Saturday brings us four day games starting at 1:05pm ET and 11 in the 7:05pm ET main slate. Let’s get it.
Pitchers
I know I said that David Phelps was the clear class of yesterday’s pitching options and then he tilted the entire MLB DFS community by getting pulled in the fourth inning because of a freaking fielding error — but . . . Noah Syndergaard is the clear class of today’s pitching options.
He faces the Phillies, who are currently implied for 2.8 runs, a mark 0.5 lower than that of any other team. Further, Thor boasts an 8.8 K Prediction, a mark 0.7 higher than any other pitcher’s. He’s currently tied with Marcus Stroman for the largest Vegas moneyline today at -214. Further, he has been in incredible form in his last two starts: Per our advanced stats, he has allowed a batted-ball distance of 170 feet, an exit velocity of 86 miles per hour, and a hard-hit rate of 13 percent. He’s the pitcher you always wanted Phelps to be.
Dallas Keuchel is a sizable favorite at -199 and is facing a Tampa Bay team currently implied for 3.3 runs. Keuchel’s recent advanced stats provide a good lesson on baselines: Although his 52 percent ground-ball rate is very solid, it’s actually subpar compared to Keuch’s season-long mark of 58 percent. That doesn’t mean that he’s a bad play today. It simply means that you shouldn’t bump him up because of his recent ground-ball rate.
Anyway, Keuch doesn’t have an elite SO/9 rate at 8.414, but the Rays do have a poor SO/AB rate of .281 and he should go far into the game. Thus, his 6.7 K Prediction is very solid today, especially for a ground-ball pitcher. He has actually struck out seven batters in each of his past three games. He’s a pivot option if you’re not wanting to pay up for Thor.
Boston lefty David Price faces the Royals, who are currently implied for 3.5 runs. Price has been solid lately, hitting value in his last three games, although his advanced stats suggest that trouble is looming: In those three starts, he has allowed a batted-ball distance of 228 feet, an exit velocity of 91 MPH, and a fly-ball rate of 55 percent. Those concerning marks would be a little more palatable if he were cheaper (he’s $10,000 on DK and $10,300 on FD) or had more K upside (his K Prediction of 5.9 is right at average today), but unfortunately the situation is otherwise. He is likely best reserved for guaranteed prize pools.
Toronto righty Marcus Stroman has even less K upside — he has a K Prediction of 4.9 today against the Twins — but he is a massive favorite at -214 because of the likely immense run support he’ll get. This is more anecdotal than anything, but the Blue Jays put up 15 runs last night. The point is that being a Blue Jays pitcher usually means being a heavy favorite, which is usually valuable on FD:
It also doesn’t hurt that the Twins are implied for 3.5 runs and that Stroman has been in good form lately, inducing ground balls at a 58 percent clip in his last two games. At $8,200, he actually boasts a higher Bargain Rating on FD than at DK ($9,100), despite so much of his potential value coming from his win probability.
Giants righty Jake Peavy was demoted to the bullpen back at the beginning of August to make room for Matt Moore to join the rotation. Peavy will make his first start today since that time and will face the Braves, who are currently implied for 3.5 runs. I wouldn’t look too much into Peavy’s advanced stats because of his small sample pitching from the bullpen. However, we can make use of the fact that he’s only $6,000 on FD and the Braves are implied for 3.5 runs. How have pitchers in similar spots historically performed?
Pitchers within $500 of his FD salary range with similar Vegas implications have historically exceeded salary-based expectations with a +4.23 Plus/Minus and 59.9 percent Consistency. They’ve also been owned at a 9.0 percent rate, which is a pretty sizable drop from the total sample of pitchers with opposing Vegas implications of 3.5 or fewer runs:
Pirates righty Jameson Taillon is coming off a great outing, striking out eight batters in eight innings pitched against the Astros. Today he gets an even better matchup in terms of strikeout upside against the Brewers, who have a high SO/AB rate of .322 in the last year. As a result, Taillon’s K Prediction of 7.5 is the fourth-best mark today. His advanced metrics are excellent lately: He has allowed an exit velocity of 87 MPH and a hard-hit rate of 17 percent. The Brewers are implied for 3.9 runs currently, but Taillon definitely has upside in this matchup and is quite cheap on FD at $7,700.
It hurts not to mention either Carlos Carrasco or Danny Duffy today, both of whom are in incredible recent form. However, Vegas really hates their matchups: They face the Rangers and Red Sox, who are both implied for 4.6 runs currently. As you would expect, that has not been a great situation for pitchers historically . . .
However, they still have K upside and immense talent. They’ll also likely be very low-owned, based on the totals of their opponents. I would have very little exposure even in GPPs, but a flyer here or there wouldn’t hurt.
Hyped Cardinals rookie Alex Reyes is also worth a GPP flyer at only $4,500 on FD. This will be his first major league start, so take any bullpen data on him with a grain of salt. However, he is incredibly cheap and his opponent (Oakland) is implied to score only 3.6 runs currently.
Stacks
The current highest-rated five-man DraftKings stack in the Bales Model belongs to a 1-2-3-5-7 stack of the Astros:
The Astros are currently implied for 4.7 runs, and given the other really high totals today — the Nationals, Blue Jays, Tigers, White Sox, Cardinals, and Indians are currently implied for at least five runs — they will likely boast low ownership.
On FanDuel, the highest-rated four-man stack is a 1-2-3-7 stack of the Cardinals:
And because I can’t leave my early-slate peeps hanging, here’s the top four-man stack in the early slate:
A Nats stack without Bryce Harper? Do we dare?
Hitters
Projected Reds cleanup hitter Adam Duvall still has silly recent advanced stats: In his last eight games, he has a batted-ball distance of 270 feet, an exit velocity of 95 MPH, and a fly-ball rate of 60 percent. His splits are very solid: He has a .350 Weighted On-Base (wOBA), .289 Isolated Power (ISO), and .531 slugging percentage against fellow righties in the last year. He’s only $3,100 on FD at Chase Field.
Giancarlo Stanton is out for the rest of the year, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore Marlins versus lefties. Projected cleanup hitter Marcell Ozuna has typically crushed them: He has a .438 wOBA, .325 ISO, and .659 slugging percentage in the last year. He has been hitting a lot of ground balls lately (52 percent), but he at least has been hitting them hard (exit velocity of 93 MPH). Although hitters with ground-ball rates of 50 percent or higher have historically produced a Plus/Minus of -0.49, that number jumps way up when we add an exit velocity filter:
Gary Sanchez is a baseball player. He could be considered a good baseball player.
He might even be considered a great baseball player so far:
Yankees rookie Gary Sanchez becomes 3rd-fastest player in MLB history to hit 10 career HRs https://t.co/VNzw5kAzRu pic.twitter.com/wGyQf8K781
— Bleacher Report MLB (@BR_MLB) August 27, 2016
In his short career, he has a .603 wOBA, .517 ISO, and .966 slugging percentage against righties. He has an average exit velocity of 94 MPH and hard-hit rate of 56 percent in his last 11 games. Regression will come (I think) and he will continue to be incredibly high-owned, but it’s certainly for good reason.
Chris Davis disappointed last night, scoring only 3.0 FD points on just one single, but he still has an exit velocity of 100 miles per hour in his last 11 games. He’s facing a righty again. Process.
Carlos Santana is projected to bat leadoff for an Indians team currently implied for five runs. He’s a switch hitter and doesn’t have extreme splits either way, but he’s very solid against righties: He has a .357 wOBA, .242 ISO, and .474 slugging percentage in the last year. Although he has hit a high number of ground balls lately (52 percent), he has four hits in his last four games and will get a ton of opportunities today batting leadoff for a high-implied team.
Good luck!
