Baseball on the weekends is glorious. As a family man, I don’t have the energy or the drive to have any fun of any kind by the time the weekend rolls around. I just want to be boring and lame and I am not ashamed to admit it. I am sure you have heard of the term “Weekend Warrior”. For me, it has a different meaning these days. Being able to juggle the demands of life throughout the week and still having the dedication to remain prosperous in MLB DFS is my battle. For my fellow dedicated DFS players, this article is for you.
- Main Slate Musings
This might be a pretty tricky slate to navigate. There are no real aces on the mound and we are going to have to choose from several upper middle tier options. We have a bunch of mid 4.5sh run projections and a handful of teams ranging from 5.0-6.3 runs (Nationals, Yankees, Indians, Red Sox, Rays, Braves, Athletics).
- Pitching
Michael Pineda is probably our top option today because the Yankees are favored and he’s just a much better pitcher at home this season. In 2017 when pitching at home, opposing batters have a .202 AVG, .243 wOBA and only 4 HR in 51.2 innings. Pineda has a 1.92 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 3.68 xFIP, 9.33 K/9 and a 24.4 K%. He’s a notch below elite at home but priced as if he were on the road where his statistics are a shell of what I have just researched for you. He has a chance for the quality start and a win which gives us a nice 10 point bonus combined.
Julio Teheran is my GPP pitcher for the main slate. He’s looked better recently and it’s beginning to show in his statistics and analytics. Over his last three starts, he has a 66% strike ratio, 91.5 MPH average pitch speed, 194 opposing hitter distance and just a 25% opposing hitter hard hit rate. That is a lot of numbers in one sentence but the takeaway is that he looks like he is turning the corner.
His matchup with the Brewers is a tasty one as they have a 24.9% strikeout rate over the past ten days. They are hitting the ball pretty well with a 33.5% hard hit rate which will hopefully be limited by the improving Julio Teheran. He remains a GPP play only because of the power the Brewers are showing as of late.
- Stacks
On Saturday I nailed the Rays and the Nationals and today I am going back to the well. As usual with our stacks, there are plenty of directions to go and routes to take with each stack but I will give you the stack that looks best analytically. If you choose to add or subtract players from the stack, by all means, you should feel confident in your own choices. I had someone ask me why I didn’t have Michael Taylor in the stack on Saturday and my reply was that Brian Goodwin was cheaper and batting six spots higher. I can only fill in three total outfielders and wanted to make sure I had Dickerson and Harper as well. There are many different options and none of them are right or wrong until the games are over. That’s the beauty of DFS.
The Rays don’t have a top three Vegas run projection and that’s why they are my favorite stack of the day. They should be moderately owned but carry much less ownership than the Nationals, Red Sox, and Yankees. Chris Tillman has been horrendous on the road in 2017 and that’s not a good thing when facing the red-hot Tampa bats.
Over the last ten games (260 at-bats) the Rays have a 38.6% hard hit rate against righties. They also only have a 17.1% soft hit rating which is the seventh best in Major League Baseball over the ten game time frame. That means that 82.9% of the time they are hitting the ball with medium to hard contact. This is incredibly alarming considering that Chris Tillman has a 46% hard hit rate over his past three starts while allowing opposing batters to hit the ball an average of 226 feet with a 94 MPH exit velocity. On top of that, he’s given up 10 HRs in the past 5 starts (19.1 innings pitched), WOW! The Rays should have ample opportunity to light Tillman up and get to the exhausted Orioles bullpen. Over the past twenty games, the Orioles starting rotation has over a 9.30 ERA which has really taxed their pen with plenty of early exits for the starters. Tillman has only made it past the 5th inning twice in his last six starts. Trouble is looming.
The Nationals should have their way with Scott Feldman of the Cincinnati Reds. Feldman was humming along and having himself a fine season. It appears that the scouting report is starting to catch up to him as he’s given up a home run in five of the last six starts. He’s also been tagged for four or more runs in four of his last seven trips to the mound. He is still a serviceable pitcher and likely won’t be yanked early, but the Nats should be able to get on base with regularity just as they did Saturday. The Reds bullpen was used for 6.1 innings and will be tired for this matchup. If the Nats do happen to get to Feldman early and earn a few extra innings against the exhausted bullpen then fireworks could happen again. I am going back to the well with Brian Goodwin as my first player in the stack until his price is adjusted. He’s just way too cheap on Fanduel. Daniel Murphy, Anthony Rendon, and Trea Turner offer excellent bats for our infield choices. Harper and Zimmerman are just too highly owned for me.
There isn’t a wrong way or right way to construct a lineup until after the results are in. Whatever you do, just make sure you do it with sound research and analysis. Winning lineups may sometimes look like someone just threw darts at a board but nobody truly plays like that with money on the line. Game theory and research can be the best of friends for GPP’s.
Join the DFS Army with my 20% off promo code: DONUTS
Good luck to all of my fellow weekend warriors! You can find me on Twitter @DFSnDONUTS where I love to interact with my followers and enjoy the sweat of a big night with you.
Do you want access to the most advanced Daily Fantasy Basketball MLB tools in the industry? How about the chance to talk player picks and lineups with our MLB DFS Pros and like-minded players? DFS Army VIP Members get all of that PLUS access to our best in the industry projections and optimization tools. Go to DFS Army VIP membership and join the Army today! You won’t find a better deal or a better DFS team to join!