The MLB Breakdown offers data-driven analysis for each day’s slate, using the FantasyLabs Tools and metrics to highlight notable players.
Tuesday has a 14-game main slate at 7:05 pm ET.
Pitchers
Studs
Today’s pitching cohort is quite uninspiring, and especially up top; there are only two pitchers priced above $9,000 on FanDuel.
Madison Bumgarner is the slate’s highest-priced pitcher but has struggled in his last two starts coming off the disabled list, striking out just 10 batters while allowing seven earned runs and four homers. What is particularly concerning is that those games have come against the San Diego Padres, who are a DFS pitcher’s dream: They rank 28th in the league with a .299 team wOBA and first with a 25.6 percent strikeout rate. If Bumgarner is struggling against them, that’s a dire sign for the future. His Statcast data isn’t great either: Over those starts, he’s allowed a batted ball distance of 207 feet, an exit velocity of 94 miles per hour, and a hard hit rate of 41 percent.
Today he faces a Pirates squad that isn’t particularly potent: They rank 24th in the league with a .312 team wOBA and are currently implied for a slate-low 3.7 runs. Bumgarner is at home, where he boasts a slate-high 94 Park Factor, and he’s historically been dominant there (per the MLB Trends tool):
It’s tough to gauge his potential ownership for tonight; he could be highly-owned because of the poor options in the slate, or he could be lower-owned than expected given his poor recent play. While he does have the lowest opponent implied run total, he’s only a small favorite at -118 because the Giants’ offense is so poor; they’re currently implied for just 3.9 runs against Pirates righty Jameson Taillon. Further, it’s not like Bumgarner has a whole lot of upside either: The Pirates own the second-lowest strikeout rate in the league at 18.6 percent, and Bumgarner’s 6.1 K Prediction is merely average in this slate. He’s still incredibly talented and is thus worth exposure in guaranteed prize pools (GPPs), but he certainly has a lot of concerning factors on his resume.
The four highest-rated pitchers in the Bales Model today are between $7,200 and $8,600 on FanDuel, and people will likely take a value pitcher and pay up for one of the many high-implied stacks. Sonny Gray is the second-highest priced pitcher at $9,100, which seems like a ridiculous price tag considering he’s facing a Blue Jays squad in a hitter’s park in Toronto currently implied for a whopping 4.9 runs. That said, Gray has been solid lately, averaging a +3.81 Plus/Minus on 70 percent Consistency over his last 10 starts, and he comes with excellent recent Statcast data. Over his last two games, he’s allowed a batted ball distance of 185 feet, a fly ball rate of 25 percent, and a hard hit rate of 22 percent. He’s hit value in each of his last five starts and is currently projected for zero to one percent ownership.
Pro Subscribers can review ownership trends across tournaments of various buy-in levels after lineup lock via our DFS Ownership Dashboard.
Values
Houston righty Charlie Morton is the highest-rated pitcher in the Bales Model and for good reason. He has a solid matchup against a Phillies team that ranks 27th in the league this season with a .305 team wOBA and ninth with a 22.8 percent strikeout rate. They’re currently implied for just 3.9 runs, and Morton is a -150 moneyline favorite. Further, Morton has elite recent Statcast data: Over his last two starts, he’s allowed a batted ball distance of 188 feet, an exit velocity of 84 miles per hour, and a hard hit rate of 19 percent. His 7.4 K Prediction is the third-highest mark of the slate; Luis Castillo and Jon Gray are ahead with marks of 8.5 and 7.6, respectively, but those guys also have opponent implied run totals of 5.1 and 4.5. Pitchers with similar Statcast data and K Predictions as Morton have historically crushed value, averaging 40.45 FanDuel points and a +8.67 Plus/Minus:
Kenta Maeda hasn’t been great in terms of strikeouts lately — he has just eight over his last 10 innings — but he’s also allowed just two runs during that span. In his last game, he allowed a nice batted ball distance of 191 feet and an exit velocity of 89 miles per hour. Combine all that with his Vegas data today, and he’s arguably the safest pitcher in the slate: He’s facing a Twins team currently implied for just 3.7 runs — tied for the lowest mark in the slate — and he’s the biggest favorite with -170 moneyline odds. Maeda leads all pitchers today in terms of Pro Trends on both sites; he has eight on FanDuel and nine on DraftKings. He’s a better value at $7,600 on the latter site, where he comes with a 69 percent Bargain Rating, but he’s certainly in cash-game consideration in both places. His 6.0 K Prediction suggests he has somewhat low upside, so he could be worth a fade in tournaments, especially with his slate-high projected ownership of 17-20 percent on DraftKings.
Fastballs
Lance Lynn: He’s gone for between 34.0 and 38.0 FanDuel points in each of his last three outings, and he’s in a pitcher’s park tonight at home in St. Louis. He has a tough matchup against a Rockies squad that ranks fifth in the league with a .331 team wOBA, but Vegas bettors seem to believe in him: Colorado is currently implied for just 4.1 runs. His 7.0 K Prediction is the fourth-best mark today, and he’s projected for just five to eight percent ownership on FanDuel.
Mike Clevinger: He has a low 5.8 K Prediction today because of his matchup against the Angels, who rank 23rd in the league with a 20.0 percent strikeout rate and have a projected lineup today that rates even better in that regard. But still, Clevinger leads all pitchers today with an average of 43.8 FanDuel points over the last month, and he’s gone for over 40.0 fantasy points in each of his last four starts.
Notable Stacks
With our Lineup Builder, it’s easy to incorporate stacks into DFS rosters. The highest-rated five-man DraftKings stack (per player ratings in the Bales Model) currently belongs to the Texas Rangers:
The Rangers are currently implied for 5.6 runs — the second-highest mark in the slate — and are in great hitting conditions at home. It is projected to be a toasty 95 degrees at first pitch, and this game has a slate-high Weather Rating of 73. The Rangers get Miami righty Dan Straily, who has really struggled of late, allowing 17 hits and six runs over his last 10 innings. His Statcast data is in line with those results: He’s allowed a batted ball distance of 232 feet and an exit velocity of 92 miles per hour. The Rangers have an Opponent Bullpen Rating of 78, which means they could certainly continue a scoring barrage even if they knock out Straily early.
We’ve recently added tools for FantasyDraft in Models, and I have a piece on FantasyDraft scoring, rosters, and strategy. They allow six batters in a stack, so let’s take a look at a highly-rated group for today’s main slate:
The next highest-rated stack after the Rangers belongs to the Cardinals, who were covered in today’s stacking piece by Jay Persson. Instead, let’s pivot to the Detroit Tigers, who are currently implied for 5.0 runs; that mark has moved up 0.4 runs since opening. They face Royals lefty Danny Duffy, who has allowed a batted ball distance of 225 feet over his last two starts. That is dangerous against the Tigers hitters, especially someone like Victor Martinez, who has averaged a batted ball distance of 246 feet, an exit velocity of 95 miles per hour, and a hard hit rate of 41 percent over his last 11 games. Given the size of today’s slate and how many teams are currently implied for five-plus runs, it is likely that this will be a somewhat contrarian stack on all sites.
Batters
Let’s talk about some recently unlucky batters using our proprietary metric Recent Batted Ball Luck. Here’s the definition:
The difference between a player’s percentile rank in batted ball distance and fantasy scoring over the past 15 days
One recently unlucky player is Athletics second baseman Jed Lowrie, who is currently projected to bat fifth today for an Oakland squad implied for 4.7 runs. Lowrie has averaged a poor -2.60 DraftKings Plus/Minus over his last 10 games . . .
. . . but his Statcast data has been excellent during that same time period: He’s averaged a batted ball distance of 248 feet, an exit velocity of 93 miles per hour, and a fly ball rate of 50 percent. If he keeps those numbers up, he’ll almost certainly start accumulating fantasy points.
A couple weeks ago I posted a video about how to use Models to find undervalued stacks. One example I gave was weighting Recent BBL high and using that to identify teams that have posted good collective Statcast numbers but have been unlucky in terms of fantasy points. One example of this is the Dodgers; each of their top-five projected batters today have positive Recent BBL marks:
They’ve all been hitting the ball very well of late but have been getting a bit unlucky. Take Corey Seager: He has averaged a poor -0.51 DraftKings Plus/Minus over his last 10 games . . .
. . . but has averaged a batted ball distance of 247 feet and an exit velocity of 95 miles per hour over that time frame. The Dodgers are currently implied for 4.9 runs and could certainly win someone a GPP.
Good luck!
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:
