Sunday brings a nine-game main slate starting at 1:10 pm ET. Let’s jump in.
Pitchers
Studs
Jake Arrieta is the most expensive pitcher on FanDuel today at $10,400. However, he’s only the fifth-most expensive pitcher on DraftKings at $9,600, behind Stephen Strasburg, Rick Porcello, Carlos Martinez, and Lance McCullers. This pricing discrepancy is evident in Arrieta’s Bargain Rating: He (along with CC Sabathia) leads all DraftKings pitchers with a 72 percent Bargain Rating. It’s viable to roster Arrieta on both sites, but he’s especially valuable on DraftKings.
That said, there are several ‘stud’ pitchers with nice matchups. If you sort by opposing run total within our Player Models, you’ll see some low marks:
Martinez and McCullers seemingly have the best matchups against the Reds and Royals, whose projected lineups have the lowest and third-lowest past-year average wOBAs at .261 and .282. Of the two, Martinez has a lower K Prediction (6.7), the second-lowest mark of this ‘stud’ group behind Cole’s low 4.4. McCullers might have the best combination of K Prediction, opposing team total, and price on both sites: His current K Prediction of 8.0 is fourth in the slate, and he’s coming off an excellent first outing in which he allowed a single run in six innings and struck out seven Mariners. Per our Trends tool, his combination of Vegas data — including his slate-best -205 moneyline — and K Prediction has historically correlated with a high Plus/Minus for pitchers:
That said, it’s hard to move past Arrieta on either site, especially after he shut down a solid Cardinals offense in his first start of the year, allowing zero earned runs and four hits and going for 46.0 FanDuel points. His short-term Statcast metrics are from only that single game, so take them with a grain of salt, but they’re still suggestive of an elite pitcher having elite stuff early on: Arrieta held the Cardinals to a low 83 MPH exit velocity on batted balls — and many balls weren’t even batted. For what it’s worth, Arrieta’s been this cheap ($9,600) on DraftKings only twice within the last two years:
Value
There aren’t many great value options in this slate for cash games, but there are some with high upside for guaranteed prize pools (GPPs). Daniel Norris stands out at his low price point of $6,900 on both sites, and his Vegas data isn’t bad for someone with his salary: The opposing Red Sox are currently implied for just 3.9 runs. Norris actually leads the entire slate with a high 8.5 K Prediction, and he’s making his first start after putting together several impressive performances to end the 2016 season:
Norris has a rare combination of salary range, opponent implied run total, and K Prediction, which has correlated with strong DraftKings production over the last four seasons:
At the same time, the pitchers who’ve previously matched for this trend have had high ownership, and that will likely be the case on DraftKings, where Norris provides both a high ceiling and needed salary relief.
All that said, I want to give a disclosure: Norris is getting his first start today (instead of earlier in the week) because he’s been dealing with shoulder fatigue this spring. It doesn’t sound like it will linger, per the Detroit Free Press: “‘Last year, I had it my first start of spring,’ Norris said. ‘After that it was back to normal. Didn’t feel it the rest of the year.'” Further: “Norris said he’s ‘not concerned’ now about the arm fatigue.” You’ll have to decide for yourself if he’s worth the risk; the good news is that the 23-year-old southpaw is cheap enough to warrant consideration.
Fastballs
Stephen Strasburg: He struck out only three batters in his debut versus the Marlins last Monday, but he has the slate’s second-highest K Prediction today at 8.3. Like Arrieta on DraftKings, Strasburg is low at $9,600 on FanDuel — the lowest he’s been since 2016 and 2015 for two games at Coors Field:
Today he is on the road in Philadelphia.
Zach Davies: He will likely have low ownership today after scoring just -2.0 FanDuel points in his first start of the year. Plus, he’s $100 more than Norris at $7,000. His first result was poor, but his Statcast data wasn’t: He held hitters to an 87 MPH exit velocity and 28 percent hard hit rate.
Notable Stacks
With our Lineup Builder, it’s easy to incorporate stacks into DFS rosters. Let’s start by generating five-man DraftKings stacks based on overall ratings in the Bales Model. The highest-rated stack is a 1-2-3-5-7 stack of the Cardinals:
That might surprise you, but remember that the main slate includes only nine games: The Dodgers-Rockies affair at Coors Field is not in the main slate. As a result, the Cardinals boast the second-highest implied team total in the main slate at 4.8 runs, and they trail only the Astros with a 75 Team Value Rating (TVR):
Boasting a lot of power, this lineup could have relatively low ownership, as it skips over projected cleanup hitter Yadier Molina. Among projected Cards batters today, seventh hitter Jedd Gyorko has the best ISO split (.301) versus right-handed pitchers over the past year.
If we generate four-man FanDuel stacks based on average ISO, it is a 3-4-6-8 stack of the Orioles that takes the top spot:
Alright, you got me: The reason the Orioles rank the highest is because 25-year-old Trey Mancini has a .715 ISO versus lefties. His entire MLB career is just 19 plate appearances. His ISO will regress — and we should beware of rookies and small samples early in the year — but the Orioles are still an intriguing play, and they’ve experienced reverse line movement today:
You can spot this very easily on the Vegas Dashboard by looking for the green check mark: Baltimore’s implied run total has moved up by 0.3 runs even though they’ve received just 49 percent of the moneyline bets. That suggests there’s sharp money on the Orioles.
Batters
Chris Carter is projected to bat cleanup for the Yankees today versus the Orioles. That means he gets lefty Wade Miley on the mound, who has a bottom-five WHIP of 1.463 in today’s slate and owns the second-worst HR/9 allowed rate at 1.380. With 41 home runs last year as a Brewer, Carter has the power and upside worth rostering in GPPs even though he’s turned his six plate appearances this year into zero fantasy points and two strikeouts. The Yankees have seen negative reverse line movement opposite the Orioles, but that could potentially lower his ownership. At just $2,600 on FanDuel, where he comes with a 99 percent Bargain Rating, he’s worth a couple darts.
Brian Dozier is currently projected for just 0-1 percent ownership on FanDuel, and that is mostly because the Twins are currently projected for a mediocre 3.8 runs against Jose Quintana and the White Sox. Dozier has elite splits against lefties: He has a .385 wOBA, .318 ISO, and a .595 slugging percentage over the past year. Our Park Factor metric is adjusted for batter handedness, and Dozier has a solid 65 Park Factor at Guaranteed Rate Field, which is the new terrible name for what last year was U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago. That park has the sixth-highest home run factor and sets up well for righties, especially those with a high fly ball rate. Over the last year, Dozier and Miguel Sano have lead the Twins with fly balls rates of 46 and 45 percent.
As mentioned above, the Astros have the highest implied total on the slate at 5.1 runs and also boast the highest TVR on DraftKings at 77. The bottom of their order is cheap, but even Alex Bregman, projected to bat second behind George Springer, provides upside at a reasonable $3,900. Bregman has solid splits against righties over the last year, posting a .325 wOBA, .201 ISO, and a .455 slugging percentage. He has an awesome matchup today against the Royals’ Nate Karns, who has the worst WHIP in the main slate at 1.562. Further, Karns looked especially bad in his first appearance this year with 0.2 innings of work, two walked batters, and four earned runs allowed. The Astros offense has explosive upside and could go off today at home.
Astros: DFS Scouting Report
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:
