In every MLB Plays of the Day post, several FantasyLabs writers will use our Trends and Player Models tools to highlight each one player to roster heavily in cash games and/or tournaments for the day’s main slate.
Here are today’s plays of the day.
Bryan Mears: Alex Gordon, KC, OF
I will admit it — I’m still learning how to apply the amazing advanced data we have for MLB this season. The idea of this article, and other articles like Bill’s Recent Form Report, is to gauge a player’s recent data versus season-long stats in hoping that we can find players due for regression, either positively or negatively. Sometimes, it’s easy: I’ve been hammering the Corey Dickerson play for a while now (he had been crushing the ball but getting unlucky), and he came through with a HR last night. But what about when it’s not that simple? What if the data seemingly conflicts?
Take Alex Gordon. Gordon has a really high line-drive percentage this season at 43 percent, which is up 17 percent from last year. That’s good, right? Line drives are good, yes. However, the rest of his advanced stats aren’t as good: His distance differential, exit velocity, and hard-hit rate are all down this season. This is where our Trends tool can help you with the conflicting data. You can query players who have had similar confounding splits and see how they’ve fared. And the answer is . . . those players have performed about where we’d expect, with a -0.06 Plus/Minus. I know that may not be as exciting as you were hoping, but the point is this: If the data is confusing or conflicting, use our Trends and Models together to figure out why and how to deal with it.
Jay Persson: Colby Rasmus, HOU, OF
Rasmus makes for one of the easier cash plays on this slate for a multitude of reasons. We can start by looking at his .342 wOBA and .248 ISO against right-handed pitchers. He is expected to hit fourth on a team that has the second-highest implied run total on the main slate. Opposing pitcher AJ Griffin has the lowest K/9 on the slate, at just 4.9. This especially bodes well for Rasmus as his main struggle at the plate is a high strikeout rate. With a Hard-Hit Percentage of 56 percent in his last 15 days, Rasmus has the added bonus of being able to put the ball in play.
While Rasmus has everything going for him to make him a clear cash play, he is also likely have high ownership in tournaments. The public is well aware of teams with high run totals, and Rasmus has a very favorable lineup spot to go along with his underpriced salary. When entering large-field tournaments, we should look to use contrarian plays to gain an advantage on the field. So what is the optimal solution? Use Rasmus in cash on both DraftKings and FanDuel, but limit exposure in tournaments unless he is in an overall lineup that has a high probability of being unique and contrarian.
Check out Jay’s Trend of the Day for his thoughts on maximizing expensive pitchers and his video on constructing contrarian lineups.
Mitchell Block: Kendrys Morales, KC, 1B
What do you get when you take a batter from the top half of the lineup (1-5 spots) with an ISO Split Differential in the 90th percentile and pit him against a pitcher with a really, really poor WHIP (let’s say at least 1.5)? Well, according to our Trends tool, you’d have a good chance of rostering a player who will have a solid game. How solid? An average Plus/Minus of +1.29, including a slew of players with games of 30+ DraftKings points.
If you hadn’t guessed, the above trend applies to Morales tonight, but also working in his favor are positive splits — a wOBA Differential of +.036 and an ISO Differential of +.132 — and a matchup with the owner of that really, really poor WHIP I mentioned above. Mike Pelfrey has a slate-worst WHIP (1.564) and K/9 (4.975) and has displayed a notable lack of velocity over his first two starts this season: His average pitch speed is currently clocking in 1.9 MPH lower than his previous 12-month average. Judging by his drop in velocity and recent lack of control — Pelfrey issued six walks in six innings in his previous start — one might surmise that something is amiss with his mechanics.
Targeting a pitcher with a WHIP over 1.5 is never a bad idea to begin with, but taking aim at a pitcher with that poor of a WHIP that may also be struggling with his control and velocity is even more appealing. And with Kansas City currently implied to score a slate high 4.8 runs, it seems Vegas is willing to bet that this matchup against Pelfrey may be as positive on the field as it appears on paper.
Keep an eye out for Mitch’s Stack of the Day article, which should be posted soon.
Tyler Buecher: Chris Davis, BAL, 1B
A small six-game slate makes for less of a talent pool to draw from for tonight’s main slate. In these kinds of short slates, I like to play a bit more aggressively in tournaments with a lineup of mostly wildcards and a few fantasy anchors I trust. One of the players I’m most comfortable with tonight to build my lineups around is Baltimore’s Chris Davis. The power-swinging lefty takes on Toronto’s Marco Estrada in Camden Yards, a hitter-friendly venue where Davis has a Park Factor 78 (the second-highest on the slate).
Davis leads all first basemen in both ISO and wOBA Differential for tonight. His Hard-Hit Percentage continues to increase (+3 percent over the last 15 days) as we dive deeper into the season with nearly half (45 percent) of his hits qualifying. It’s no wonder that he leads all first basemen in homeruns this year and has the highest HR/AB rate on the slate. Estrada’s pitching velocity has declined over the past 15 days (-1.1 MPH), as his velocity is down to 87.9 MPH, second-lowest on the slate. Slugging an egregious 0.637 on the year, Davis is someone I’m perfectly comfortable with against the struggling Estrada.
Matthew Freedman: Manny Machado, BAL, 3B/SS
With his shortstop eligibility on DraftKings, Machado is probably a chalky play and could be a tournament favorite as part of a Baltimore stack, but that’s no reason to stay away from him in cash games. Although he is $400 more expensive than the second-most expensive shortstop (Carlos Correa), Machado is still worth the cost to roster him, give his Bargain Rating of 70 percent. Additionally, it helps that he has experienced no upward Salary Change over the last fantasy year and month, so you are not paying a premium for his past production, which leads the shortstop position (9.8 fantasy points per game over the last year and a whopping 12.4 PPG over the last month).
Machado’s long- and short-term combination of Consistency and Upside is the best available in the six-game main slate at the shortstop position, which is unsurprising, since as of writing (7:15 AM ET) he is the highest-rated DraftKings shortstop in the CSURAM88 2016 and Bales 2016 models. Currently matching for six Pro Trends, Machado bats second on a team with the third-highest implied total of the slate at 4.6 runs, and he has the slate’s most hitter-friendly umpire in Dan Bellino, whose presence behind the plate has historically resulted in a +0.5 Plus/Minus increase. Marchado’s 44 Park Factor isn’t ideal, but at least it looks like the wind will be blowing to left and the chance of precipitation at game time will be zero percent.
As a right-handed hitter, Marchado is relatively rare in that he is better against right-handed pitchers, with .078 and .086 wOBA and ISO Differentials. On top of that, his .403 wOBA is the slate’s second-highest for all shortstops and his .256 ISO leads the position. In general, Marchado has been hitting the ball well lately. Per our advanced data, his Average Distance of batted ball in the last 15 days is 223 feet. Of all the balls he has put into play in that timeframe, 50 percent are fly balls and 33 percent are hard hits. At $5,000, Marchado isn’t cheap — but he’s also probably not as expensive as he should be.
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The Plays of the Day series is our answer to the question, “Who do you guys like today?” We publish a Plays of the Day article every weekday for MLB and every Wednesday for PGA.
