Welcome to the Sunday edition of the DFS Primer. Well yesterday didn’t go as planned! Valdez didn’t get much help with his offense and his defense for that matter. Then the Philadelphia and Toronto bats fell flat. Don’t you love the variance that comes with baseball!
Yours truly is quite exhausted after a good amount of day time drinking and being out in the sun. That is what happens when you host nearly 40 people at your home for a family reunion! What that means is that I won’t have time to make the elaborate table I usually do for my DFS articles but I have done my research and here is where I am leaning for pitcher and stacks.
Pitcher: Edward Cabrera
Stacks: Atlanta and Texas
Before I discuss the pitcher selection, here me out on the stacks. My focus for today is on expected ERA. This is where we can see some major regression as we get deeper into the season. True, Michael Kopech of the White Sox throws heat and did well against the Dodgers in his last start. However, his expected ERA is 3.03 while his real ERA is 1.94. He has thrown 51 innings so far this season and averages about 5 innings per start. If you do the math, Kopech could potentially give up 7-8 earned runs today if he pitches to Statcast’s expectations. The Rangers offense looked very good yesterday so there is a good chance they pop off again today, especially against a major flyball pitcher like Kopech with a bunch of lefties at the top of the order for Texas.
As for Atlanta, they are priced down which is a total head scratcher. Haven’t they won 10 games in a row with three of those games reaching double digits with runs scored? Didn’t they just put the beat down on the Pirates yesterday? Maybe it could be due to the fact that Pirates starting pitcher Jose Quintana has a decent ERA of 3.19. However, Statcast has his expected ERA at 4.59. That is a huge delta of 1.40! Quintana might give up 10 earned runs to the Braves!
Fire up Austin Riley and Marcell Ozuna who are both due for positive regression with wOBA and SLG. I can see each of them going yard today, especially against a lefty. In fact Riley has extremely favorable splits with handedness. 0.770 OPS against righties and 1.097 OPS against lefties. WOW! Adam Duvall could be in play as well if you are worried about Ozuna’s regression since 2020.
If you build some stacks with both Texas and Atlanta and try to get some of the core players in there, you could have enough salary for Edward Cabrera. He is risky since the Houston offense can explode at any time. Also, they are not super prone to striking out. However, Braxton Garrett of all people stymied the Astros yesterday and Cabrera is definitely a better pitcher. Keep in mind that Cabrera pitched brilliantly in Colorado earlier this month with 6 IP, 9 Ks, and 0 ERs. He followed that up with another quality start against Washington.
Cabrera is a young and big man who has averaged well over 1 K per inning in the minors. There is not too much game film on him in the majors so the big league teams are still trying to figure him out. Even though the sample size is small, Cabrera has thrown his changeup 72 times to the tune of a 41.2% whiff rate. That is awesome! If Cabrera makes you nervous, try to pay down for 1-2 batters from the Atlanta and Texas stacks and get Tarik Skubal in there. I don’t like selecting a pitcher against a potent offense like Toronto but Skubal is a very talented young pitcher.
Here are some sample lineups for today.
DraftKings
P: T. Skubal
P: J. Springs
C: W. Contreras
1B: N. Lowe
2B: M. Semien
3B: A; Riley
SS: C. Seager
OF: A. Duvall
OF: B. Miller
OF: K. Calhoun
FanDuel #1
P: E. Cabrera
C/1B: T. d’Arnaud
2B: M. Semien
3B: A. Riley
SS: D. Swanson
OF: M. Ozuna
OF: K. Calhoun
OF: B. Miller
UTIL: C. Seager
FanDuel #2
P: T. Skubal
C/1B: N. Lowe
2B: O. Albies
3B: A. Riley
SS: D. Swanson
OF: M. Ozuna
OF: K. Calhoun
OF: B. Miller
UTIL: C. Seager
There you have it! Good luck and keep enjoying the awesome summer weather while watching some baseball!
Design by J.R. Caines (@JRCainesDesign on Twitter and @caines_design on Instagram)