Wednesday has a split slate: There are five games in the 1:05 pm ET early slate and 10 games in the 7:05 pm ET main slate. Let’s jump in.
Pitchers
Studs
In today’s slate, there’s a clear stud in Max Scherzer ($12,600 DraftKings; $10,900 FanDuel), who is $2,700 and $1,400 more than the next option:
Scherzer was solid in his first start of 2017, going for 45.0 FanDuel points on seven strikeouts and just two runs allowed through 6.2 innings. It’s still early to rely completely on Statcast data for pitchers — most of whom have gotten only one start so far — but you should start to add that data back into your Player Model weights over the next week or so. In Scherzer’s first game against the Phillies, he allowed a hard hit rate of just 12 percent, which is actually an 18 percentage point improvement over his year-long rate. The advanced data and the Cardinals’ slate-low implied Vegas total of 3.1 runs suggest that Scherzer is starting his 2017 campaign in nice form.
He leads the slate by a large margin with a 9.1 K Prediction; you’re paying a lot for him, but you’re also paying for both the position’s safest floor and highest ceiling. Over the past couple of seasons, when he’s had a K Prediction of at least 9.0 he’s been excellent (per our Trends tool):
Danny Salazar struggled a bit in his first outing, allowing four runs and four walks in 5.2 innings pitched. That said, he was still able to exceed salary-based expectations on FanDuel by 0.75 points due to his nine strikeouts. That was a tough spot in Globe Life Park in Arlington, and today he gets a much easier matchup back home in Cleveland against a projected White Sox lineup that has posted a bottom-10 wOBA and top-10 strikeout rate this season. The White Sox have an implied run total of just 3.1 runs — tied with the Cardinals for the day’s lowest mark — and Salazar is a massive -242 favorite because of Cleveland’s high-powered offense. As you’d probably surmise, FanDuel pitchers with similar Vegas data have historically offered a high Plus/Minus . . .
. . . and that says nothing of his strikeout upside, which improves his historical outlook even more:
For more on Salazar, see Matt LaMarca’s Three Key MLB Players.
Values
“Value” is a relative term, but compared to the salaries for Scherzer and Salazar, $8,600 on FanDuel for Marcus Stroman is fairly cheap. (For what it’s worth, Stroman at $9,300 on DraftKings is actually more expensive there than Salazar at $8,700; use them accordingly.) Over the last year Stroman hasn’t exhibited Scherzer and Salazar’s strikeout upside . . .
. . . but his K Prediction is a reasonable 6.6 because he’s facing the Brewers, who have posted the highest K rate (32.0 percent) this season. He’s a huge -220 favorite because the Blue Jays are currently implied for 5.5 runs — the slate’s highest non-Coors total — and he’s been great in similar situations: Over the last couple of seasons, he has averaged 32.86 FanDuel points and a +4.78 Plus/Minus in seven starts with moneyline odds of at least -200. In all but one of those starts he had a K Prediction of less than six. In the one start with a six-plus K Prediction, he went for 63.0 FanDuel points back in 2014 versus the Cubs.
It’s not common for a cheap value pitcher to have immense safety, so it’s probably wise in tournaments to focus most on strikeout upside. There a few cheaper pitchers who have high K Predictions today:
- Brandon McCarthy ($7,800 DraftKings; $6,500 FanDuel): 7.4 K Prediction
- Vincent Velasquez ($9,200 DraftKings; $8,200 FanDuel): 7.3 K Prediction
- Jesse Chavez ($7,500 DraftKings; $6,000 FanDuel): 7.0 K Prediction
I’m sure you’ll notice right away that these guys have incredibly soft pricing on FanDuel with Bargain Ratings of 90, 85, and 92 percent. Of these guys, the latter two have the better matchups against the Mets and the Rangers, although the Mets did explode for 14 runs last night behind Yoenis Cespedes‘ three home runs. In his first start, Chavez allowed just a 12 percent hard hit rate and the lowest exit velocity of the trio at 90 miles per hour. He did go only 5.2 innings, but he was still able to put up 38.0 FanDuel points and strike out six batters. Velasquez had an even shorter outing, as he allowed four earned runs and two homers, but he also struck out a whopping 10 batters in four innings. Again, these guys aren’t as safe as the two ‘studs’ listed above, but they have massive upside for guaranteed prize pools (GPPs).
Fastball
John Lackey: He faces the Dodgers, who are currently implied for just 3.5 runs in Chicago; he put up 40.0 FanDuel points in his first outing against the Cardinals, allowing three runs and striking out seven across six innings; he has a 7.0 K Prediction today.
Matt Cain: He has an awful 1.649 past-year WHIP but is only $5,100 on DraftKings, where he has a 90 percent Bargain Rating; he’s playing at home in San Francisco in a pitcher-friendly venue with a Park Factor of 100.
Notable Stacks
With our Lineup Builder, it’s easy to incorporate stacks into DFS rosters. Since today has a split slate, let’s generate a five-man DraftKings stack based on player ratings in the Bales Model for the early slate, and then we’ll do a four-man stack on FanDuel for the main slate.
This season’s Coors Field games have disappointed so far, but they also continue to rate as the top stacks in most slates:
This straight 1-2-3-4-5 stack of the Padres will certainly be popular, but it will likely be a little less popular than a similar Rockies stack. Per our DFS Ownership Dashboard, the top Rockies hitters were yet again massively owned yesterday (4/11):
The Padres batters won’t have low ownership — Wil Myers was 28.2 percent in the $3 Swing for the Fences tournament last night — but that’s certainly lower than Arenado’s 41 percent mark. The early slate presents some intriguing roster construction issues, given that it has a Coors Field game but also high-priced pitching studs in Scherzer and Salazar.
On FanDuel, the top-rated four-man stack in the main slate is a 1-3-4-6 stack of the Baltimore Orioles:
The Orioles will likely be a contrarian team to stack — all of these batters are currently projected for just two to four percent ownership — as Baltimore has only the fifth-highest implied run total (4.5) in the main slate. The Blue Jays and Red Sox, implied for 5.5 and 5.1 runs, will likely carry the highest ownership in tournaments. A low-owned Manny Machado is very intriguing: His advanced stats this year are encouraging, as he’s averaged a 43 percent hard hit rate and a 94 MPH exit velocity over his first six games. He’s scored just 3.0 FanDuel points in each of his last two, but that could change in a hurry against Boston righty Steven Wright, who allowed a miserable 60 percent hard hit rate in his first outing this season against the Tigers.
Batters
In yesterday’s MLB Breakdown, I identified Cespedes as a batter to target because of his 1) elite Statcast data and 2) subpar fantasy production. Our new Recent Batted Ball Luck metric attempts to identify discrepancies in that regard — and it was on the money with Cespedes. Here’s the definition for the metric again:
The difference between a player’s percentile rank in batted ball distance and fantasy scoring over the past 15 days
This morning I came across this tweet from Drew Silva, whom I respect (so I mean no harm here):
Miguel Cabrera has three hits in 29 plate appearances, all opposite-field singles. He’s batting .095 with a .335 OPS. Back still an issue?
— Drew Silva (@drewsilv) April 12, 2017
This is where Statcast data can provide needed context and a huge edge: So far this year, Miguel Cabrera has averaged a batted ball distance of 248 feet and an exit velocity of 97 MPH. He’s been absolutely crushing the ball. And somehow he’s barely scored any fantasy points. Like Cespedes yesterday, Cabrera could turn around his season in a hurry, and the best news is that he will likely be low-owned because of recency bias or concern over his back. I’m not a doctor, but if a dude can torch balls at 97 MPH with a bad back, that’s pretty darn impressive.
Kole Calhoun was disappointing last night, going 0-5 and striking out twice against the Rangers. He’s projected to bat again in the second spot for the Angels, and he’ll get Texas righty A.J. Griffin, who got crushed in his first outing of the year, allowing four earned runs and two homers in 3.1 innings against the Athletics. Giving up home runs is a common occurrence for Griffin, who ranks dead last in the main slate with a high 2.413 HR/9 rate over the last year. Griffin allowed a silly 101 MPH exit velocity in his first start of the year as well as an 81 percent hard hit rate. Calhoun, along with guys like Mike Trout and Albert Pujols, could certainly tee off against him tonight.
I would be remiss not to mention any batters from the Blue Jays, who currently have the main slate’s highest implied run total (5.5). Further, they also boast the highest Team Value Rating on both DraftKings (81) and FanDuel (93). Here’s that definition:
A 0 to 100 grade showing a team’s historical value based on their live implied runs and collective salaries on a given DFS site
Essentially, not only are the Blue Jays implied for the most runs, but they also provide the most bang for their collective buck. Josh Donaldson is currently day-to-day with right calf tightness, but if he’s able to go he has really nice upside along with other guys in the middle of their order like Troy Tulowitzki and Jose Bautista; All three of them have hard hit rates of at least 34 percent over the past year.
Good luck, and be sure to do your own research with the Labs Tools!
News Updates
After this piece is published, FantasyLabs is likely to provide news updates on a number of players herein mentioned. Be sure to stay ahead of your competition with our industry-leading DFS-focused news blurbs:
