Wednesday brings us a split slate: Five day games beginning at 1:05 PM ET and 10 for the usual 7:05 PM main slate. Let’s jump in.
Pitchers
Chris Archer is the premier option in the early slate and perhaps even the all-day slate, too. He faces a Padres team currently implied for 3.1 runs and is a huge -210 moneyline favorite. Simply having those Vegas marks historically brings a lot of value (per our Trends tool):
Archer also plays at home, where he boasts an 87 Park Factor. His current 7.6 K Prediction is the fifth-best mark today and seems pretty safe: He hasn’t dipped below six strikeouts in any of his last five starts. He’s typically more of a tournament pitcher — he has high ceilings and low floors — but today the matchup certainly raises the floor enough to make him an option in both cash games and guaranteed prize pools.
Yu Darvish looks to continue his incredibly steady run: In his nine total starts this season, he hasn’t had fewer than 30 FanDuel points even once and has exceeded expectations by an average of +5.33 points:
Today he faces an Oakland team currently implied for 3.7 runs and, like Archer, he’s also a huge -210 favorite. He slightly edges Archer in K Prediction at 7.7, but what Darvish really brings is great form and recent advanced stats: In his last three starts, he has allowed a batted-ball exit velocity of 87 miles per hour and a hard-hit rate of 26 percent.
Jon Lester’s SO/9 isn’t as high as the rates of other guys (see: Strasburg, Carrasco, Bailey, et al.), but he does face an incredibly strikeout-prone team in the Brewers. The .307 SO/AB rate of their projected lineup is a big reason why Lester has a high 8.3 K Prediction, the second-highest on the slate. We don’t have a total on the game yet — Vegas usually waits on Cubs home games because of the wind — but we do know that they’re a huge -270 favorite currently. Those type of favorites don’t come around too often, but when they do they are very consistent:
Jumping to the lower end of the salary spectrum: Reds righty Homer Bailey is set to face a Marlins team currently implied for 4.2 runs but one that just lost Giancarlo Stanton (again) for the season. Bailey certainly has intriguing stats today: He has a slate-high 13.310 SO/9 but his K Prediction sits at only 5.7, because it’s incredibly hard to predict how far into the game he will go. Will it be only three innings, like two starts ago against the Pirates? Or will it be six innings, like his last start against the Brewers, in which he struck out 11 batters and had a 63-FD point game? At only $7,700 on FD, the price is certainly cheap enough to take that risk in GPPs.
Cleveland righty Carlos Carrasco has rebounded nicely from a disastrous FD game earlier this month in which he scored -10 points: He has gone seven innings and struck out at least eight batters in each of his last two starts. His recent advanced stats still include that blowup game against the Twins, but they’re improving: His batted-ball exit velocity allowed sits at 90 MPH. He faces a White Sox team that Vegas doesn’t seem to believe in very much today: They are implied for only 3.6 runs currently despite having a projected lineup with a slate-high .346 Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA). Regardless, the good news for Carrasco is that he should have a lot of run support. The Indians are currently implied for 5.6 runs, and so Carrasco is a huge -245 moneyline favorite.
Toronto lefty J.A. Happ has been #good:
In his last 10 games, he has exceeded salary-based expectations on FD by an average of +14.01 points. And, more importantly, he has continued to do so even with a steadily-rising salary. He is expensive — he’s all the way up at $10,900 on DraftKings but still reasonable at $9,700 on FD — and he has a fairly tough matchup against the Yankees, currently implied for 4.1 runs. Still, Happ has allowed a combined two runs in his last four games. Even if you fade him in cash games, get some exposure to the hot Blue Jay lefty in GPPs.
Camden Yards is typically a tough park for pitchers, but it’s a little better for lefties. Boston lefty David Price is in Baltimore for what is currently projected to be a close, high-scoring affair. The Orioles are currently implied for 4.4 runs, which is a tough number to swallow considering Price’s $10,100 FD price tag. He’s a little more palatable on DK at $8,600, and he does have K upside — his 7.9 K Prediction is second-best today — but there’s just a ton of risk in this matchup.
Speaking of poor matchups, we’ll end our pitcher analysis with a look at Nationals righty Stephen Strasburg. Coming into Coors is never a good time to be in poor form, but unfortunately that is the case for Stras: He has allowed 10 runs in his last two starts. This shows in his advanced stats: In those two games, he has allowed a 50 percent fly-ball rate and a 46 percent hard-hit rate. He does have the slate’s highest K Prediction at 9.1 currently, but those other marks just won’t fly at Coors. Balls will.
Stacks
We’ll switch it up today and do a Coors FD stack and then a non-Coors DK stack. As expected, the top-rated four-man FD stack belongs to the Nationals:
The Nationals will be highly owned, so mixing up a stack like this — going 1-3-4-6 in the order instead of 1-2-3-4 — is a nice way to get exposure to the team without being super chalky.
After we eliminate Coors, the top five-man DK stack is a projected 1-2-3-4-6 stack of the Dodgers.
Yes, the same Dodgers that crushed Vincent Velasquez last night en route to 15 total runs. They can certainly score in bunches.
Batters
Carlos Santana is projected to bat leadoff for an Indians team currently implied for 5.6 runs, the second-highest mark today and only just behind the Nationals’ 5.7. He hits both hands well and has good splits against righties: He has a .350 wOBA, .242 Isolated Power (ISO), and .467 slugging percentage in the last year. He has been hitting a lot of ground balls lately (51 percent) but faces Anthony Ranaudo, who easily has the slate’s worst HR/9 rate at 2.872.
Braves lefty Freddie Freeman has no problem hitting balls in the air: He has a batted-ball distance of 269 feet, a 50 percent fly-ball rate, and a 61 percent hard-hit rate in his last 12 games. Those are elite marks. Freeman is projected to bat third for a Braves team currently implied for 4.6 runs. In a main slate with the Indians, Rangers, Diamondbacks, and likely Cubs all implied for over 5.0, Freeman could actually go a bit overlooked.
We obviously hit on the Nationals already, but the Rockies are also in a great spot today. Lefty Charlie Blackmon is currently the highest-rated FD batter in the Bales Model and has solid splits against righties: He has a .377 wOBA, .228 ISO, and .528 slugging percentage in the last year. I’m not sure how people will treat the Rockies today — they’re implied for 4.8 runs currently but people might be scared off a bit because of Strasburg — but you should definitely have some exposure on both sides of this game.
What’s there to say about Mike Trout at this point? He’s not a big splits guy, as he crushes every pitcher, but his splits are good against righties: He has a .429 wOBA, .277 ISO, and .595 slugging percentage in the last year. He has a batted-ball distance of 270 freaking feet in his last 10 games. The best player in baseball is currently on a heater. You know what to do.
Tyler Naquin is very expensive on DK at $4,600 — especially expensive for a projected seventh hitter — but he’s very affordable on FanDuel at $2,800. We already talked about the Indians above, but I’ll quickly mention Naquin’s splits versus righties: He has a .425 wOBA, .292 ISO, and .619 slugging percentage in the last year. Amazingly, those splits are better than Trout’s. If you’re going to stack the Indians today — and you probably should — include Naquin.
Good luck!
