Today offers 11 games, two of which begin at 1:10 pm ET.
Pitchers
Scherzer v. Happ
The Upside of Max Scherzer versus the Consistency of J.A. Happ: Thursday’s pitching slate in a nutshell.
Scherzer has the worst recent advanced stats of any pitcher on the slate, exacerbated by a Coors Field meltdown. Opponents have improved upon their hard-hit rate against Scherzer by 14 percentage points and their batted-ball distance by 35 feet in his last two starts, and his 58 percent fly-ball rate in the last two weeks ranks last on a slate that includes Jered Weaver. Still, Scherzer’s $11,600 salary on DraftKings is his fourth-lowest mark of the season, which offers immense value with a slate-best 10.5 K Prediction. Pitchers with a similar K Prediction have supplied a +6.50 Plus/Minus on 69.6 percent Consistency on DraftKings.
Happ has procured an average of +15.17 Plus/Minus on FanDuel and +7.32 Plus/Minus on DraftKings in his last 12 starts. One of the two games in which he failed to meet salary-based expectations over that time was a road start at Coors Field. At Rogers Centre this season, Happ has met salary-based expectations 75 percent of the time. The Blue Jays average 7.2 runs in Happ’s outings, second only to Rick Porcello’s 7.9 run support. The Blue Jays own the best Vegas moneyline at -255, and they’re implied to score 2.4 more runs than their opponent is. Happ’s 8.59 SO/9 rate over the last 12 months has improved to 10.42 since the All-Star break, the seventh-best mark among qualified pitchers. I could continue listing his accolades, but I’ll just point out that Happ is the third-most expensive pitcher on FanDuel and DraftKings. His listed price doesn’t match his year-long stability.
Odorizzi v. Pomeranz: Afternoon Delight
Jake Odorizzi and Drew Pomeranz will duel each other in one of the two early games.
Following a rocky start to his Red Sox career, Pomeranz found his footing in his last four starts, even if the Plus/Minus describes a different story. He has teetered around his salary-based expectations in that timeframe, primarily missing by a point or two. Even though his K Prediction reads 8.0, Pomeranz has failed to strike out that many batters in his last 13 starts. At the same time, only two hitters in the Rays projected lineup furnish a positive Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA) Differential against left-handed pitchers. The Rays have faced four left-handed pitchers in their last seven games and scored only two runs in three of them.
Odorizzi is second to Kyle Hendricks with a 1.64 ERA since the All-Star break, but his recent advanced stats are worrisome, including but not limited to a 50 percent fly-ball rate. The last time he faced the Red Sox in early July, Odorizzi allowed four runs in five innings while notching only five strikeouts. Back in April, they tagged him for five runs in four innings. On the positive side, David Ortiz (rest) likely won’t play, yet the Red Sox still have the best team wOBA at 0.341, and Odorizzi hasn’t accumulated more than six strikeouts in any game for six straight outings.
Who Else You Got?
Robbie Ray, not to be confused with Robby Ray Stewart, a character on Hannah Montana, leads all pitchers with a 28.2 percent K/BB rate since the All-Star break, and his 6.8 K Prediction ranks second-best in the main slate. Ray has met salary-based expectations in seven straight starts on FanDuel, where he has a 93 percent Bargain Rating. That success hasn’t transferred to DraftKings, where in 12 home starts he has met salary-based expectations only four times this year. So it likely doesn’t bode well for Ray that he has a season-high $10,400 salary on DraftKings, especially given his poor recent advanced stats. When opponents have made contact over his last three starts, it has manifested into a slate-worst 46 percent hard-hit rate. Nonetheless, he has struck out at least nine batters in four of his last six starts, and the Braves have been the worst-hitting team against left-handed pitchers this season, marred by a .102 Isolated Power (ISO).
Cole Hamels will face an Indians club trailing only the Red Sox with a .340 wOBA. He also gets dinged due to inconsistency at home (see below; FanDuel on top). However, Indians pitcher Josh Tomlin has been a mess all season, and the Indians have struggled against left-handed pitchers recently, ceding a +7.84 Plus/Minus on DraftKings and a +9.08 Plus/Minus on FanDuel in their last seven starts against left-handed pitchers. Hamels is a cheaper option on DraftKings ($9,800), and he boasts a solid matchup.
Adam Wainwright is cheap on DraftKings ($6,900), but his Salary Change comes on the heels of five straight outings in which he failed to match salary-based expectations. The first of those was a loss against the Mets in late July. The current iteration of the Mets projected lineup has a 0.101 SO/AB, which knocks Wainwright out of DraftKings consideration. Jay Bruce (calf) and Yoenis Cespedes (ankle) may not suit up this evening, and a depleted Mets lineup may increase Wainwright’s win probability, but his $8,400 salary on FanDuel doesn’t provide much value for a 4.0 K Prediction pitcher.
Tom Koehler hasn’t consistently brought the strikeouts, but he has pitched at least six innings in six straight starts and his recent advanced stats are all trending in the right direction. Koehler claims a slate-best 91 Park Factor, and he’s only $7,100 on DraftKings and $7,300 on FanDuel. The Royals have managed to score only three runs in their last three games combined, which nearly matches their 3.7 implied run total tonight.
Stacks
The best five-man ISO and Pro Trends stacks on DraftKings belong to the same quintet of players.
The Cardinals’ matchup against right-handed pitcher Seth Lugo may be misleading, since Lugo has made nine relief appearance and one start since July 1st. That would help explain the 0.00 HR/9.
The CSURAM88 Model rates one four-man stack above all others on DraftKings and FanDuel. The Blue Jays 1-2-3-4 stack is the most expensive in the slate even though all four batters carry Bargain Ratings of at least 70 percent on FanDuel. It’s also contingent on Devon Travis (hand) returning to the lineup after missing the previous two contests and Jose Bautista (knee) returning from the Disabled List.
Jered Weaver has surrendered 15 runs and seven home runs in his last three starts, trailing only Tomlin with 30 home runs allowed all season. He has also yielded 15 stolen bases, the fifth-most in the American League. The Blue Jays are currently implied to score a slate-best 6.0 runs. As Raji says in Be Cool, “Twinkle twinkle, baby, twinkle twinkle.”
Hitters
Brandon Moss currently leads all hitters with 14 Pro Trends on DraftKings and 12 Pro Trends on FanDuel. Courtesy of Freddie Freeman, Chris Davis, and Ryan Zimmerman, Moss doesn’t rate as the top first basemen in any recent advanced stat. Due to the matchups today, Moss leads all four in wOBA (0.417) and ISO (0.354). Over the past month, he has sustained a 58 percent Consistency rating on both DFS sites, and the image below demonstrates his prowess at the plate during that time, via Baseball Savant. His launch angle is consistently above zero degrees, which might help explain his 3.99 average airtime in the past 15 days.
Xander Bogearts costs a season-low $3,300 on DraftKings. When the Red Sox have been implied to score within 0.4 runs of today’s 4.0 implied total and Bogearts has cost less than $3,900 this season, he has supplied a +3.95 Plus/Minus on 72.7 percent Consistency.
Jose Ramirez has a 69 percent Consistency rate combined with a seven percent Dud rate on DraftKings, and he’s priced at $3,400 against the lefty Hamels. Ramirez is a switch-hitter and a no-splits batter, and he also provides speed on the bases. That will come in handy against Hamels, who has surrendered 19 stolen bases this season to lead all American League pitchers. Additionally, Rajai Davis (0.264 SB/G) and Francisco Lindor (0.149 SB/G) offer the highest stolen-base potential on the team. Given the Indians’ implied total of 4.1 runs, both should figure into tournament lineups.
Josh Tomlin has yielded at least one home run in his last 13 starts. He has a league-high 32 dongs allowed this season. The top seven hitters in the Rangers projected lineup all have at least five Pro Trends, and it’s Rougned Odor with a team-best 0.228 ISO against right-handed pitchers. The Nos. 3-6 hitters all possess Bargain Ratings of at least 63 percent on FanDuel. The Rangers are currently implied to score 5.0 runs.
Every single hitter in the Diamondbacks’ projected lineup claims a Bargain Rating of at least 82 percent on FanDuel. They lead all teams with a Team Value Rating of 83 on FanDuel, and they are currently implied to score 5.4 runs, the second-highest total in the slate. If you’re going to fade the Blue Jays stack, focus on the Diamondbacks for the salary relief.
Good luck!
