FanDuel features three slates today. The main slate encompasses only the 10 games beginning before 3pm ET. DraftKings incorporates an all day slate, and their main slate matches FanDuel’s. Rain will be prevalent on the East Coast again, but the weather shouldn’t impact the late games.
Pitchers
Come Sale Away
Chris Sale or bust. That’s my takeaway from the pitching options today. That’s also to say: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
The Marlins are currently implied to score a slate-low 3.4 runs, and Giancarlo Stanton is questionable due to a groin issue. Sale leads all pitchers with an 8.0 K Prediction, and good ol’ Hal Gibson III is the umpire. His presence has translated into a +2.33 Plus/Minus on DraftKings and a +3.86 Plus/Minus on FanDuel with 60.0 percent Consistency this season for pitchers. When filtering pitchers priced at a minimum of $10,000, the Plus/Minus and Consistency jump even higher.
On May 13th, Sale led the slate with an 11.56 SO/9 mark. Three months later, Sale again leads the slate, but his SO/9 has dipped to 9.83 after recording only one double-digit strikeout performance since September 7th of last year (27 starts). In fact, Sale has more games where he’s allowed double-digit hits than registered double-digit strikeouts over that time.
If Ichiro Suzuki (0.106 SO/AB) replaces Stanton (0.348 SO/AB) in the lineup, expect Sale’s K Prediction to decline. The move will also entrench Sale as the de facto chalk play since Stanton is known to destroy left-handed pitchers. The White Sox are currently slight favorites (-125 moneyline), and, in six starts this season with Sale priced around $12,000 on DraftKings and the White Sox exhibiting a similar moneyline, he’s exceeded salary-based expectations five times and averaged 29.13 DraftKings points.
Contenders
Johnny Cueto only costs $100 less than Sale on FanDuel and $900 less on DraftKings. Cueto doesn’t provide Sale’s strikeout upside, nor has his recent form inspired confidence. Pitching at AT&T Park has resulted in 60.0 percent Consistency on DraftKings and FanDuel this season. Choosing Cueto over Sale is the contrarian move in tournaments, especially with Cueto’s drastic difference in SO/9 (7.30 in 10 home starts versus 9.00 in 13 road contests). If Cueto lands on a no-hitter then the lack of strikeouts is obviously not important. The most likely scenario ends with a quality start and a handful of strikeouts while he waits for the bullpen to secure the win.
Rick Porcello costs $11,400 on DraftKings, his highest salary in our database. Ideally, you’re spending the extra $600 on Sale or saving $300 by selecting Cueto. Although Porcello has exceeded salary-based expectations in 10 of 12 home starts this season to the tune of a +3.71 Plus/Minus on DraftKings, his current salary projects 20.14 DK points, a mark he surpassed in only seven of his home starts. Inflation sucks. Porcello at $9,400 on FanDuel is much more palatable, especially since the Red Sox average 6.09 runs in support of Porcello this season.
Tanner Roark dominates in day games. During his career, Roark has recorded a +12.93 Plus/Minus on 83.3 percent Consistency on FanDuel and a +7.15 Plus/Minus on 75.0 percent Consistency on DraftKings in 18 chances. Better yet, Roark has consistently gone deep into games, completing at least seven innings in 14 of his 23 starts. He has plateaued at seven strikeouts since the beginning of May, and his current 4.4 K Prediction removes him from tournament discussion. However, I believe Roark represents the safest cash-game option on the board. The Nationals are currently -225 favorites, and the one impediment to a clean afternoon remains Freddie Freeman.
Michael Fulmer and Justin Verlander are the only members of the Tigers staff who’ve provided a positive average Plus/Minus this season. Fulmer takes the mound today against the Rangers — a group Matt Boyd stymied yesterday — and 13 of Fulmer’s 18 starts have come on the road this season. Fulmer’s advanced stats imply he’s due for a breakout game. However, since the Rangers are currently implied to score 4.8 runs and are favored, I’d save Fulmer for tournaments in the off chance Saturday’s offensive stagnation wasn’t a fluke.
Steven Matz is a comparably cheap option on DraftKings at $8,800, and his recent form has been nothing short of spectacular. Even though he surrendered six earned runs against the Yankees less than two weeks ago, Matz has allowed a slate-best 153-foot batted-ball distance and 84-MPH exit velocity while limiting hitters to a 61 percent ground-ball rate in his last two starts. His floor has been five strikeouts in his last eight starts, and in reaching a career-high 120 pitches last time out he tied a season-high with nine strikeouts. Matz’s 6.9 K Prediction today is the third-highest mark on the slate, but bone spurs in his pitching elbow and the Mets’ anemic offense are reasons to reconsider the value. Matz is a pitcher who could have a stellar performance or be immediately pulled for elbow complications. The variance in potential outcomes as he closes in on a career-high in innings pitched have me riding him in tournaments.
In nine road starts this year, Tyler Chatwood has supplied a +4.44 Plus/Minus on DraftKings and a +10.28 Plus/Minus on FanDuel. Because Chatwood’s last two starts occurred in Coors Field, his recent advanced stats may get misinterpreted: He was still able to generate a ground ball 53 percent of the time. Pitching in Citizens Bank Park as the opposition has resulted in a league-high +2.41 Plus/Minus and 63.6 percent Consistency on DraftKings this season. Chatwood is significantly cheaper on FanDuel, where visitors have boasted a +4.90 Plus/Minus and 62.5 percent Consistency. To recap: Chatwood has performed well on the road and visiting pitchers average a league-best Plus/Minus at Citizens Bank Park this season.
John Lackey has pitched at least six innings in eight straight starts, and since 2014 he’s supplied a 75.0 percent Consistency rating on DraftKings when pitching at home (see below). Despite the home Consistency, I’m not infatuated with the matchup against the Cardinals. Stephen Piscotty is the only member of the projected lineup who has averaged a negative batted-ball differential over the past 15 days, and he’s one of two hitters with negative wOBA and ISO differentials against right-handed pitchers. Because Kyle Hendricks was able to dial up 12 strikeouts yesterday, reserving Lackey for tournaments seems like the prudent action. His K Prediction has since improved to 7.3, second only to Sale on the all day slate.
Stacks
Based on Isolated Power (ISO), a Brewers four-man stack rises above all on FanDuel’s main 10-game slate. They’re currently implied to score 5.0 runs, and opposing left-handed pitcher Cody Reed holds a slate-worst 2.143 HR/9 and a terrible 1.688 WHIP in his nine career starts. Five of the top-six hitters in the projected order own a FD Bargain Rating of at least 90 percent, and Manny Pina is the only one in the batting order with negative distance and exit velocity differentials over the past 15 days and less than five Pro Trends. Orlando Arcia only has six career at-bats against left-handed pitchers, so feel free to utilize the Brewers’ 3-5-6 hitters as a core.
The top-rated five-man stack on DraftKings using the CSURAM88 Model is also the second-most expensive five-man unit at $24,900. Three of the members cost at least $5,000, and none of them possess more than six Pro Trends.
The cheapest option, Tyler Naquin ($4,600), leads the team with a .417 wOBA, .287 ISO, and .605 slugging percentage. Carlos Santana (head) is expected to return to the lineup for a team currently implied to score 5.3 runs, and given the flimsy pitching options, spending up on an Indians stack doesn’t seem like a bad approach.
Hitters
The Reds-Brewers game showcases two starting pitchers in the bottom three in WHIP over the past 12 months. The Brewers were already covered in the ‘Stacks’ segment, so I’ll use this space to inform you that a Reds 1-3-4-5 stack includes players with Bargain Ratings of at least 90 percent on FanDuel. Joey Votto ($3,800) continued his dominance in Miller Park yesterday with four hits, and the rest of the top-five hitters in the order contributed two hits a piece.
Wilmer Flores is an automatic mention when the Mets face a left-handed pitcher. Today’s matchup against Clayton Richard is a bit unique in that Richard has made 46 relief appearances since his last start and he leads all pitchers with a minuscule 0.305 HR/9 rate and a slate-worst 1.966 WHIP. He won’t throw more than 75 pitches, per the manager. Flores is only $2,700 on FanDuel, and for reasons unbeknownst to me, the Mets are currently implied to score 4.9 runs. As Dark Helmet says, “smoke if you got ’em.”
Mike Napoli, not included in the Indians DraftKings stack, currently leads all hitters on the slate with 14 Pro Trends on DraftKings and 16.1 FanDuel points per game over the past month. In his last 11 games, he has hit the ball 40 feet farther than his yearly average, increased his exit velocity by six miles per hour, and improved his hard-hit rate by 11 percentage points. Napoli is only $3,700 on FanDuel, and he’s batting cleanup for a team currently implied to score 5.3 runs.
Josh Donaldson costs $3,800 on FanDuel. Rarely has he dipped to that level this season, and it’s not Vegas-related as the Blue Jays are currently implied to score 5.0 runs. He homered last night, but prior to that, he recorded only two home runs and two doubles in his previous 14 starts. Teammate Edwin Encarnacion is below $4,000 for the seventh time on FanDuel since the beginning of June, and when his price is reduced and the Blue Jays are on the verge of 5.0 implied runs he’s supplied a +8.40 Plus/Minus this season.
Yasmani Grandal has provided 57.0 percent Consistency over the past month on FanDuel, where he leads all hitters with 11 Pro Trends. Even so, his salary hasn’t fluctuated much, resting at $3,100 today. On DraftKings, Yadier Molina has matched Grandal’s monthly Consistency, as he’s only struck out three times in his last 13 starts. Molina doesn’t offer the Upside of Grandal, but at $3,000 on DraftKings he’s one of the cheapest projected cleanup hitters on the slate, especially at his position.
