Friday has a split slate: There are two games in the 2:20 pm ET early slate and 13 games in the 7:05 pm ET main slate. Let’s jump in.
Pitchers
Studs
I typically advocate an “eat the chalk” strategy with pitchers, as the top studs, especially the elite ones like Clayton Kershaw today and Madison Bumgarner yesterday, have floors and ceilings that other pitchers can’t consistently match. But sometimes guys like Jason Vargas, Luis Severino, and Francisco Liriano have amazing games and outscore your stud at much lower ownership (per our DFS Ownership Dashboard):
But if we look at Bumgarner’s 19.3-point DraftKings performance, we see that amazing floor: He did give up three runs in six innings, but he also walked just one batter and struck out eight. He could have been sharper, and the Giants could have given him better run support, but 19.3 DraftKings points as a ‘bad’ game is pretty nice. Sure, Vargas, Severino, and Liriano all hit their ceilings on the exact same night, but stay with the process. If you run that night over 1,000 times, Bumgarner is likely the highest-scoring pitcher a supermajority of the time. It’s not 100 percent, and that’s why it was perhaps wise to hedge a bit with those value options, but Bumgarner was not a bad play by any means.
As for today, we have quite the selection of high-priced studs from which to choose:
Kershaw is $1,900 and $1,400 more expensive than any other pitcher on DraftKings and FanDuel, and he’s had a couple mixed starts to begin his 2017 campaign. After going for 52.0 FanDuel points against the Padres on Opening Day, he mustered only 24.0 fantasy points in his next game against Colorado. That said, that game was at Coors Field, which, as you might expect, has easily been the worst park for opposing pitchers over the last four years (per our Trends tool):
Kershaw has an intriguing matchup today against the Diamondbacks, who rank second in the league with a team wOBA of .344 but also first with a high .360 BABIP. Considering that their projected lineup has a past-year average wOBA of .314, it’s definitely possible that they’re 1) getting lucky or 2) running hot. Either way, they could cool down tonight, as they currently have a slate-low implied Vegas total of just 2.3 runs. If that number seems extremely low to you, that’s because it is: Over the last four seasons, there have been just 25 instances of a 2.3-run implication. Opposing pitchers averaged 53.68 FanDuel points with a 76 percent Consistency Rating in those games:
Noah Syndergaard has been amazing to start the 2017 season, allowing just one run and striking out 16 batters in 13 innings pitched through two games. His most recent one was against the Marlins, and he finished with 55.0 FanDuel points and an +18.73 Plus/Minus at home. He gets them again today in Miami, which means he has a very high Park Factor of 92. In the four games he’s played with similar Park Factors, he’s gone for 54 points twice:
Ownership levels will be notable for these top studs, especially since two of them — Stephen Strasburg and Kyle Hendricks — are playing day games; you can roster them in only the early or all-day slate. Thor will almost certainly have lower ownership than Kershaw, but he’s a worthy pivot in GPPs given his excellent play of late and solid matchup. Over the last two games, he’s averaged a batted ball distance allowed of just 179 feet, and he’s induced ground balls at a 66 percent clip.
Values
Dallas Keuchel is in a tier below the top guys when it comes to strikeout upside: He has a mediocre 7.46 SO/9 rate over the past year and owns a low 5.2 K Prediction against the Oakland Athletics. That said, his control has been perhaps the best in the entire league throughout the first couple of weeks: In his first two games, he has gone 14 innings, allowing just two hits, one run, and three walks in that span. His Statcast data is so elite it doesn’t even seem possible: He’s held opponents to a batted ball distance of 135 feet, an exit velocity of 83 miles per hour, and a hard hit rate of 16 percent, and he’s induced ground balls 74 percent of the time. He’ll have a tougher test today against an Oakland squad that has registered a hard hit percentage of 37.2 percent this season — the fifth-best mark in the league.
There are 11 historical matches of favored pitchers with similar recent batted ball data, and they’ve averaged 41.45 FanDuel points and an +11.49 Plus/Minus:
Julio Teheran also has impressive recent batted ball data, allowing a low 86 MPH exit velocity and an 18 percent hard hit rate over his first two starts. In those outings, he struck out 10 batters across 13 innings and allowed zero earned runs. Today he gets a nice matchup against a Padres team whose projected lineup owns the slate’s second-worst past-year team wOBA at .253. Further, his K Prediction of 6.7 isn’t quite as low as you might expect it to be given his average 8.052 past-year SO/9 rate. This year and last year, the Padres have been the league’s most generous team to pitchers with comparable K Predictions:
He will likely carry low ownership in GPPs given the abundance of studs today.
Fastball
Stephen Strasburg: He struck out eight Phillies across seven innings in his last start and gets them again today; Philadelphia ranks fourth in the league this season with a 24.0 percent strikeout rate.
Kyle Hendricks: He’s facing the Pirates, who are currently implied for just 3.0 runs; he has a moneyline of -174, and in seven games with similar Vegas data he has averaged a +4.87 FanDuel Plus/Minus on 71.4 percent Consistency.
Notable Stacks
With our Lineup Builder, it’s easy to incorporate stacks into DFS rosters. Since the early slate is so small, let’s build DraftKings and FanDuel stacks for the big 13-game main slate. First, here’s the highest-rated five-man stack on DraftKings (per the Bales Model):
This is a 1-2-3-4-6 stack of the Twins, and it includes three lefties against Dylan Covey, who is set to make his major league debut. The Twins currently sit first in the AL Central at 6-3, and they just went off yesterday for 11 runs, including three homers. The’re currently implied for 5.0 runs today, which is the highest mark in the slate:
Along with that Vegas data will likely come heavy ownership. The trio of Brian Dozier, Miguel Sano, and Max Kepler all have ISO marks of .222 or higher against righties over the past year.
On FanDuel, the top-rated four-man stack belongs to the Twins as well. Right below that sits a 1-2-3-7 stack of the Brewers:
The Brewers are intriguing today, as they’re currently implied for 4.4 runs, which is the sixth-highest mark in the main slate. With that Vegas data, they could have less ownership than warranted. They’re facing Scott Feldman, who was excellent in his first start — he scored 46.0 FanDuel points, allowing no runs and just four hits across six innings — but that was against the Cardinals, who have been surprisingly awful this season, ranking 28th in the league with a miserable .108 team ISO. The Brewers, meanwhile, rank third in team ISO at .204 and have been crushing the ball to start the year. Eric Thames, for example, as averaged a 97 MPH exit velocity and 251-foot batted ball distance throughout his first seven games.
Batters
I’m sorry if you’re sick of me harping on our new Recent Batted Ball Luck metric, but I’m probably going to do so every day since I think it’s so valuable. In case you haven’t read before, here’s the definition:
The difference between a player’s percentile rank in batted ball distance and fantasy scoring over the past 15 days
Take Nelson Cruz, for example, who is projected to hit cleanup today for the Seattle Mariners. He’s been very poor to begin the 2017 season:
That said, his Statcast data paints a less dire picture: Over the first 10 games, he’s averaged a batted ball distance of 227 feet, which is actually a six-foot bump over his 12-month average. And yet he hasn’t scored fantasy points. It’s likely he’s been unlucky, and his fantasy fortune could change today: He’s facing Texas lefty Martin Perez, who has a below-average 1.445 WHIP over the last year. Cruz has historically crushed lefties, as evidenced by his past-year .368 ISO.
I’m not sure what to do with Yoenis Cespedes. I wrote about him in Tuesday’s breakdown — he was the Cruz of that article, if you will, as he had a massive Recent Batted Ball Luck and had been getting unlucky at the plate — and since then he’s done this:
Seven hits and five home runs across three games ain’t too shabby. The issue, of course, is his ownership: He was 23.4 percent owned last night, and the Mets weren’t even in a good spot, implied for just 3.8 runs against the Marlins’ Wei-Yin Chen. They have a somewhat low implied run total of 4.0 runs, but after hitting two homers again last night Cespedes is likely to be flooded with ownership in tournaments. That said, it’s hard to argue against him: He’s averaged a batted ball distance of 261 feet, an exit velocity of 95 MPH, a fly ball rate of 60 percent, and a hard hit rate of 54 percent. He’s definitely a fade candidate given his projected ownership and the volatile nature of MLB batters, but I’ll warn you now that it’s a terrifying fade.
Yasmany Tomas has a massive .344 ISO over the last year against left-handed pitchers. He’s been valuable against them:
BUT . . . he’s facing Kershaw. Can the best hitters — the hitters with the most elite ISO splits — still take on Kershaw? Eh, probably not:
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:
