Welcome to day two of the craziness that is the MLB Wild Card series. There are eight games on the main slate today, which locks at 12:08 pm E.T.
New NFL DFS Trial Offer: Try our new football subscription for $4.95 and get access to our industry-leading tools and projections.
Pitchers
Five pitchers are priced above $9,000:
- Trevor Bauer (R) $11,200, CIN @ ATL
- Kyle Hendricks (R) $10,600, CHC vs MIA
- Tyler Glasnow (R) $10,400, TB vs TOR
- Walker Buehler (R) $10,000, LAD vs MIL
- Carlos Carrasco (R) $9,500, CLE vs NYY
Trevor Bauer has been one of the best pitchers in baseball and his reward for that is squaring off against the Atlanta Braves offense. The biggest knock on Bauer in this matchup is his groundball rate, which has dropped in each of the last four season, all the way to 34.4% in 2020.
The Braves have the eighth best home-run-to-flyball ratio against right-handed pitchers at home in 2020; 40.8% of balls put in play by their hitters is a flyball. Bauer has been sparkling in almost every other pitching metric this season, but offensive depth can be tough to overcome no matter how well a pitcher performs. Just ask Shane Bieber after last night.
Kyle Hendricks is so boring it’s nauseating. Yet I love watching him be surgical on the mound. There is not much Hendricks could do to be more effective, yet he found a way to lower his walks per 9 innings over one run below his career average in 2020 (1.94 career, 0.89 in 2020). He is the antihero in a sport dominated by fireballers and vertical strike zone artists. He will look to slow down the Miami Marlins in a game I expect Hendricks to control.
Miami is just below average on offense using Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+) and finished the season with a -10.3 Offensive WAR, 18th in baseball.
The weather and strong winds appear to favor left-handed hitters in this game, making it that much more important for Miami to hammer the soft-tossing Hendricks’s mistakes. The FantasyLabs Pro Trends tool gives ‘The Professor’ six trends, second most on today’s FanDuel slate, but the Bales Model has Hendricks as the third worst option today because he does not have the same strikeout upside as other starters, and has weather concerns.
I think Tyler Glasnow is the starter to fade among the higher-priced options. His strikeout percentage is excellent, but his walk, groundball, and HR/FB rates are excessive. The Toronto Blue Jays are a bottom 10 strikeout team on the road against righties and have an acceptable 9.0% walk rate. Toronto is also top 10 in slugging percentage and gets to try to tie the series in a dome. The Jays lost Game 1 because of mental mistakes more than any other reason.
Will Walker Buehler survive a full outing without getting a blister? Honestly, the nagging blisters have been Buehler’s undoing over the past month. The Dodgers ace has been a much better pitcher over his past five starts, limiting batters to three walks while striking out 30 in a little over 21 innings pitched. Buehler is the Bales Model’s top pitcher on both sites as well. He must throw five innings to be a top option, a feat he did in half of his starts.
In so many words, the Brewers are bad away from their hitter-friendly park. Milwaukee finished with the fifth worst wRC+ against right handers away from home, and that only improves to 10th worst overall against all pitching. Buehler could hit double-digit strikeouts because Milwaukee has the third-highest K rate on the road.
Carlos Carrasco is charged with saving Cleveland’s season tonight. After finishing 2020 with the second worst slugging percentage on the road against righties, the New York Yankees connected on six extra-base hits, including four homers against Shane Bieber and the Indians bullpen. The Bales Model’s No. 10 pitcher will have low lineup usage after last night’s debacle. But if I want to have any part of the Indians tonight, it will be their hitters.
It is important to note that this game projects to have similar weather as the Marlins-Cubs matchup with strong winds blowing left to right.
Value Plays
Dallas Keuchel ($6,700 on FanDuel, $7,300 DraftKings) is a home run deterrent for offenses and gets the Oakland Athletics in an elimination game Wednesday. The A’s are bottom 10 in average, on-base and slugging percentage, and HR/FB percentage against southpaws at home. Mike Muchlinski is the home plate umpire for this game, which benefits Keuchel, according to FantasyLabs. The Bales Model dislikes Keuchel likely due to limited strikeout upside, but I will disagree with the model on this recommendation.
Chris Paddack ($8,500 FanDuel, $8,800 DraftKings) has been tough to predict as a DFS player, but I do not see the St. Louis Cardinals doing much against him in pitcher-friendly Petco Park. Paddack can rack up strikeouts and faces an offense that strikes out 26.5% of the time against righties on the road.
Sandy Alcantara ($7,600 FanDuel, $6,800 DraftKings) is a pivot play off Kyle Hendricks. The Chicago Cubs were average at home and struck out 26% of the time against righty pitchers. Alcantara pitched six or more innings in every start in September and allowed three of fewer runs in each of those starts.
Other Pitchers
The Tampa Bay Rays obliterate left-handed pitching at home (and in general), making Hyun Jin Ryu a fade. The Rays are the Chicago White Sox against lefties without the sterling win-loss record. I will fade Ryu, the Bales Model’s third-ranked pitcher.
Masahiro Tanaka is the cheapest pitcher on DraftKings and has the Yankees offense supporting him. You could do worse!
Chris Bassitt is not a southpaw, meaning he stands a chance against the Chicago White Sox. The White Sox are an average offense against righties and have a top 10 strikeout rate on the road. Bassitt is the Bales Model’s No. 2 pitcher, has four Pro Trends, and has a favorable umpire behind home plate.
Notable Stacks
History repeats itself. FanDuel’s top stack is a repeat offender:
- Max Muncy (L)
- Justin Turner (R)
- Mookie Betts (R)
- Cody Bellinger (L)
Total Salary: $15,500
The Los Angeles Dodgers stack projects to score 3.1 points more than the next stack. Three of the top 20 hitters from the Bales Model Hitters tool are part of this stack. Cody Bellinger is the only one outside of the top 20 and a fade to make a three-player stack against lefty Brent Suter. Another option to this stack is A.J. Pollock, a fan of left-handed pitching.
The Cubs take the second spot with a stack that can get a boost from strong winds:
- Anthony Rizzo (L)
- Kris Bryant (R)
- Jason Heyward (L)
- Ian Happ (S)
Total Salary: $12,100
All four of these hitters can put the ball in play on the right side of the field and take advantage of the high winds expected to go that way today. Ian Happ ($2,900 FanDuel, $4,000 DraftKings) ranks as the second-best hitter on the Bales Model today and has been a force at the top of the Cubs lineup. Jason Heyward is the biggest question mark of this stack; if he is not hitting frozen ropes to right field, he is grounding out to second base.
Other Hitters
Corey Dickerson is a game stack option with the Cubs. He has a 97% Bargain Rating on DraftKings and bats from the left side.
Luis Arraez is the top hitter on FanDuel, according to the Bales Model. The Twins are on the verge of elimination and need the top of their lineup to produce. The Twins are favorites today and hit righty pitching well (110 team wRC+).
Austin Nola ranks highly as a catching option and is below $3,000 on FanDuel. The San Diego Padres are one run favorites and Nola is a good way to get a piece of the potent Padres offense in your lineup.
