second game of their double-header against rookie and former first round pick Carson Fulmer, making his first major league start, though the Cleveland Indians are right on the cusp (4.99) against a fairly decent left-handed pitcher (Eduardo Rodriguez)

Under conditions where it may barely be considered humane to play baseball in, the Texas Rangers have the top implied run line tonight at 6.15 runs when the host the Orioles. While Chris Tillman pitched six innings of one run ball against them two starts back, he walked four with just three strikeouts and is going to be contending with 100 degree temperatures tonight. The same conditions apply to a Baltimore offense facing a contact managing Andrew Cashner (3.6% Barrels/BBE), who has just a 1.5 K-BB%. Though the Orioles don't have many LHBs, players should rightfully continue to attack with the likes of Seth Smith (249 wRC+ last seven days) and Chris Davis (55.6 Hard% last seven days) against Cashner's 32.4 Hard% 37 GB%, and 0.0 K-BB% vs LHBs this year. The Orioles (5.35) are one of eight teams projected between five and six runs tonight, the most interesting of which has to be the Indians (5.9). Over the last two months, RHBs have a .494 wOBA with 13 HRs and a 40.6 Hard% against him. Edwin Encarnacion has a 229 wRC+ and 50 Hard% over the last week and has three career HRs with a 100.6 mph aEV (seven BBEs) in 25 PAs against Holland. Considering the punishment being inflicted, any Cleveland batter who attempts to come to the plate right-handed should be played tonight (and perhaps they all should). This includes switch hitters like Francisco Lindor (136 wRC+, .191 ISO vs LHP this year) and Jose Ramirez (123 wRC+, .194 ISO vs LHP this year), but players can also save salary with Austin Jackson (168 wRC+, .250 ISO vs LHP this year) and Yan Gomes (136 wRC+, .275 ISO vs LHP this year). Just remember that players using Danny Salazar are only allowed three additional Cleveland bats on FanDuel unfortunately.

While there are four batters on the slate exceeding a 300 wRC+ over the last week (10 PA min.), the top two (Randal Grichuk 341, Seth Smith 315) barely meet the plate appearance threshold (12 each), though both have multiple HRs and the latter has a 66.7 Hard% over that span. Unfortunately, Smith is very unlikely to play tonight against a lefty (Blake Snell) in Tampa Bay. The remaining two (Gerardo Parra 313, Chris Tayler 306) have a hard hit rate below 25%. Dropping below 300, we find Charlie Blackmon (295 wRC+, 52.4 Hard%, three HRs), who leaves Coors, but carries his exorbitant price tag with him to St Louis. If we take a different approach, Giancarlo Stanton has a 184 wRC+ and 55.6 Hard% over the last week, but ties for the league lead with four HRs. He may also be the top hitter on the slate in Texas against Martin Perez (RHBs .348 wOBA, 34 Hard% since last season).

Max Scherzer is expected to be the most popular pitcher on tonight's slate, followed fairly closely by James Paxton in a matchup with high strikeout potential against Oakland (25.7 K% vs LHP) probably for players who are looking to pay up for Coors tonight. Interesting arms at low projected ownership include Zack Greinke, Dan Straily, Jacob deGrom and Drew Pomeranz. Affordable Baltimore bats in Minnesota are currently expected to be about as popular as Colorado and New York (AL) bats. However, no single batter projects for over-whelming ownership tonight, perhaps due to the high cost of pitching. Projected ownership numbers are continuously updated for all players are available to premium subscribers on the Projected Ownership page.

Statcast BvP data spits out some odd information tonight. Much of the Baltimore offense has a high aEV against Chris Archer. Manny Machado (93.8 mph), Mark Trumbo (95.1 mph), and Adam Jones (93 mph) have all hit the ball hard with at least 10 BBEs recorded by Statcast. Seth Smith adds a 102.3 mph aEV on six BBEs. It's Jonathan Schoop (98.5 mph aEV, 13 BBEs) who has had the most success against him though. He's homered three times in 19 PAs, while no other Oriole has more than one. In the non-Archer/Orioles high aEV category, Brian Dozier has a 97.5 mph aEV on 13 BBEs against Trevor Bauer, but with just one extra-base hit in 34 PAs. Howie Kendrick (95.4 mph aEV, 11 BBEs) does not have a single extra-base hit against Patrick Corbin (17 PAs). Brett Gardner has homered four times in 12 PAs against Yu Darvish, but without a recorded BBE in the Statcast era.

Mike Clevinger has a 16.2 K-BB% on the season with a double digit walk rate, but a 20.6 K-BB% with a league average walk rate if you remove his first two starts. Against RHBs, he has allowed a .252 wOBA with a 30.9 K%. That’s significant because the Orioles have only a couple of LHBs. The Orioles have a 16.3 K-BB% vs RHP (94 wRC+) as well as a 94 wRC+ at home. In addition, they have been equally poor against fly ball pitchers (94 sOPS+) despite the power friendly park. Clevinger has coaxed grounders on only 38.5% of his contact. Of the players in the lineup tonight for Baltimore with more than 20 PAs against fly ball pitchers, only Trey Mancini (138 sOPS+, five HRs), Seth Smith (136 sOPS+, three HRs), Welington Castillo (118 sOPS+, four HRs) and Jonathan Schoop (107 sOPS+, four HRs) have an sOPS+ above 90 this year. Castillo has additionally struggled with RHP throughout his career. Clevinger costs just $5.7K on DraftKings and could be an interesting SP2 on a small slate.

On an eight game slate with some interesting lineups, Washington bats appear as if they may be most popular, especially Bryce Harper and Trea Turner (projected to be somewhere around 20% on either site) as they can be combined with some lower cost bats in tonight's lineup like Adam Lind and Wilmer Difo, also projected to be in more than 10% of lineups. The other side of that matchup might be where players find some contrarian options. Joe Ross has struggled with batters from both sides of the plate this year. Jonathan Schoop moves up to bat second tonight with only 5% projected ownership on either site, while Seth Smith, Mark Trumbo and Trey Mancini are not expected to be much more popular. Lance McCullers is projected to be the most popular pitcher on the slate and he might be difficult to get away from because despite struggling in his last start, 17 of 22 batters either struck out or hit a ground ball. Other high priced pitchers have had recent struggles (Lester, Pineda). David Price is not in a great spot against the Yankees tonight, but has looked good in two starts and projects to be the lowest owned of the four. Premium subscribers can see potential ownership rates, which update until first pitch, on the Projected Ownership page.

Joe Ross has a 15.6 K-BB% that's actually a bit above his 14.9% career rate this season. He's a two pitch pitcher (sinker, slider) that generally keeps RHBs grounded (53.9 GB%, 24.2 Hard% career prior to 2017) while being punished by LHBs (.366 wOBA, 37.4 GB%, 36.6 Hard% career). However, this year, RHBs are similarly torching him for a .386 wOBA with just a 33.3 GB% and 38.2 Hard%. He's throwing the same two pitches 90% of the time, though with a bit of a smaller velocity gap and perhaps less vertical movement on the slider, but let's use the new PlateIQ matchup to explore this matchup against the Orioles further. Interestingly, it shows us that neither Seth Smith nor Chris Davis have had much success against sinker/slider combos this year, but that's considering pitchers of either arm side and both have been about league average against those pitches in recent years. When we look at Ross's pitch map, he usually uses both sides of the plate effectively to keep RHBs uncomfortable, but this season seems to be burying everything inside and middle (13%). Looking at the Baltimore lineup, we find that the middle of their order (Adam Jones, Manny Machado - may not play tonight, and Mark Trumbo) have had success against that combination of pitches in those areas this season, though Jonathan Schoop likes pitches a bit more outside. Switching to the last two seasons, shows Schoop a bit more proficient against those pitches and location along with Jones and Trumbo, while Machado drops back a bit towards league average. What does that mean? Perhaps that we shouldn't look to Ross to regain his prior form in this matchup, less some adjustment we're not aware of and it may be that a Baltimore offense projected for just 4.3 runs is worth your investment.

Zimmerman is a pitcher to pick on today. He has a 5.63 SIERA, 12.6% K%, and 42.3% Hard%. Although the Orioles are stacked with right-handed bats, Zimmerman has been equally bad, if not worse, against RHH (.406 wOBA, 49.3% FB%, 38.0% Hard%) as LHH (.385 wOBA, 46.9% FB%, 47.0% Hard%). Even without Machado in the lineup, Baltimore’s first six batters will have ISOs of .187 or higher against RHP. In addition to the obvious choices like Davis (44.3% FB%, 28.8% HR/FB, 43.0% Hard%, .268 vs. RHP since 2016) and Trumbo (42.1% FB%, 23.0% HR/FB, 37.8% Hard%, .270), Jones (38.6% FB%, 16.3% HR/FB, 32.9% Hard%. .187 ISO), Smith (37.6% FB%, 13.6% HR/FB, 30.5% Hard%, .200 ISO), Schoop (36.5% FB%, 15.3% HR/FB, 30.0% Hard%, .201 ISO), and Mancini (26.7% FB%, 62.5% HR/FB, 50.0% Hard%, .405 ISO) will all be interesting options. Mancini has a .425 wOBA, and 172 wRC+ against RHP through 47 plate appearances. Although his fly ball rate isn’t great, he’s posted a 30.0% LD% and his ground ball rate of 43.3% is average. On the downside, he has a 29.8% K% against righties. However, as mentioned, Zimmerman has a low K% and his SwStr% is 8.2%. Mancini, who's batting second today, has shown some real upside with a pair of two-homerun games in April and his matchup with Zimmerman is a great spot to target.

We're still waiting for several lineups, but it already appears like a great day for cheap top of the lineup value that might be necessary with several $10K pitchers on the mound tonight. Kolten Wong (95 wRC+, .142 ISO vs RHP since 2016) leads off for the Cardinals in Atlanta tonight for $2.7K on DraftKings against Mike Foltynewicz (LHBs .354 wOBA since 2015). Jose Martinez (98 wRC+) bats second for $2.6K or less on either site. T.J. Rivera (154 wRC+, 190 ISO vs RHP) and Josh Bell (123 wRC+, .155 ISO vs RHP) both bat second against Tom Koehler and Jimmy Nelson at $3.1K or less on DK, while the former is just $2.4K on FD. Seth Smith (122 wRC+, .182 ISO vs RHP since 2016) leads off against Miguel Gonzalez for just $2.7K on FanDuel. Tim Beckham (115 wRC+, .162 ISO vs LHP since 2016) also leads off against Francisco Liriano for less than $3K on DraftKings. Matt Davidson (139 wRC+, .222 ISO vs LHP) does not bat leadoff, but only costs $2.3K on FanDuel, batting fifth against Wade Miley.