This is likely a one-time thing, so don’t get used to it. You do have my permission to celebrate the good and bitch about the bad publicly. In fact, I hope you do! This Saturday I’m teaming up with @DFSnDonuts to help cover the slate. He wanted to focus on pitchers, so read his piece here… Weekend Warriors. As a result, he asked if I would cover some position players. Gladly! I usually break off a slate at a glance, so I relished the chance to mix it up a bit and do something different.
I will use the same method of narrowing a player pool as usual. The way I research is to identify the softer pitching and compare them to the best offenses of the day hoping something lines up. When it does, we have a green light to dig into the offenses a bit and focus on the hotter hitters within and surround the core of the lineup we build with some sneakier one-offs. Let’s start there.
Soft Pitching
If I can still count to twenty, we have a thirteen game Main Slate. Let’s find the softest pitchers based on SIERA. Paul Blackburn (facing CLE) leads the pack with his 5.49 SIERA. He’s newer to the league with his unsustainable 0.66 ERA, so I’m expecting some normalization….perhaps as soon as today. We will possibly target him and these others. Cole Hamels (@KCR) and Jose Urena (facing LAD) are both over 5.00 as well. If you follow my Chin Music pieces, you will notice the Urena name. It’s under the soft pitching category every five days. Facing the Dodgers, he is very likely a target to attack today. Francisco Liriano (@DET), Seth Lugo (facing COL), Wade Miley (facing CHC), Derek Holland (facing SEA), and Tyler Chatwood (facing NYM) round out the pitchers carrying SIERAs over 4.80. It’s getting late enough in the season, SIERAs over 4.50 are not indicators of intimidating pitching. You can nearly count on these pitchers to give up a few runs every start. And, you can also count on them to implode with enough frequency you want opposing bats when they do.
We have eight pitchers to take a look at. Let’s find the offenses Vegas likes to score some runs and see if any are not-s0-coincidentally facing these guys for a boost in opportunity.
Implied Run Totals
What you typically find here is powerful offenses facing non-aces, offenses in hitting ballparks, and yes, those facing bad pitching.
The Cubs and Astros lead the way as our teams implied to score over 5.00 runs tonight. Are either facing pitchers on our “soft” list? Sure are. Both of them are on it. We are going to love these offenses regardless of chalkiness. DET and SEA are both implied over 4.90, and yep……both opposing pitchers are on the “soft” list. These four teams will form our core. We can draw one-offs from teams on the soft list like KCR or NYM, and we can also look to the IRT (implied run total) list for teams like BAL, WAS, ATL. This is where the differentiation takes care of itself for you. You simply don’t need to give into your paranoia over ownership as you build. Just take the best of the best and screw the rest. (Scratch the DET chatter…..they play at 6:10 and Fanduel sucks again by not including those times on the Main.)
Positions List
Now that we have our teams targeted, let’s put together a small list of players by position. Sure, you can start by blindly stacking some of these teams above and be off and running. You can also employ another method of looking for some positional scarcity, a topic we visit at DFSArmy.com quite often (click link for info on becoming a VIP).
C – Contreras, McCann, Zunino
1B – Rizzo, Valencia, Gurriel
2B – Altuve, Cano, Baez
3B – Bryant, Seager, Bregman
SS – Correa, Segura, Russell
OF – Zobrist, Almora, Jay, Cruz, Haniger, Heredia, Springer, Reddick, Beltran
This short list represents your core of the high IRT teams facing soft pitching. This is not a definitive list you must use. However, being they have some starts aligned, it’s wise to take quite a few. Let’s spotlight a few.
Catcher – Mike Zunino (2400) has a cheap price for what you get vs LHP. 46 ABs this season and 4 HRs gives us what feels like a 10% chance at a bomb for only $200 off the minimum pricing on Fanduel. Don’t overthink this one.
1B – None of these guys get my motor running from our “core.” Honestly, I’m not afraid to look elsewhere for better. I notice the Dodgers didn’t make the list but still face a potential gascan in Jose Urena. I think there’s a 1B out there worth looking to. If my numbers are right, he carries a .357 ISO and 19 bombs on the season vs RHP too. In fact, I heard during the Home Run Derby this cat has the most HRs per swing on the year. Sure, Aaron Judge blew the roof off this very dome, but one Cody Bellinger isn’t a bad place to look at 1B when facing soft pitching. And, I certainly like him over all three of these “core” players. To add in, Cody has 546 Fanduel points on the year. In 61 games vs RHP, that’s damned near 10 points per game. Great production for $3600. Value play, believe it or not.
2B – I could give you the obvious play in Jose Altuve here and tell you his OBP is nearly .500 vs handedness today. However, I’d rather show you the steady Eddie not picked out in our core list but still in a great spot. Daniel Murphy might be my favorite 2B day to day. He’s just so consistent, and often flies a bit under the radars. At $3800, he’s often in the land of the lost because players either pay way down at 2B or they go up to Altuve. However, when you look at his season numbers, Murph runs a .960ish OPS and .365ish OBP with 16 taters vs right handers. I like season numbers as a baseline, but will always crosscheck them with 4 week or 7 day numbers to see if a player is running hot or cold vs his baseline. Over the previous 4 weeks, Murphy carries a .950 OPS and a .350 OBP with 3 taters. It doesn’t get much more consistent than that.
3B – I’m heading off the core list yet again here. Not so much to say this guy is better than our core list, but more to point something out. We need value. That’s always the name of the game in DFS. We can’t continue to pay up for player after player due to that annoying little bitch we call the salary cap. If I told you there was a 3B out there for $2300 that hits 5th in a lineup, you’d be intrigued, right? What if I told you he was 43/132 on the year for a .333 OBP with a .807 OPS vs RHP? While not super excited, I still have your ears when I remind you he is only $2300, right? What if I told you his last week was 4/8 with a double and 2 RBI? I know the All Star Break got in the way, but what if I told you he came out of the gate last night with a box score of 2/5 with 2 runs, 3 RBI, a double, and a dong? Would you take a chance on that being a hot streak for $2300 on a team that put up 14 runs last night and faces a pitcher today with a SIERA of 4.82 and ERA of 4.42? I would. Let me introduce you to one TJ Rivera of the NYM. Value is value all day long.
SS – Back to the list. Both Segura and Correa are fine and in fine spots. I don’t likely need to describe Correa to you. I’ll just give you his game logs recently: 12.7, 60.1, 3, 31.4, 6, 9.2, 28.5, and 25.2. I know he’s expensive, but can you work with scores like that in both cash and GPPs? Of course you can. He’s on the core list today because he is also facing potentially poor pitching. Segura is cheaper, but you also have a higher likelihood of the goose-egg. Segura, however, has 6 games in July with double digit fantasy points, so he’s not a bad way to go today, either.
OF – This list is ok again, but shows you can take this different ways. You can run out value bats like Zobrist or Jay (Jay is best used in cash because he has next to no pop in his bat and doesn’t even run into home runs on accident). You can pay up for Springer or Cruz. But, there is one value play in my opinion that absolutely must be considered, and it’s Josh Reddick. Josh hits 2nd for arguably the league’s best offense. They are on our core list today. And, if we play the baseline vs hot hitter game, we find a season OPS of .915 vs handedness today and a 4 week OPS of 1.364 with an accompanying ISO of .419….serious pop right now. Looking through game logs, there is 40 points of upside being tested and a floor of about 9 points. For $3300, I’ll take that all day long.
Summary
I don’t very often provide specific player picks in write-ups because I think it’s silly to just auto plug and play someone else’s research. In a game like MLB, the volatility is such that these picks also miss far more often than they connect. Why hang our balls out there with such low odds of coming through? I’d rather teach you to look on your own, realize the picks still fail often, but show you a process by which you can hang your hat along the way. Repeat your self-developed process day in and day out and you will also realize how you come in and out of favor feeling the roller coaster of emotions that is DFS. Hopefully, you love it as much as we do and love talking about it throughout the day comparing your plays with others of equal or better ability. If so, you need to become a member of the Army. This is exactly what you get inside our slack channels with the real-time discussions. It’s also where you find coaches willing to bare their souls to you and share what can only be conservatively estimated at 95% or their secrets to you. Click on a couple of those links up above to see how to join. Click on a couple of these images below to see why…especially the 2nd one.
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