The ‘aces’ of the Orioles and Royals have had interesting starts to their 2018 seasons. Dylan Bundy and Danny Duffy both started Opening Day for their respective teams but have had plenty of bumps and bruises over their first 10 starts. Duffy’s 39 earned runs and 14 dongs are the most allowed in the American League. Bundy hasn’t been consistently terrible like Duffy, but he had a three-start stretch in which he averaged worse than a -20 DraftKings Plus/Minus. Can’t forget the time when he allowed seven runs without getting an out, either…
Neither pitcher is having the season he was hoping for, but both are in good spots on Thursday to at least provide some value for DFS players.
Dylan Bundy: $8,100 DraftKings at Chicago White Sox
Of the two, I like and trust Bundy more. First of all, he leads the full-day slate with a 8.3 K Prediction, which puts him in the 98th percentile historically. He’s also $1,700 cheaper on DraftKings than he was a month ago, which we know leads to value.
When we add these two bits of data together using the Trends tool…
…we get some Grade A stuff.
Another important thing to know is the weather. The wind is expected to blow straight in at around six MPH all game, which is clutch for our guy Bundy, who is a fly-ball pitcher. Forty-nine percent of his batted balls have been fly balls over the past calendar year, including 56% over his past two starts. Bundy has just five starts in our database with the wind blowing in but has managed a Plus/Minus of +8.39 in them.
Considering the great strikeout upside and tough time the White Sox will have hitting the ball out of the yard, Bundy is looking like a solid option at $8,100.
Danny Duffy: $4,300 DraftKings at Texas Rangers
Like I said earlier, I like Bundy more today…which means I like Duffy less. Even so, I think he’s not a bad option for players looking to get real stingy with their arms.
At nearly the minimum price, Duffy has seen his salary drop $2,500 over the month. Tough to blame the folks over at DraftKings for making him so cheap, though. Just look at his game log.
However, like Bundy, he is in a nice spot to put up strikeouts. The Rangers have the highest strikeout rate in the American League, and while Duffy isn’t exactly mowing them down, we expect him to rack up 6.6 Ks on average. This puts him in the 85th percentile.
Using those same two filters we used for Bundy, slightly tweaked, we find a very similar situation for the Duff Man.
Not bad at all.
However, there are a couple of detrimental factors for Duffy. The first is that his recent batted-ball data is ugly. I mean, how could you expect anything else for a guy who went from ‘ace’ to worst pitcher in the league pretty much? As we know, bad recent batted-ball data is a predictor for bad future performance…which is bad…
Furthermore, the weather in Texas will once again be fairly hot, and the Weather Rating of 34 for pitchers is the worst of the day.
Duffy is definitely the riskier play of the two, but those looking to fit in Rick Porcello or Charlie Morton as well as some expensive bats may be inclined to take a flier on the struggling Royal.
