Welcome to the Sunday edition of the DFS Primer.
Well yesterday didn’t go well. Aaron Ashby was off to a great start by getting three Ks in the first inning. In fact, he earned 9Ks for the whole game and pitched 6 innings. The problem was Jake Cronenworth who doubled against him in the 3rd inning to give the Padres a 1-0 lead and followed that up with a 2 run HR two innings later to extend the lead to 4-0. Otherwise Ashby could have made it to 7 innings and earned the quality start. Wipe away that homerun and I believe Ashby’s potential was about 50 fantasy points on FanDuel.
The point I am trying to make is that I am still a firm believer in the way I select pitchers but sometimes there is an element of bad luck that can creep its way into your lineups. Ashby was still the right call and I will continue to select pitchers using the metrics I have discussed in previous articles.
The stacks, however, were just downright awful. Houston was popular, as I expected, but they could not score a single run after scoring 10 runs the previous night. I have been playing MLB DFS for quite some time and the Astros still perplex me. Yes, we know about the cheating but they are a very talented team and I understand that sometimes your offense will be stymied when facing a good pitcher but to be shutout by the Royals after scoring double digits against them the day before?! There are some things on this planet we cannot explain and the Astros baseball team is one of them.
My analysis thought Seattle-Texas was a good source of offense given that both pitchers rated low according to Statcast metrics. In fact, I thought playing the over with the run total was a lock. Nope! Both pitchers did well and the run total never got close to what Vegas had published.
I know I am crying all of you a river but it is important to reflect on the previous day before we tackle the new day. We learn from our mistakes and just move on! That’s parenting 101 for you and DFS 101 as well!
Given that the main slate starts very soon and that I haven’t generated my table of Statcast metrics, we are going to build our roster by feel. Kind of like using the Jedi force! There are plenty of great pitchers to choose from on the main slate so my approach will be reverse today: find the stacks first and squeeze in any of the top pitchers with whatever salary we have left.
There are two stacks I love today: Cincinnati and Colorado. It is how I built my lineup on Thursday which nearly cashed. I know for certain Patrick Corbin would rank at the bottom of my analysis so we are going to attack him. You could go right-handed heavy against him but Corbin also gives up production to lefties.
If you view his batting order splits and then his OPS against each spot in the batting order, you will want to go with 1-2-4-6. I know there is not too much logic in blindly following such a split but if you want to try something different, this could be an interesting approach. After all, teams tend to place their best hitters near the top of the order. Plus there can be good correlation with that stack selection. Votto will most likely bat cleanup and he is still too cheap at $3,000. Plus let others shy away from Votto just because it’s a lefty-lefty matchup. Lefties can hit lefties so get Votto in there.
Colorado is another stack that can be sneaky. Everyone and their mother was all over the ATL-COL game three days ago but after two low scoring games, some people will be too apprehensive to roster anyone from the last game in that series. However, there are four big reasons why you should play the Rockies.
1) The bullpens for both teams are exhausted. 19 total runs were scored in the 1st game. Then the two other games went into extra innings further stretching the bullpens beyond their limits. Last night’s game didn’t end until close to midnight local time in Colorado and now they have to play a day game today.
2) Ownership will be low. Usually DFS players tend to overlook the last game of the slate and will also steer clear of games that have had low totals. This is Colorado people. Scoring is expected in high elevation. We will see a regression towards the mean today.
3) Charlie Morton is a flyball pitcher by a HUGE margin. He has given up 97 fly balls this season compared to 50 groundballs. Some of those flyballs will have to leave the yard and you want to get in on that action.
4) You could roster a bunch of Braves hitters but they are pricey with most of them at $4,000 or higher on FanDuel. None of the Rockies hitters are in the $4K range so you are getting good value.
After messing around with some roster builds, I had $9600 left in salary and still felt good about my stacks. That means Patrick Sandoval is my guy today. He has solid K metrics and he is a lefty meaning he should neutralize Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper. Overall his expected wOBA and ERA rate high. It is risky to pitch against a team that is hitting well but we are playing the ownership game here.
Here are some sample lineups for today.
DraftKings
P: P. Sandoval
P: L. Castillo
C: T. Stephenson
1B: J. Votto
2B: B. Drury
3B: J. Ramirez
SS: K. Farmer
OF: A. Hays
OF: T. Mancini
OF: A. Aquino
FanDuel
P: P. Sandoval
C/1B: J. Votto
2B: B. Drury
3B: R. McMahon
SS: K. Farmer
OF: A. Aquino
OF: C. Blackmon
OF: Y. Daza
UTIL: R. Grichuk
There you have it! Good luck!
Design by J.R. Caines (@JRCainesDesign on Twitter and @caines_design on Instagram)
Yeah yesterday was rough. But that’s dfs. Keep doing what you’re doing. You are one of the best hands down.
Ah shucks! Thanks! I am glad you have found my analysis helpful. Yes, variance with MLB can be very frustrating. You just dust yourself off and try again!