Welcome to a test version of a future MLB article from your friends at DFS Army. The goal of this piece will be to find those homeruns that boost your DFS scores and have you leapfrogging leaderboard spots in bunches. We will focus solely on power numbers for both bats and pitchers, and we will largely center around the ISO metric indicating raw power.
All numbers cited are produced for VIPs daily inside our MLB Research Station. We may cross-reference some with Trends tabs, Pitching Hubs, and various other stats, but we largely focus on the hitter’s ISO and the pitcher’s ISO against. We aim to find strength on weakness, so let’s dive in for today’s quick HR Hunting plays…
#200on200 MLB Picks for May 23
*Dylan Bundy* – Oh boy, good old Dylan isn’t great against righties or lefties, and the Yankees are hot! A 543 WScore is high and suggests he gives up woba while the team opposing him hits for hit wobas. That might be the Captain Obvious stat of the day, but it does sell my point. Dylan also gives 1.81 HR/9, not as high as we’ve seen, but the highest on the slate. And, he allows a .349 xwoba to right handed bats. Shhhhh, but he’s giving up an over .200 ISO to lefties, too, so they are most definitely in play. My long list of targets would be: Gary Sanchez, Luke Voit, Gleyber Torres, Clint Frazier, Aaron Hicks, Thairo Estrada (who I should have had on the list the other day, I just didn’t think he was going to start.)
Which brings up a great point……….make sure these guys are starting! Pitchers, batters, all of them. I’m giving you number indicators early in the day. Lineups are not released yet, and some guys are day to day or questionable. Obviously, if they aren’t starting, I’m not playing them. You’d think that was Cpt Obvious statement #2, but I get complaints sometimes and I really don’t feel sorry for you if you don’t double check what you read. I mean if you are putting money down, please be thorough, or I can’t help you.
*Trevor Richards* – We will attack the veteran lightly with DET because it’s, well, Detroit. But, Nick Castellanos is our #200on200 candidate today. Richards gives up a .334 xwoba to lefites, but more importantly, he carries a 4.41 BB/9 with a 4.51 SIERA. Let’s look at the Research Station trends tab to see if anyone else pops out as running hot currently…
Miguel Cabrera and Jacoby Jones are currently running hot with L7 wobas over .400. Jones has a stellar ISO, too, at .353 over the same 7 days. Castellanos bears caution being he isn’t exactly ripping the cover off the ball at a .228 L7 woba, but his ISO at .182 does suggest he’s hitting for power when he does hit the ball. Probably a GPP offense today, as will be BAL in a minute.
*Steven Matz* – WAS rolls into Matz today and finds themselves in a good “paper spot,” but Matz doesn’t blow up as often as it might appear. That said, we can target Nats bats from the right side of the plate being Matz yields a .330 xwoba to righties. Don’t look now, but he also seems to have a little trouble with lefties, too, giving up a .334 xwoba there. The power numbers are low, and Matz is a contact pitcher, but his numbers to righties do hit the #200on200 potential criteria with his .220 ISO against. Look for Anthony Rendon (sick .323 ISO vs RHP), Kurt Suzuki, Brian Dozier, and Victor Robles to be in the spots to hit a bomb today, if anyone does.
*Masahiro Tanaka* – I’m not much for picking on Tanaka, but he does leak a little to righties, putting a couple Orioles in sneaky spots. He also gives up a not-so-great 1.56 HR/9, so he can lose control a smidge. Trey Mancini is the only Oriole on the right side carrying an ISO over .200, but a couple others are close. Let’s give honorable mentions to Keon Broxton (should he play) and Renato Nunez.
*Clayton Richard* – Clayton barely hits the radar with an over .200 ISO allowed to right handed bats, but we know Boston can do damage. Now, JD Martinez is questionable obviously, but Mookie Betts and Steve Pearce also carry high ISOs of their own and become more than playable. There isn’t a lot to say, honestly. When you see a pitcher giving up power to a certain handedness facing a batter that hits for ISO, you look to play them in our boom or bust DFS environment where the homerun is king.
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*This #200on200 thing is just one parameter in which you might look through the RS for when choosing thunder bats*. When you find one of your own, feel free to tweet me @Choppodong or @dfsarmy on Twitter, and let’s have some fun with this metric!
Obviously, there are many other MLB coaching notes, methodologies, and processes to evaluate. But, ISO given up by a pitcher to the power ISO of a bat just makes logical sense and is here to point out great matchups………..not predict results. In conjunction with other factors, though, you can really find some 5-star matchups tonight and put yourself in a great position to accumulate some points in bunches. Try it tonight.
(One way to crosscheck this number is to look at L7 woba (in Trends tab of our Research Station) and see who is also hitting well recently. I would be less excited about some great #200on200 guy hitting .150 woba over the last week than if I found some guy hitting a .500 and tearing the cover off the ball when he finds this kind of matchup tonight.)
Until next time, I’ll see you inside our coaching rooms at DFS Army!