Welcome to the July 10th Edition of Painting the Black, an MLB Pitching Breakdown for Fanduel, DraftKings, and Fantasydraft!
In case you all didn’t know, my name is Matt, mdellagnese14 on twitter. I am currently a student at Springfield College with a love and passion for sports, mainly baseball.
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I am mostly a Fanduel player, so the content in my articles will be for geared mainly towards Fanduel. However, I will include pricing from all three sites (Fanduel, Draftkings, FantasyDraft). Some plays may be better off for the two pitcher sites and I will mention that when needed about a pitcher.
Pitching is one of the most, if not the most important position in your MLB lineups and selecting the right one will help you tremendously. Go check out the MLB Pitching Strategy article to get my thought process on picking these pitchers each slate!
NOTE: most of the stats I used are from a 14-game sample to the handiness of pitchers. If I reference season numbers, I will mention that!
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BULLPEN REPORTS
Main Slate
Trevor Bauer (12k FD) (13.6k DK) (26.6k FD2) vs CIN
Definitely one of the best pitching options on the slate tonight. Bauer opens up this game as a massive favorite against the Reds. Bauer has been arguably one of the best pitchers in the league this season and is not showing signs of slowing down. He comes into this start with a massive 31.3% strikeout rate and a 3.04 SIERA. The Reds have been very hot against RHP lately, as they rank in the top of the league in many different categories. That will not stop me from liking Bauer though. I’m not sure that we have a more consistent pitcher in the game right now fantasy scoring wise. Bauer has only ONE start under 30 fanduel points ALL season. He also has just 3 starts all season with less than 6 innings pitched. The Reds are going to be a tough task for him tonight, but he has shut down plenty of good offenses this year.
Justin Verlander (11.8k FD) (13.3k DK) (25.6k FD2) vs OAK
Oakland has been one of, if not the hottest teams in baseball right now and they just keep on winning. Well, tonight I think their hot streak gets broken with Verlander on the hill for Houston. Justin has not been the best of late but bounced backed with a nice 49 fanduel point game last start with 10 strikeouts. The K’s have been there this year for him, but he was roughed up in starts against the Rays and Blue Jays. He has one start against the A’s this year and was able to score 43 fanduel points in it, giving up 3 runs with 7 K’s over 7 innings. This start is on his turf though, where he has pitched better this year. He has a wonderful 36% strikeout rate at home, allowing just a .166 batting average and .228 wOBA. June was not a good month for Verlander, but he was great in his first July start. He is prone to giving up a HR at home (8 this year), but they don’t usually hurt him, as he can easily get strikeouts to negate the negative points. Verlander is allowing a 29.9% Hard% this season so far and last start they got just 23.4% hard contact. Despite the rough few outings, he still has a career-best 13.1% SwStr% and is allowing the lowest contact rate of his career at 73.9%. Between Verlander and Bauer, they are the top two cash options on this slate tonight, but we still have some interesting plays that can be cash viable and low owned.
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Garrett Richards (8.5k FD) (8.4k DK) (16k FD2) vs SEA
So, this is Richards 3rd straight start against the Mariners. He left the one in June because he got injured, but was solid in his return, firing 5.1 innings with 8 strikeouts and getting 40 fanduel points. This is his 4th start against the Mariners this season, but the first one at his home park. I’m throwing away the start he got hurt in, and he has 12 innings with 16 strikeouts and has allowed just 2 ER against them this year. Finally, Richards has shown us the pitcher he can be. He has a great 27.7% strikeout rate this season with a 50% groundball rate. He has gotten hit hard this year (39% Hard%), but his wOBA at home is just .249 and he has a 29.6% K rate at home. The Mariners have been great all season, but Richards has always been able to shut them down this year. I think we can roll Richards out tonight, and he makes for a good SP2 on DK at just 8.4k.
Rich Hill (8k FD) (8.6k DK) (16.8k FD2) @ SD
Kershaw is finally coming back into form for the Dodgers after injuries have hurt his season, and he did great against the Padres last night. Hill is another guy who has dealt with injuries this year, but I really like him tonight. The Padres rank just below the Rockies in wRC+ at just 59 against LHP in the L14. They also have just a .253 wOBA and .071 ISO. Last season, Hill was a reverse splits pitcher, and even though it has not translated to this year, it shows he has been able to shut down RHH in his career. Looking at our Lineups Page for the Padres,
They have 4 guys with over 20% strikeout rates, and while some of them have low K rates, they are still going to strikeout. They have just 3 hitters with more than a .300 xwOBA, and Wil Myers has been the main guy smashing since coming off the DL. Hill has been shaky this year, but great in his last two starts getting 15 strikeouts in 11.2 innings scoring 30 and 51 fanduel points.
Tyler Anderson (7.1k FD) (8.2k DK) (16.2k FD2) vs ARI
WHAT?! A pitcher in Coors, YUP! Anderson has not been the best at home like some of his other Rockies teammates, but he is a massive reverse splits pitcher. He also has been amazing against Arizona in Denver. He’s allowed just 3 ER in his last 11.2 innings with 14 K’s and 0 HR at Coors against the DBacks. He’s allowing a .107 LOWER wOBA against RHH than lefties and allowing just a .219 average against righties. The Diamondbacks are projected to have 6 righties in their lineup tonight and the more righties the better for him. The DBacks have been hitting well of late, but have a low .125 ISO in their L14 vs LHP. Anderson has held a steady 22% strikeout rate this year and has been pretty split neutral with strikeouts. It obviously helps if he can get some more groundballs at home tonight, but he still has a 1.3% lower Hard% rate at home than the road. Last time out he fired off 8 strong against the Giants with 9 strikeouts. The good sign for Anderson is, over his last 3 starts he has 8 or more strikeouts. I don’t expect him to get that much tonight, but at a cheap price, a 30 point game is great for him. He is one of my favorite GPP plays tonight and will be low owned.
Enyel De Los Santos (5.5k FD) (7.5k DK) (14.4k FD2) @ NYM
A rookie pitcher against the Mets?! Yes, please. Before I dig into Santos’ stats, here are how bad the Mets are against RHP in their L14 via our amazing lineups page again.
You can see they have a horrible wOBA, xwOBA, ISO, and K%. That checks off just about all the boxes possible for me. A team that is striking out almost 24% of the time is good for the opposing pitcher. He has been amazing in AAA this year with the Phils and has a league-leading 1.89 ERA and has 87 strikeouts in 95 innings this season. He has gone 6 innings in his last 3 AAA starts and has 11 of his 16 starts with more than 6 innings. He’s shown a 22.7% K rate this year and isn’t walking too many hitters either. He throws hard and has a great change-up with an average curveball. We can’t expect too much from him tonight, as he’s a rookie and there isn’t too much on him, but he’s facing the lowly Mets, and that’s a great team to make your MLB debut against.
MAIN SLATE RANKINGS
- Trevor Bauer (all formats)
- Justin Verlander (all formats)
- Rich Hill (all formats, great SP2 option on DK/FD2)
- Garrett Richards (lean GPP, like him as an SP2 on DK)
- Tyler Anderson (GPP)
- Enyel De Los Santos (deep GPP flier)
