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The last Tuesday of the regular season brings us a 13-game main slate with the first pitch at 7:05 p.m. ET.
Pitchers
The favorite on both sites tonight is Logan Webb. For how excellent of a year Webb is having, I think this is the first time I have written about him.
Webb, along with just about every starter the San Francisco Giants roll out there, has had a very strong season. He has had a few rough starts of late, but he’s limiting home runs and walks and still recording strikeouts. Tonight, he faces the Arizona Diamondbacks.
That is about as good of a matchup as you can ask for in the last week of the year. The Giants are still motivated to lock up the NL West, and the Diamondbacks have been playing out their season since June 1st.
The D’backs have the lowest implied run total of the night at 3.0, and the Giants are significant favorites at -268. Webb hits for eight ProTrends, too.
Walker Buehler is the next best option, at a little higher price. I would not be as quick to lock him into lineups as I would with Webb.
In September, Buehler has really struggled. He has a monthly ERA of 7.32, and maybe even more surprising to me, he has 13 strikeouts in 19 2/3 innings. He has failed to finish four innings in two of his four starts.
The good news is, he faces the San Diego Padres, who he shut down in this abysmal month for him. On September 11th, he went seven innings, giving up two earned runs with five strikeouts. He has faced them four times this year and never given up more than two earned runs.
The Padres have fallen off the face of the earth and will not be even playing competitive games for their sake this final week of the year. It is possible they “get up” to try to take down their rival Los Angeles Dodgers, but I am not so sure.
The strikeouts are what makes me nervy about playing Buehler. He has a lower K Prediction than Webb tonight at 6.04 to Webb’s 6.15. The Padres should still provide tougher at-bats than the D’backs, and the Dodgers are favored at -179, but not nearly as much as the Giants. Throw in that he comes at a higher price point, and you have to like Webb more.
In one of the two biggest games of the night, Charlie Morton is not a bad option. He comes in a little cheaper than Webb, too.
Morton provides a great consistency as a starter. He has not allowed more than four earned runs in a start since April. With 203 K’s in 176 innings, he is a cheaper source of strikeouts as well.
This series is the Atlanta Braves vs. the Philadelphia Phillies, which will all but determine the National League East. I think that could play into Morton’s advantage here with a tight, low-scoring game in a playoff atmosphere. He knows he will have to try to match zeroes with Zack Wheeler.
In April, Morton could not get out of the first inning against the Phils and then threw six innings of two-run ball against them in July.
I like Morton quite a bit tonight and could see using him over Buehler for sure.
For a punt play, I like Tyler Alexander. Alexander is relatively new to being a starting pitcher for the Detroit Tigers but has done a decent job since joining the rotation. He has a 3.20 ERA in the month of September.
The Tigers overall have been an above .500 team for the last three or so months. They could be in the playoff race if not for their abysmal April.
Alexander is always going to come in at a cheap price, as he does not strike many batters out. That is going to hurt his upside within DFS, of course, but he does have a high watermark of six strikeouts against a strong hitting team in the Toronto Blue Jays.
I would consider him only in GPP tournaments, but I could see him providing some value facing the Minnesota Twins. He is available for under $6,000 on DraftKings.
Hitters
Notable Stack
The top stack of the night is the Colorado Rockies:
- C.J. Cron (R)
- Trevor Story (R)
- Charlie Blackmon (L)
- Raimel Tapia (L)
This group is projected for 54.9 FanDuel points on a salary of $14,000. That cheap of salary in Coors Field just shows you how much this lineup has struggled this season. This could be a get-right game facing Patrick Corbin, with an implied run total of 6.5. In Washington, two starts ago, Corbin gave up six earned runs and two home runs to this Rockies’ lineup. A lineup that has been historically bad on the road. This feels like a good night to actually target the Coors stack and hope that they keep circling the bases. It looks like a slight breeze out to right-field, too.
Other Hitters
The non-Coors stack will definitely belong to the Boston Red Sox. They will be looking to put a-hurtin’ on the Baltimore Orioles after getting swept by the New York Yankees over the weekend. Hunter Renfroe gets to hit off of a lefty in a home run happy Camden Yards tonight. He comes into this one on an eight-game hitting streak and has an OPS of .891 against left-handers – more than 100 points higher than against right-handers.
Salvador Perez rates out as a bargain on FanDuel. Chasing the home run title, you know that he will not be giving any at-bats away. He has two hits in each of his last two games, including a double in each. In what is otherwise a meaningless game, I could see him getting on-base multiple times again.
I wrote him up last week, and he responded with a (rare) home run, but Max Schrock is still too cheap. He went 2-for-5 yesterday with a double and three home runs. He does not get to hit against left-handers at all but is just wearing out right-handed pitching. He is a relatively unknown commodity and not getting the attention he deserves.
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