Mondays suck. But this week we are gifted a nice, 11-game main slate with no day games and no Coors Field. There are some weather concerns, so be sure to monitor the Lineups page throughout the day. Let’s jump in.
Pitchers
Despite some subpar performances lately, Noah Syndergaard was able to strike out eight Cubs in 5.2 innings and allow zero earned runs in his last outing. His slate-high SO/9 rate currently sits at 11.037 in the last year, so even though he faces the Cardinals and their projected lineup’s low SO/AB rate (.227) he still boasts the highest K Prediction of all pitchers tonight at 7.7 currently. Further, the Cardinals are implied to score a slate-low 3.0 runs, 0.5 runs fewer than any other team.
On the other hand, Syndergaard is only a moderate -139 moneyline favorite going against Carlos Martinez. The largest favorite on the slate right now is Aaron Sanchez at -247, facing the Padres. Per our Trends tool, favorites that large have historically been very valuable, no other factors considered:
Sanchez is coming off a 45-point FanDuel outing at Chase Field — very much a hitter’s park — and has absolutely superb advanced stats. In his last start against the Diamondbacks, he allowed an average batted-ball distance of only 164 feet and an exit velocity of 86 miles per hour. Sanchez is a huge favorite in excellent recent form. As such, he’s the third highest-rated pitcher in the Bales Model for FanDuel, behind only Syndergaard and Jake Arrieta.
Speaking of Arrieta: He has been quite un-Arrieta like lately. He bounced back a bit in his last game — scoring 42 FD points against the Mets — but prior to that he had posted an average of 22 points per game in his last four outings. Despite the bounceback, his price has continued to fall on FanDuel: It now sits at $10,600, his lowest mark of the season. In the past two years, anytime he has been priced no higher than $10,700 on FanDuel, he has exceeded salary-based expectations by an average of +8.84 points per game:
His recent form and advanced stats (such as his recent batted-ball distance of 217 feet) are concerning, but despite what you may think of Arrieta currently his price is certainly too low for a pitcher of his caliber. At DraftKings, where he’s the highest-priced pitcher by far at $12,400, perhaps get your exposure to him more in tournaments and less in cash games.
Dallas Keuchel is rated just behind Thor and Arrieta in the DK Bales Model, and that is despite having only a 4.9 K Prediction, which historically has not been a great factor for DK pitchers:
However, Keuchel is favored over Michael Pineda and is facing a Yankees team implied to score only 3.4 runs right now. When you add in that filter, his outlook becomes positive:
Keuchel has excellent advanced stats — he has allowed a batted-ball distance of only 191 feet recently, for example — but those are par for the course, as we expect him to be excellent. In fact, that mark is actually one foot higher than his yearly average. With such limited K upside, he will need to go long into the game and limit the Yankees to very few runs.
His opponent, Pineda, is definitely a mixed bag. On one hand, he is a dog currently at +133 and the Astros are projected to score 4.1 runs. On the other hand, he has the slate’s second-highest K Prediction at 7.5, as the Astros have the slate’s second-highest SO/AB rate at .296. Pineda certainly has an opportunity to have a big game and rack up strikeouts.
Finally, if you want to dive deep into the bargain bin, Jake Peavy — $6,100 at DraftKings and $6,900 at FanDuel — faces a Reds team implied currently to score only 3.7 runs. Peavy has a solid K Prediction of 6.2 and is pitching in San Francisco — the best park for pitchers, as shown by his 100 Park Factor. This likely comes as no surprise, but Peavy has historically been much better at home:
Stacks
Ah, finally a non-Coors-dominated slate. However, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t dominated by a single team. The current top-four DraftKings stacks in the Bales Model all belong to the Rangers, headlined by this five-man stack:
The Rangers are currently implied to score 5.8 runs, a mark trailing only Toronto’s 6.0. They face Oakland righty Daniel Mengden and his 1.623 WHIP. Mengden actually has good recent advanced stats — his batted-ball distance alowed is a solid 195 feet — but it’s wise to go with Vegas here.
If you’re looking for a FanDuel stack and perhaps want it filtered by best average Isolated Power (ISO), a projected 1-4-6-8 stack of the Red Sox has appeared! (That was my one cultural PokemonGo joke.) [Editor’s Note: And it was brilliant.]
Hitters
I came across this very informative study on FanGraphs about the correlation of batting stats between the first half of 2015 and second half. Here’s the table:
Batted-ball exit velocity had a stronger correlation than mainstream batting stats like ISO or slugging percentage (and obviously a way higher correlation than batting average, which is a garbage statistic).
Courtesy of BaseballSavant.com, here are the top-25 batters in terms of average exit velocity this season:
Giancarlo Stanton is not a surprise near the top of this list. He showed his power in his last game, raking four hits, one of which was a home run. He is only $3,100 on FanDuel. He does have negative splits — with ‘only’ an ISO of .221 against right-handed pitchers — but Stanton is a high-MPH power hitter projected to bat cleanup for a Marlins team currently implied to score 4.6 runs.
We covered the Rangers earlier, but I want to double down and mention Jurickson Profar for a very specific reason. He’s unreasonably cheap on FanDuel. In fact, the top-rated FanDuel stack — a Rangers projected 1-2-4-7 stack — costs $11,700. The top-rated Toronto stack, on the other hand, costs $15,600. That is a massive difference. The Rangers batters are incredibly underpriced on both sites and should be heavily utilized in both cash games and guaranteed prize pools. They currently have 87 Team Value Ratings for both sites.
Carlos Gonzalez isn’t at Coors Field tonight, but that doesn’t mean that he’s a bad play. In fact, he’s still in a very advantageous spot: The best Park Factor Rating tonight belongs to lefties at Camden Yards. CarGo boasts a ridiculous .427 Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA), .299 ISO, and .625 slugging percentage versus right-handed pitchers. He also has an average recent batted-ball distance of 240 feet and hard-hit rate of 48 percent — both excellent marks. I’m not entirely sure if altitude affects hard-hit rates — that’s a study for another time — but, even if those numbers are slightly inflated, CarGo is still a very solid play for GPPs.
Mark Trumbo, projected to bat fifth for the Orioles, has one of the highest average exit velocities this year, as shown in the table above. When you combine that with his average fly-ball rate of 51 percent in his last 10 games, Trumbo becomes an elite upside play. Also, he faces Rockies lefty Jorge De La Rosa and his putrid 1.509 WHIP.
Considering that the Blue Jays are currently implied to score a slate-high 6.0 runs, I would be remiss not to mention a single batter. A lot of them are good plays — that’s probably given since they have such a high total — but Justin Smoak might be the best value at $2,800 at FanDuel. He has excellent splits against righties, with a .341 wOBA, .229 ISO, and .462 slugging percentage over the last 12 months. For those of you who don’t mind spending up: Josh Donaldson is an elite play and is in excellent recent form, as shown by his 53 percent hard-hit rate in his last eight contests.
Good luck!
