For some reason, since baseball has returned from the All-Star Break, DraftKings and FanDuel can’t agree on which games should be on which slates. FanDuel starts its slates at 2:20 PM ET with the Cubs-Rangers game, while DraftKings ignores that one and starts at 4:05 PM. For the purpose of this Breakdown, we’ll go with the FD layout and break things down by early (before 7:05 PM) and main (7:05 PM and later) games.
Because of the big pricing differences between sites today, I’m going to use a Bargain Rating color. Players will be green if they have a high FanDuel Bargain Rating and will be red if they have a high DraftKings Bargain Rating.
Early
Pitchers
I won’t lie to you: The pitching options today are pretty brutal. And because the sites offer an all-day slate, they are priced accordingly, at least on FanDuel, where Yu Darvish is the highest-priced pitcher at $9,200. At DraftKings, he isn’t in the slate but there are pricey options in Chris Tillman ($10,600) and Lance McCullers ($9,800).
The differences between the sites are pretty stark: Nearly all pitchers in the early games have very high Bargain Ratings at FanDuel, which suggests that you should approach each site completely differently. On FanDuel, you can afford to take any pitcher. Even the ‘expensive’ guys will still leave you with plenty of salary space for batters. On DraftKings, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to pay up for Tillman ($10,600), especially given his low rate of 7.155 strikeouts per nine innings.
If you’re looking for K upside, McCullers and Matt Moore are your guys. Even though McCullers has a much higher SO/9 rate than Moore — 10.026 vs. 7.900 — the latter has the higher K Prediction, given the high strikeout rate of Baltimore’s projected lineup. Add in Moore’s slate-high 91 Park Factor Rating and, well, you could do worse. He’s not a favorite, and according to our Trends tool not being favored generally hurts pitching value, but again: Pitching is brutal.
Stacks
The top-rated stack currently in the Bales Model is a projected 1-3-5-7 stack for the Red Sox. This is particularly interesting because 1) it’s a weird stack combination and 2) it includes lefty Travis Shaw going against lefty CC Sabathia. Shaw is the rare no-splits lefty (most lefties suck against lefty pitchers and oftentimes don’t even play). As mentioned in yesterday’s Breakdown, people often blindly stack 1-4 on FD or 1-5 on DraftKings and they also blindly follow RvL and LvR splits. And whenever people blindly follow rules, there’s an edge to be found and exploited.
The Red Sox are playing the Yankees, who are actually the highest-projected team in terms of Vegas-implied total at 5.1 runs currently. Lefty hitters generally do well in Yankee Stadium, as shown by both the linked trend and also their collective 81 Park Factor Rating. Our projected Yankees lineup currently has six of their top seven hitters as either lefties or switch hitters. They’re also facing Eduardo Rodriguez, who has an awful 1.542 WHIP and has given up 1.594 home runs per nine innings in the last year, easily the worst mark of the slate.
Main
Pitchers
Pitching in the night games isn’t much better than the early ones. Be very price sensitive in your selections. For example, Danny Duffy is only $8,800 at FanDuel but a whopping $11,000 at DraftKings, where he has only a two percent Bargain Rating, which was created for situations like this. Given the salary disparities in this slate, be sure to avail yourself of the metric so that you know on which platform you should invest in particular pitchers.
Speaking of Duffy, why not? He doesn’t have a very high K Prediction: It’s only 6.0 currently despite his having a high 9.269 SO/9 mark. The highest projection of pitchers in the night games belongs to Archie Bradley at 7.0. The 9.6 K Predictions of the Stephen Strasburgs in days of yore (yesterday) have long since passed. Today isn’t about finding an ace. It’s about hitting a 12 and hoping you don’t bust. (Don’t worry about that metaphor. Let’s move on . . .)
Matt Shoemaker currently leads all pitchers in Pro Trends on both sites, is a solid favorite (current -155 moneyline), and is pitching in a pitcher’s park: His 89 Park Factor Rating is the best of the slate. Perhaps more important, however, is his recent advanced data: His 21 percent hard-hit rate allowed is nearly 20 points better than that of similar options in Adam Wainwright and Jeff Samardzija. The latter is particularly interesting, as his hard-hit rate and high 62 percent ground-ball rate diverge. A guy relying on his defense that much to gather up hard-hit ground balls is a potential BABIP nightmare.
Stacks
Let’s go with a DraftKings five-man stack this time . . .
The current top-rated stack in the Bales Model is a 1-2-3-7-8 stack for the Cleveland Indians. This is another intriguing stack order, which is something I’d actually like to soapbox about quickly. (Editor’s Note: Is that a verb? Sure, why not?)
There is definitely a stacking edge in DFS right now. As mentioned above, people often blindly stack 1-4 or 1-5 — and that’s fine, as those batting spots are typically the most valuable.
However, blindly stacking the top of the order is based on a problematic assumption that might be incorrect: The assumption that MLB managers perfectly order their lineups. If that were the case — if every MLB lineup had its best hitters in the top-five spots — then, sure, stacking 1-5 blindly would be optimal (not considering ownership, of course). However, that is rarely the case, as seen by the Indians stack above. Tyler Naquin, projected to hit eighth, actually boasts the stack’s highest Isolated Power (ISO) split versus right-handed pitchers with a .281 mark.
This provides you with a large edge in MLB DFS. Our models — and Stacking tool, which lets you sort by model rating, Pro Trends, or average ISO — allow you to find the inefficiencies in lineup choices. Sure, there is risk, as guys later in the order could get fewer at-bats, but that risk is very often worth it if you’re getting a far superior player.
Other Hitters
Adam Duvall is $3,100 on FanDuel. Why exactly? He boasts a .314 ISO versus right-handed pitchers, has a very high 55 percent hard-hit rate in the last two weeks, and is projected to hit fifth for a Reds team currently implied to score 4.9 runs. There is no good reason why he’s so cheap. Put him in your cash-game lineups without hesitation.
Mike Trout faces James Shields tonight, who has allowed 1.575 HR/9 in the last year, the third-worst mark of all pitchers. I don’t need to tell you that Trout is good at baseball, but I will anyway: He has a .421 Weighted On-Base Average, .281 ISO, and .593 slugging percentage against righties. He has a recent hard-hit rate of 52 percent. The Angels are currently implied to score 4.8 runs. OK, that’s probably enough.
I guess the theme of this section is high hard-hit rates because Jonathan Villar fits that bill as well. His recent mark of 52 percent is 20 points higher than his year-long rate. He does have a really high recent ground-ball rate of 60 percent, which is a bummer because combining those two marks has historically led to negative value. However, Villar is facing John Lamb, who has a bad 1.573 WHIP and 1.564 HR/9 rate, so perhaps the Brewers shortstop can buck the trend.
Good luck today!
