This series uses the FantasyLabs Tools to analyze three key MLB players in the day’s slate. The series does not provide play or fade recommendations. It provides analysis.
Jon Gray: Pitcher, Rockies
With Madison Bumgarner and Yu Darvish in the slate, Jon Gray ($10,000 on DraftKings and $7,800 on FanDuel) deserves closer attention. As Pro subscribers can see in our Player Models, Gray sports sharper advanced stats at a discount in price and likely ownership:
Gray’s third in the all-day slate with 9.926 strikeouts per nine innings over the last year and a K Prediction of 7.1. Per our Trends tool, pitchers with comparable numbers have historically averaged 20.48 DraftKings points with a Plus/Minus of +2.96 points and a Consistency Rating of 55.6 percent. At AT&T Park (an extremely pitcher-friendly venue with a Park Rating 100), comparable pitchers have experienced enhanced performances with a +6.29 Plus/Minus and a Consistency Rating of 80 percent.
Gray pitched twice in San Francisco in 2016. In his first game (May 7), Gray hit 23.95 DraftKings points for a +9.5 Plus/Minus on seven innings and 5 Ks. On September 29, Gray returned to AT&T Park and got clobbered, scoring just 3.04 points. On May 7, Gray’s advanced stats were almost identical to his current stats while on September 29 his advanced stats were markedly worse.
Asdrubal Cabrera: Shortstop, Mets
We know batters have more DFS value the higher in the batting order they are, and that’s true for Asdrubal Cabrera. For his first few months with the Mets, he bounced around the lower half of the order and struggled, but the have Mets finally moved him up in the order — he’s currently second in the team’s projected lineup — and Cabrera has blossomed. With our Lineup Builder, it’s easy to incorporate stacks into DFS rosters, and Cabrera is an important player for current Mets stacks.
In 2016, Cabrera hit 15 of his 23 home runs after moving to the No. 2 slot, and his DraftKings Plus/Minus jumped from +0.6 to +1.43. When facing lefties as the No. 2 batter — and he’s slated to face the lefty Wei-Yin Chen tonight — Cabrera was even better:
Per our Vegas Dashboard, the Mets have one of the slate’s lowest implied totals (3.8 runs), which may serve to depress Cabrera’s ownership.
Andrew Benintendi: Outfielder, Red Sox
Priced in the mid $3000s earlier in the season, Andrew Benintendi ($4,200 on DraftKings) has hit his highest price point of the 2017 season. Playing in one of the largest MLB media markets, Benintendi already experiences high ownership, which doesn’t seem likely to drop, given that (per our DFS Ownership Dashboard) the sharp high-stakes tournament players were on him just last night (April 12) despite his $4,100 salary:
Players with an average salary increase of $500 to $700 have experienced a minor drop in production in past seasons — but when the salary change has occurred in April the batters have produced a subpar -0.35 Plus/Minus.
Although Benintendi is batting second for a Boston offense implied for a slate-high 5.3 runs, he might not be in a particularly advantageous spot: Previous No. 2 Fenway batters comparable in their handedness splits and Vegas totals haven’t been as good in April as we’d expect, with a Plus/Minus of only +0.06. Benintendi has a high rating in our Models for a reason, but he probably warrants some fade consideration in guaranteed prize pools.
Good luck, and be sure to read Bryan Mears’ MLB Breakdown later today!
News Updates
After this piece is published, FantasyLabs is likely to provide news updates on a number of players herein mentioned. Be sure to stay ahead of your competition with our industry-leading DFS-focused news blurbs:
