It’s Friday, and that means the DFS Army MLB Cash Academy is back! I’m your host nillyJay, and I coach and contribute content for MLB, NASCAR, and all things cash games related (such as proper bankroll management and cash ladders). You can find me on Twitter or in our Slack channels @nillyJay.
The purpose of these articles is to show an easy way to identify players to use MLB cash game lineups. While I do provide some player names, the idea is to show what I’m looking for so that you can use some of that same thinking to help aid your research for building lineups.
The basics
Please refer to the original article here if you’re unfamiliar with any of the stats or terminology used in the notes below.
Cash players – 6/29/2018
Jacob deGrom (NYM P: $11,700 FD | $13,600 DK) – We have several good options at the top today (and you could make a case for any of them), but I’ll go with deGrom for my cash pitcher today. He’s got the best carnage rating of the studs today (2.80) as well as the lowest combined wOBA (.252), highest strikeout potential (554 KSCORE), and the second-lowest implied total and 3.01 runs. Outside of Bour (who is striking out a lot right now and isn’t crushing the ball), nobody else on the Marlins has had much success against him. He’s only a couple of rough games all year, and I see him continuing his success today.
Marco Gonzales (SEA P: $7,300 FD | $7,800 DK) – It’s no secret that my Royals have been struggling, and I don’t see them breaking trend that today. Gonzales finds himself in a pretty good spot today and offers some salary relief to grab deGrom (or your choice of a stud pitcher) and a few good bats. He has the lowest carnage rating today (2.68) and my model has him projected for 5.69 strikeouts (which is second only to deGrom). He looks like a solid SP2 choice on DraftKings, but on FanDuel I would opt to pay up for deGrom instead.
Yonder Alonso (CLE 1B: $3,000 FD | $3,600 DK) – Alonso has himself a nice 5-game hitting streak going (8 hits in those 5 games too, mind you) and has logged .426 wOBA and .273 ISO against righties over the last 10 days. He’s also only striking out 15.38% of the time, which just adds to his already solid floor. Blackburn is getting hit plenty by lefties, to the tune of .382 wOBA and .182 ISO over his last 5 starts. He’s also only striking out 14.3% of the batters he’s faced, which goes great with Blackburn’s numbers. Solid play all around, especially for the price.
Randal Grichuk (TOR OF: $2,500 FD | $3,700 DK) – I’ve had plenty of good results from Grichuk lately, and he finds himself in yet another good spot today. He’ll take his .412 wOBA and .500 ISO up against Liriano who has been giving up .375 xwOBA to righties and has only been striking out 16.7% of his batters. Liriano also has a big 7.09 carnage rating along with a 5.2 implied total, so this is a team we want a piece of today.
Tim Anderson (CWS SS: $3,100 FD | $4,100 DK) – He was ejected last night (in the 11th inning), and I always like batters to come back fired up because of that. Narratives aside, he’s also performing very well lately, with a massive .575 wOBA and .318 ISO against righties. Gallardo has the second highest carnage rating today (6.28) as well as .412 wOBA and .200 ISO against righties. He’s also only striking out 14.9% of his batters, so I liked Anderson’s chances today to have yet another solid game.
Kole Calhoun (LAA OF: $2,500 FD | $3,400 DK) – Nobody on this team is running very hot, with the exception of Calhoun, but Vegas still has them at a 5.46 implied total. We can’t ignore that in cash, so we have to look for who is hitting well lately. Enter Calhoun, who has hit for .386 wOBA and .200 ISO against righties over the last 10 days. On the mound is Hess, who has given up .385 wOBA and .234 ISO to lefties, while only striking out a measly 12.8% of the batters he’s faced. Calhoun got a day off yesterday, and I look for him to get a solid hit or two today for our cash lineups.
Freebie Friday!!
It’s Friday, so you know what that means…freebies at the DFS Army! Be sure to check out the research station while it’s available today as well as our other MLB articles. As for me, I’m going to include one of the DraftKings Pick’Em tiers here. I made a model that breaks down each tier so we can quickly identify who we want to use in both cash and tournaments, and it’s been on fire all season long. The other tiers will be in my Slack channel (#nillys-garage-nas-mlb), but I can share one of them here:
DraftKings recently increased the size of the player pool for each tier (with the exception of T1), which has done nothing but made cash games even easier for us since we can quickly eliminate several players in bad spots and find the ones in good spots to use.
That’s going to do it for today. Be sure to check out all of the free stuff we have available today and remember that not only do we offer lots of MLB content, but we do every major sport as well. My NASCAR Xfinity preview article will be out later today, and we have all sorts of stuff in the works including PGA, WNBA, MMA, and World Cup coverage. We do it all, and we do it for one low price. None of that single-sport nonsense here! Just be sure to use promo code NILLY for a 10% discount to make it even cheaper. Good luck today!
