A 15-game Friday night main slate? You better believe it.
Pitchers
In his four starts since joining the starting rotation, David Phelps — who may or may not be channeling surname dominance this summer — has done this . . .
Today he faces the Padres, who are currently implied by Vegas for 3.1 runs, the lowest mark in the slate. He also gets them at home, where he boasts a 93 Park Factor — the second-best mark for pitchers, behind only the 100 for the pitchers in the Atlanta-Giants affair in San Francisco. He has been in solid recent form, per his advanced stats. It’s always encouraging when recent predictors match up with results: He has been inducing ground balls at a 50 percent clip in his last two starts.
And did I mention that Phelps has a 9.8 K Prediction, 2.3 Ks higher than anyone else’s mark? Or that he’s a large -190 moneyline favorite? Or that he’s only $7,000 on FanDuel? That’s the truly incredibly thing about Phelps today. In fact, using our Trends tool, there have been only three pitchers historically who’ve had a K Prediction of 9.8 or higher at $7,000 or lower:
And if we include his great Vegas data then that historical sample count drops to zero.
Phelps in cash, Phelps in GPPs, Phelps in everywhere you want to be.
Chris Sale faces the Mariners, who are currently implied for 3.6 runs. He has a 7.5 K Prediction, which is second-best on the slate and a full 1.1 higher than the third-best pitcher — which, again, says a lot about Phelps. All of Sale’s recent advanced stats are in line with his year-long marks, which are solid. He does get the benefit of having umpire Vic Carapazza behind home plate, who has historically added +2.3 points over expectation to starting pitchers. It’s hard to be really excited about Sale given that Phelps is in the slate, but he does have a ton of upside and is coming off a dominant, 60-point FD outing.
Justin Verlander’s strikeout totals have been down lately: He has averaged only 5.7 per start in his last three starts, compared to 8.8 per in his previous five. Alas, because of the Angels’ low K rate — they have averaged .224 SO/AB in the last year, a top-five mark — Verlander’s K Prediction sits at only 6.0. The rest of Verlander’s data is a mix of good and bad. The good: The Angels are implied for only 3.6 runs currently and Verlander is a sizable -188 favorite. The (very) bad: Verlander has allowed a batted-ball distance of 236 feet, a fly-ball rate of 61 percent, and a hard-hit rate of 47 percent in his last two starts. He has been excellent this year, but the warning signs are visible today.
Giants righty Jeff Samardzija is cheaper than both Sale and Verlander and seemingly in a better spot: He’s at home, giving him a slate-best 100 Park Factor. (The opposing pitcher, Braves starter Ricky Nolasco, also has a 100 Park Factor.) The Braves are currently implied for only 3.3 runs. Samardzija’s advanced stats aren’t Verlander-bad, but they are concerning: He has allowed a batted-ball exit velocity of 92 miles per hour and a hard-hit rate of 43 percent in his last two starts. However, he is a large favorite at -210 — something that has been very valuable on FD historically:
Speaking of large favorites, there are three more favorites who are at least -200: Luke Weaver (-202), Gio Gonzalez (-213), and Francisco Liriano (-232). They are incredibly cheap, too, especially on DraftKings: Liriano is the most expensive at $6,900, Gio is $6,100, and Weaver is near minimum at only $4,200. And it’s not as if Weaver doesn’t have any K upside, either: His K Prediction of 6.3 is the fifth-best mark. He also has the best Park Factor (81) and opponent implied run total (3.5) among these three. He’s a very easy SP2 fill-in today, although both Gio and Liriano are viable in tournaments as well — and likely at lower ownership.
Indians righty Corey Kluber is probably the most puzzling pitcher today. He faces the Rangers, who are currently implied for 4.2 runs — a mark that, combined with a $10,500 FD price tag, will completely kill his ownership everywhere. However, there are signs that he could be a sneaky GPP play: He has a low 6.4 K Prediction (low for him, that is), but that’s only because of Vegas’ implication that he’ll give up a bunch of runs and not make it far into the game. The Rangers actually have the second-highest SO/AB rate at .297. If he doesn’t give up those runs, he could rack up strikeouts in a hurry. Further, he’s in great recent form: He has induced ground balls at a 56 percent clip and has allowed a hard-hit rate of only 21 percent in his last three outings. He’s risky, but he could win you a tournament.
Stacks
The top-rated five-man stack on DraftKings is a 1-2-3-4-5 straight stack of the Yankees:
Gary Sanchez and Didi Gregorius — the projected three and four hitters — have 13 and 12 DK Pro Trends. Sanchez continues to crush the ball early in his MLB career: He has an exit velocity of 93 MPH and a hard-hit rate of 50 percent in his last 11 games. The Yankees are currently implied for 4.9 runs.
On FanDuel, the top-rated four-man stack is also a Yankees stack: 1-3-4-5. If we remove them, a -1-3-4-5 Nationals stack takes the top spot:
The Nationals are implied for 5.5 runs currently, the second-highest mark today behind the Blue Jays’ 6.2.
The Yankees and Nats are both great stacks, but they’re also both very expensive. As a Friday bonus, the third highest-rated FD stack is a 1-3-4-5 Diamondbacks stack and it comes $2,300 cheaper than the Nats stack shown above. And it’s not as if Arizona has less upside: The Diamondbacks are currently implied for 5.4 runs.
Batters
This is an interesting day of MLB DFS. There are huge totals on the board — the Nats, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Tigers, and Diamondbacks are all currently implied for over five runs — which typically means that we need to find cheap bats or cheap pitchers to pair with the expensive, explosive bats. However, because some of the best pitchers today — regardless of price, arguably — are so cheap, it will be very easy to make an incredibly valuable lineup. As a result, we’ll likely see some huge scores atop GPP leaderboards.
Stephen Piscotty is projected to bat second for a Cardinals team currently implied for 4.9 runs — a mark that would typically bring high ownership but likely won’t today because of the other totals. He has great splits against lefties: He has a .404 Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA), .248 Isolated Power (ISO), and .544 slugging percentage in the last year. He faces Oakland lefty Ross Detwiler, who has the worst WHIP in the slate at 2.329.
Lefties at Yankee Stadium typically do very well — they have a Park Factor of 81 — and what do you know . . . Chris Davis is in New York tonight. He obviously crushes righties, but I’ll state his splits for fun: He has a .406 wOBA, .335 ISO, and .587 ISO in the last year. He has been absolutely destroying the ball lately: He has a batted-ball distance of 277 feet, an exit velocity of 100 MPH . . .
(Pause)
(Yes, an exit velocity of 100 freaking miles per hour)
(Continued)
. . . a fly-ball rate of 47 percent, and a hard-hite rate of 56 percent. Uh, play him?
Adam Duvall is projected to bat cleanup for a Reds team currently implied for 4.7 runs. He’s a no-splits guy over the last year, but he definitely hits fellow righties well: He has a .349 wOBA, .290 ISO, and .532 slugging percentage. It sounds lame compared to Crush, but his advanced stats recently are pretty ridiculous, too: In his last eight games, he has boasted a batted-ball distance of 270 feet, an exit velocity of 95 MPH, a fly-ball rate of 60 percent, and a hard-hit rate of 40 percent. Play him as well?
David Ortiz did not play last night, but he did pinch hit. He’s projected back in the Red Sox lineup in the three hole. He’s facing a righty, so he’s of course in play: He boasts a .454 wOBA, .372 ISO, and .697 slugging percentage in the last year. He continues the trend of stupid advanced stats: He has a batted-ball distance of 249 feet, an exit velocity of 97 MPH, and a hard-hit rate of 62 percent. Maybe throw in one GPP lineup with Crush, Duvall, and Ortiz. Then watch the home runs fly.
Good luck today.
