Today brings us a 15-game main slate starting at 7:05pm ET. There are some huge tournaments tonight, highlighted by the DraftKings $1M Championship Series Main Event. Let’s talk some baseball.
Pitchers
With almost all of today’s pitchers, you’ll have to choose what’s more important: Vegas implied run totals or strikeout upside. The lone pitcher who boasts elite marks in both is Max Scherzer.
He faces the Phillies, who are currently implied for 3.3 runs. His K Prediction of 9.9 is nearly two strikeouts more than that of the next pitcher in Drew Pomeranz. Scherzer is coming off an excellent outing, in which he struck out 10 batters in eight innings and allowed zero runs and only two hits. His recent advanced stats aren’t amazing — he has allowed a batted-ball distance of 234 feet and an exit velocity of 92 miles per hour in his last three starts — but those inflated numbers are mostly due to a fairly-predictable blowup game at Coors Field. Scherzer is expensive — he’s $13,600 on DraftKings and $11,200 on FanDuel — but pitchers with his marks have historically met value even at his elevated price tag (per our Trends tool):
As mentioned above, from here on out you’ll have to make a decision between Vegas and strikeout upside. Pomeranz has the latter: He faces the Rays tonight, who are currently implied for 3.9 runs. However, his 8.0 K Prediction is second in the slate behind Scherzer’s. He’s back at home tonight after pitching on the road in five of his last six starts, the last of which was a gem: He struck out 11 batters — these very Rays, in fact — in just six innings of work. He has allowed a high number of fly balls recently (46 percent in his last three games), but they’ve been softly hit: He boasts a 26 percent hard-hit rate allowed in that same time frame.
Masahiro Tanaka doesn’t have the strikeout upside of Scherzer or Pomeranz — he has a 6.2 K Prediction tonight — but he faces a Royals team whose projected lineup has the second-lowest Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA) in the slate at .283. The Royals are currently implied for 3.5 runs and Tanaka is a moderate favorite with a -138 moneyline. He has been in great form lately, allowing a batted-ball distance of 187 feet, an exit velocity of 88 MPH, and a hard-hit rate of 26 percent. He also gets the benefit of having umpire Pat Hoberg behind the plate, who has historically added almost a full point of value over expectation (Plus/Minus) for starting pitchers.
Cole Hamels and Johnny Cueto are the exact same price on FanDuel ($10,300) yet have very different stats. Hamels faces the Mariners, who are currently implied for 3.8 runs, which seems a bit high given that he has put up back-to-back 60-point FD outings. In those two starts, he has struck out 18 batters and allowed only five total hits and one run. His advanced stats confirm his recent excellence: He has allowed an exit velocity of 87 MPH, induced ground balls at a 55 percent clip, and allowed a hard-hit rate of 26 percent. But he has a K Prediction of only 6.1 despite the Mariners’ high SO/AB of .291, the third-highest in the slate.
Cueto, on the other hand, has not been particularly stellar lately. He has averaged 26.75 FD points in his last four outings — not terrible, but not ideal for a $10,000-plus pitcher. His advanced stats are quite different than Hamels’: He has allowed an exit velocity of 93 MPH and a hard-hit rate of 40 percent in his last two starts. However — and this is a big “however” — he faces the Diamondbacks, who are currently implied for a slate-low 2.9 runs. Although the sample size is small, pitchers with implied run totals that low have historically done well despite poor advanced stats:
Dipping into the bargain bin for a second: Astros righty Colin McHugh hasn’t been great lately — he has allowed a combined 16 hits and nine earned runs in his last two starts — but he gets the Athletics, who are currently implied for 3.7 runs. Despite the poor outings, McHugh has advanced stats that aren’t actually terrible: He has allowed an exit velocity of 88 MPH and a hard-hit rate of 30 percent. The A’s have a .259 wOBA, the lowest in the slate by a wide margin. The Athletics are a team to attack on a nightly basis at this point, and tonight we can attack them with a pitcher who is only $6,000 on DraftKings. He will be heavily owned there as a SP2 option to pair with Scherzer or another high-priced stud.
Jumping back up to the expensive guys: Cubs righty Kyle Hendricks faces a Pirates team currently implied for 3.5 runs. Hendricks has been awesome lately:
As you might expect, his recent advanced stats are ridiculously good: He has allowed an exit velocity of 84 MPH and a hard-hit rate of 20 percent in his last two games, the latter of which was a game at Coors Field. In other words, his advanced stats are excellent and they’re actually probably underselling his excellence. Because of the Cubs’ high-powered offense — they’re currently implied for 5.1 runs — Hendricks is a -205 favorite, just behind Scherzer and Indians righty Josh Tomlin. At $10,800 on DK and $9,300 on FD, he’s a nice pivot from Scherzer, Cueto, or Hamels — all of whom are quite a bit pricier tonight.
A guy like this . . .
. . . is typically a guy to target for a bounce-back game. However, Toronto lefty J.A. Happ has the unfortunate task of pitching against the Orioles at Camden Yards. Baltimore is currently implied for 4.6 runs in what Vegas has as the second-highest scoring game behind the Dodgers-Rockies affair at Coors. Happ does have some strikeout upside tonight — he has a K Prediction of 7.0 currently — and he’s actually a moderate favorite at -145 because of the Blue Jays’ offense, but there’s obvious risk here. He’ll be low-owned in tournaments for a reason, but look at his player card again: The dude has upside.
Stacks
Despite there being a game at Coors, the highest-rated four-man stack on FanDuel — the four top stacks, in fact – belongs to the St. Louis Cardinals:
They are currently implied for 4.9 runs and face Wily Peralta, who owns the slate’s worst WHIP at 1.744 in the last year. The 1-2-3-7 stack is very intriguing, as it’s not a straight stack and is a pivot down from the likely high-owned offenses of the Blue Jays, Red Sox, Tigers, Indians, Cubs, Dodgers, Rockies, and Angels — all of whom are currently implied for at least five runs.
On DraftKings, the highest-rated five-man stack also belongs to the Cardinals (add in Jhonny Peralta). The next stack up is a 1-2-3-4-6 stack of the Rangers, who are currently implied for 4.8 runs. It’s very interesting that the highest-rated stacks today belong to teams implied below five runs.
Batters
The Tigers again have the highest-implied run total on the board at 5.8 runs currently. We currently have outfielder Tyler Collins projected to hit second, and if that happens he will be massively owned at only $2,700 on DraftKings. He has great splits against righties: He has a .365 wOBA, .203 Isolated Power (ISO), and .484 slugging percentage in the last year. He’s facing White Sox righty Anthony Ranaudo, who owns the worst HR/9 rate in the slate at 2.919.
Jose Bautista is a no-splits batter and hits fellow righties really well: He has a .376 wOBA, .248 ISO, and .497 slugging percentage in the last year. Teammate Josh Donaldson will be highly owned given his massive games lately — he’s only two games removed from a three-HR night — but Bautista actually boasts superior advanced stats in his games since returning from a knee injury, highlighted by his 47 percent hard-hit rate. The Blue Jays have been excellent with Bautista at the leadoff spot, and he’s projected there again tonight.
Let’s play a game: Find the last start in which Freddie Freeman didn’t score at least nine FD points:
Today he is projected to bat in his usual third spot for a Braves team currently implied for 4.8 runs. He has been ridiculous against righties in the last year: He has a .407 wOBA, .279 ISO, and .573 slugging percentage. His advanced stats are equally ridiculous: In his last 12 games, he has posted a batted-ball distance of 256 feet, an exit velocity of 95 MPH, a fly-ball rate of 55 percent, and a hard-hit rate of 41 percent.
#HotTaek: Mike Trout is good. He’s coming off a 37.4-point FD outing and is projected to bat second for an Angels team currently implied for 5.1 runs. He doesn’t have extreme splits because he could destroy pitchers throwing with any hand (or probably even multiple hands). In the last year against righties, he has a .432 wOBA, .274 ISO, and .595 slugging percentage. He has a recent exit velocity of 97 MPH and a hard-hit rate of 55 percent. What more do you need?
On the other side of that matchup sits Reds cleanup hitter Adam Duvall. He continues our trend of no-splits guys and dominates righties: He has a .351 wOBA, .285 ISO, and .528 slugging percentage in the last year. His advanced stats are Trout-esque: He has a batted-ball distance of 262 feet, an exit velocity of 96 MPH, and a hard-hit rate of 46 percent in his last eight starts. He’s only $3,300 on FD tonight.
Good luck!
