Sunday brings an eight-game main slate at 1:10 pm ET main slate. Let’s jump in.
Pitchers
Studs
In today’s main slate, there’s a sizable gap between the top stud — Danny Salazar at $11,300 on DraftKings and $10,100 on FanDuel — and the two other high-priced ‘studs’ in John Lackey and Michael Fulmer. There’s also a sizable gap between those two guys and the rest of the field:
Given the options and Salazar’s matchup, he will likely be the highest-owned pitcher in all contest formats: He’s facing the White Sox, who are currently implied for a slate-low 3.6 runs and rank dead last in the league this season in team wOBA (.263). Further, they rank sixth in strikeout rate (23.8 percent), which is why Salazar’s 7.6 K Prediction leads all pitchers today in the main slate by 0.5 strikeouts. And Salazar has been good to start the year: Through his last two games, he’s allowed a batted ball distance of 196 feet, a fly ball rate of 32 percent, and a hard hit rate of 26 percent. He’s been a nice DFS asset in his first three starts:
With a -185 moneyline, he’s easily the slate’s heaviest favorite, and he has a pitcher-friendly umpire in Dan Bellino: If you want to roster Salazar — and it makes a lot of sense to do so — you’re going to have to find some contrarian plays elsewhere given his likely sky-high ownership, which Pro subscribers can review across tournaments of all stakes in our DFS Ownership Dashboard after lineups lock.
Many people will likely skip over Lackey and Fulmer and dip lower in salary. Lackey will likely be the more popular option of the two, as he’s facing a Reds team that is implied for ‘only’ 4.0 runs and he’s a -164 moneyline favorite. Pitchers on FanDuel with similar moneylines have averaged 32.82 FanDuel points and a +2.25 Plus/Minus with a 56.7 percent Consistency Rating. That’s a solid foundation for a valuable trend, but unfortunately the good data points stop there for Lackey: The Reds rank second in team ISO this season (.190) and 23rd in strikeout rate (19.6 percent). Lackey is in a hitter’s park, and his 5.5 K Prediction isn’t exciting for a guy who costs $9,800 on DraftKings.
Fulmer has a higher K Prediction at 6.6 — the third-highest mark in the slate — but he also has an opponent run total of 4.5 against the Twins. He’s a dog today, and the Statcast data from his last two starts is bad: He’s allowed a batted ball distance of 218 feet and an exit velocity of 94 miles per hour.
Values
Ivan Nova is why people will likely skip over Lackey and Fulmer today: He has the second-best opponent run total at 3.7 against the Yankees, and he costs just $7,300 on FanDuel. Sure, he doesn’t have a ton of strikeout upside — his K Prediction of 5.0 is ninth out of 16 — but neither does Lackey. If you’re going to pay for safety without a whole lot of upside, you might as well pay less and for more safety. In terms of Statcast data, Nova has been the best pitcher of all options in the main slate over the past two games, allowing a batted ball distance of 179 feet, an exit velocity of 87 miles per hour, a fly ball rate of 23 percent, and a hard hit rate of 25 percent. Very few pitchers as cheap as Nova today have historically boasted marks like those (per our Trends tool):
Again, a 5.0 K Prediction is bad — and it would likely disqualify Nova in another slate — but this isn’t another slate.
Mike Leake is $600 more than Nova on FanDuel but has been just as good: Over his last two games, he’s allowed a batted ball distance of 182 feet, an exit velocity of 89 miles per hour, a fly ball rate of 23 percent, and a hard hit rate of 19 percent. He has a harder matchup against the Brewers, who are currently implied for 4.2 runs and first in the league by a mile with a team ISO of .226. That said, Leake has allowed just two earned runs through 21.1 innings, and he’s averaged a +15.52 FanDuel Plus/Minus during that time. His 6.4 K Prediction is fourth in the slate, and the Brewers have the highest strikeout rate in the league this season at 27.5 percent. As with Nova, there haven’t been many pitchers historically as cheap as Leake with Statcast data as solid as his:
Fastballs
Michael Foltynewicz: He has a respectable K Prediction of 6.3 and faces a Phillies team that is currently implied for 3.9 runs and ranks fifth in strikeout rate in 2017 with a 23.9 percent mark; he’s just $6,900 on FanDuel, where he has an 82 percent Bargain Rating.
Eduardo Rodriguez: He has a tough matchup in a batter’s park in Baltimore against an Orioles team currently implied for 4.4 runs, but he also boasts the second-highest K Prediction of the slate at 7.1.
Notable Stacks
With our Lineup Builder, it’s easy to incorporate stacks into DFS rosters. Let’s build a five-man DraftKings stack (using player ratings in the Bales Model) and then a four-man FanDuel stack:
A 1-2-3-4-5 straight stack of the Cardinals sits at the top and is certainly intriguing; the Cardinals are implied for 4.4 runs, the third-highest mark in the main slate behind those of the Cubs, Indians, and Twins (per the Vegas dashboard):
For that reason, they’ll likely be lower-owned than the teams above them, especially if people are worried about their poor play this season: They rank 21st in the league in 2017 with a team ISO of .147. That said, the Cardinals have been unlucky: Matt Carpenter, Dexter Fowler, and Stephen Piscotty all have high Recent Batted Ball Luck marks. Here’s that definition again:
The difference between a player’s percentile rank in batted ball distance and fantasy scoring over the past 15 days
On FanDuel, the Cardinals own the top-rated four-man stack. The next stack belongs to the Cubs:
They’ll likely be popular today, as they’re implied for a slate-high 5.1 runs and just exploded for 12 runs yesterday. They face 40-year-old Bronson Arroyo, who has a miserable 3.0 HR/9 allowed over the past year. Through his first three games, he’s allowed five home runs and 14 earned runs through 15 innings. Things could get ugly yet again in Cincinnati.
Batters
A new metric in our Player Models this year is Opponent Bullpen Strength. Here’s the definition:
Percentile rank of how “overworked” the opposing bullpen has been over the past three games; a higher number is better for batters
The Reds stand out in this regard today, as their batters have a mark of 99 against a Cubs team that has had to use the bullpen a lot lately. The Cubs allowed eight runs to the Reds yesterday, and if Lackey has a poor outing the Cubs may have to put out some tired arms. While the Plus/Minus mark for batters in similar situations isn’t stellar, they’ve historically had a high Upside Rating of 17 percent.
Joey Votto went off for 44.9 FanDuel points yesterday, and he could certainly take advantage of a tired Cubs bullpen again today.
The Tigers face Twins righty Kyle Gibson, who has a poor past-year WHIP of 1.563 and a HR/9 allowed of 1.433. It seems like they’ve been a little disappointing this season, but they actually rank seventh in the league with a team ISO of .180, and they have some guys who have been making great contact lately. Nick Castellanos has especially crushed the ball: Over his last 14 games, he’s averaged a batted ball distance of 237 feet, an exit velocity of 96 miles per hour, and a hard hit rate of 55 percent. He’s projected to hit third (per our MLB Lineups page) for a Tigers squad that is currently implied for just 4.1 runs despite the positive matchup against Gibson. We have Castellanos currently projected for just two to four percent ownership on DraftKings.
Going back to our Recent Batted Ball Luck metric: Tyler Collins has a very high mark of 79 over his last 10 games. During that time, he’s averaged a batted ball distance of 236 feet, an exit velocity of 95 miles per hour, and a hard hit rate of 48 percent. Those are all elite marks and would typically belong to a player posting a lot of fantasy points. Collins? He’s averaged a -1.67 DraftKings Plus/Minus during that span on just 20 percent Consistency. He’s projected to bat second today for the Tigers, is only $2,900 on DraftKings, and has seven Pro Trends — the second-highest mark among all batters other than Francisco Lindor. The Tigers don’t have a great run implication today, but you could make the argument that they’ve been quite unlucky over the past two weeks. That could change in a hurry against Gibson.
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:
