Monday’s six-game slate locks at 7:10 p.m. ET.
Pitchers
Four pitchers headline pricing on FanDuel:
- Brandon Woodruff (R) $10,700, MIL vs SD
- Lance Lynn (R) $10,000, CHW vs STL
- Blake Snell (L) $9,300, SD @ MIL
- John Means (L) $9,100, BAL @ MIN
The highest-priced pitcher does not have the highest point projection in the Bales Model. There is grounds for that despite Brandon Woodruff’s impressive run in the Brewers’ rotation. The Padres are a top-10 team on the road against right-handed pitching including high marks in walk rate, average, slugging, on-base percentage, wRAA, ISO, and wRC+. San Diego also boasts the second-lowest strikeout rate against righties on the road. Woodruff will have to keep the ball out of the air; San Diego has one of the higher groundball rates despite positive road numbers. This is not the ideal matchup for Woodruff, but he has been one of the best pitchers in baseball the past few seasons.
Lance Lynn rates as a top-three option on FanDuel and DraftKings. St. Louis lost two of three to a worse Chicago pitching staff over the weekend and line up against Lynn and Lucas Giolito. The Cardinals are only hitting .217 against righties on the road and fall in the middle of the league in most hitting stats. Lynn has the highest Leverage score on DraftKings and is also projected to throw the most pitches of any starter. More does not always mean better, but Lynn has at least a win or quality start in six of seven starts.
Blake Snell pitched his best outing of 2021 last week and logged six innings for the first time this season. He will look to contain the Milwaukee Brewers, the second-worst offense according to Offensive WAR. The Brewers have had some success against left-handed pitching, producing the third-highest Hard Hit percentage (Hard%) at home against them. Ranking 21st in wRC+ is usually an issue, but the Brewers are still league average with a score of 96. Snell has an elevated walk rate that Milwaukee can take advantage of as well. The former Rays pitcher has been markedly better at home than on the road, but the Bales Model likes him as the best high-priced pitcher.
John Means arguably has the most difficult matchup among these four. The Minnesota Twins have hit better of late and are one of the better home teams against southpaws. They make a lot of contact and do not take walks. This could be trouble for Means and his 29.9 percent Groundball Percentage (GB%) and his 96.5 Left On Base Percentage (LOB%). His .188 BABIP is also a red flag in his eighth road start of the season. He has the worst Projected Plus/Minus among starters.
Values
Matt Shoemaker has allowed five home runs in 25-plus innings this season, but all five came in two starts. In his other three starts, he has allowed four earned runs over 16 1/3 innings pitched. Walks have been an issue so far for Shoemaker, but he gets a great matchup against the Baltimore Orioles at home. The Orioles have the worst batting average and OBP and have the worst wRC+ in the AL on the road against right-handed pitchers. Baltimore also has the second worst Home Run-to-Flyball ratio. Shoemaker has a 70% Bargain Rating on FanDuel and is priced at $6,000 or less on both platforms.
Frankie Montas is mispriced at $6,200 on DraftKings. Regardless of price, he is the top-rated pitcher on both sites by a comfortable margin. The Seattle Mariners provide one of the best matchups in a pitcher-friendly environment in Oakland. The weather is projected to by 59 degrees at first pitch. The Mariners are a boom/bust offense, ranking top 10 in Soft Hit percentage (Soft%) while ranking second-to-last in Medium Hit percentage (Med%). That sticks out because it shows Seattle is not good at squaring up the ball, so to speak. The M’s are a better road team than home but hitting .216 against righties on the road is nothing to boast.
Fastballs
Austin Gomber and Sam Hentges are two of the three cheapest pitchers on both sites and have exploitable matchups if you want to avoid any ownership. Gomber has only had two road starts in which he scored fewer than 32 FanDuel points and has a significantly better K:BB ratio. Hentges gets Detroit in the Motor City where the Tigers have a .371 BABIP and a 77 wRC+ against lefties. That number is due to regress with the Tigers having the third-lowest Soft% in the same situation.
Rockies-Mets is tied for the lowest projected game total at seven runs. This also puts David Peterson on the list of targets. The Rockies have had some of their worst home/road splits this season and have a terrible HR/FB and Soft% combination. This is good or Peterson and his 26.1% HR/FB ratio.
Notable Stack
Death. Taxes. White Sox against lefties on FanDuel:
- José Abreu
- Nick Madrigal
- Yoán Moncada
- Tim Anderson
Total Salary: $13,000
The White Sox have two losses this season against left-handed starting pitchers and had zero in 2020. Madrigal is a top-10 rated hitter on both platforms (and the cheapest of the stack) and leads fantasy point projections on DraftKings. If you want to save salary with this stack, replace Moncada with Andrew Vaughn. He leads the White Sox in wRC+ at home against lefties.
The Minnesota Twins are also a target as I wrote earlier when discussing John Means. The Twins’ top stack on FanDuel is $1,100 less than Chicago’s.
Other Hitters
Robbie Grossman has been solid as Detroit’s leadoff hitter and is currently on a four-game hitting streak. That streak includes three multi-hit games and only two strikeouts. His appeal would be even higher if he stole more bases (seven; zero since May 6). He is the top-rated hitter on both platforms.
Cedric Mullins is in his first slump of the season, collecting three hits in six games last week. If you do not buy the Shoemaker value hype, Mullins is in a get-right situation with Shoemaker allowing more hits than innings pitched.
I like to buy offenses going against starters in their first start after a no-hitter/perfect game. José Ramirez is hitting .438 with a 1.221 OPS in 16 at-bats against Spencer Turnbull.
If #NarrativeStreet is something you like to use in DFS, Trent Grisham is making his first appearance in Milwaukee since the November 2019 trade that sent him to San Diego.
Photo Credit: Matt Thomas/San Diego Padres/Getty Images
Pictured: Blake Snell
