Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Tuesday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have a nice sized 13 game slate of MLB DFS on Fanduel to navigate through.
My goal today will be to walk you through my 3 favorite pitchers and 3 favorite stacks on the day. We are in the home stretch and there are only a handful of teams that are playing for anything right now. NYY, BOS, TOR, Sea, and OAK are all battling for the 2 wild card spots in the AL. Braves and Phillies are battling for the NL east and the Dodgers are currently chasing the Giants for the NL West crown. At this point of the year, my pitchers will mostly come from those teams as we’re certain to get the regular outings out of them.
Let’s dig in to today’s slate!
MLB DFS: The Aces
Brandon Woodruff ($10.2k) vs. St. Louis Cardinals – Cardinals have to lose at some point right? Well I think it’s today against the Brewers Ace. Over the last 30 days Woodruff has been superb. He has a 2.73 xFIP to go with his elite 32% K rate. He’s going to face a Cardinals lineup today that will be predominantly right handed as they project to have 7 righties in there.
That’s right in Woodruff’s wheelhouse as he has a 34% K rate against righties over the last month. Woodruff has faced the Cardinals 3 times now and has 2 double digit strike out games. I think he brings the Cardinals back down to earth today and makes it a third game with at least 10 K’s.
Chris Sale ($10k) vs. Baltimore Orioles – I’ll be honest, I’m not 100% sold on Sale tonight. He has some warning signs ahead of his match up with the Orioles. His swinging strike rate over the last month is just 11.5% and his K rate is under 21%. Also, the Orioles at times this year have been extremely solid vs. lefties. This has the makings of a trap play.
That said, the Red Sox are in must win mode and I think Sale dials it up a notch tonight. Sale has been using his slider more than 30% of the time to both sides of the plate. If his slider is on point tonight, he’ll be fine. Outside of Mullins, the entire Orioles projected lineup has whiff rates greater than 30% against slider.
Zack Wheeler ($10.7k) vs. Atlanta Braves – This is going to be the fifth time that Wheeler faces the Braves tonight this season it’s by far the most crucial. With the Phillies currently on the outside looking in, this is a must win for them. A loss and they fall back 3.5 games with just 5 to play. In those 4 prior match ups Wheeler struck out 34 in 26 innings of work. He has the ability to mow down this lineup.
My hope here is that he relies more on his slider tonight than he normally does. The projected lineup tonight for the Braves struggles mightily vs. it as they have a handful of guys that 40% whiff rates against it. Last time out vs. the Braves he threw it 40% of the time and struck out 8 in 7.
MLB DFS: The Bats
Boston Red Sox vs. Bruce Zimmermann – The Red Sox are coming off a demoralizing series against the Yankees. They were swept in Fenway which put a huge damper on their playoff hopes. While they are still holding on to the Wild Card spot, the Blue Jays are now just a game behind them. The scheduling gods are here to the rescue as they get a 3 game series against a 106 loss team in the Orioles.
Zimmermann hasn’t pitched in the majors since mid-June. When he was up the major we really wanted to focus on the righties as he gives up way more fly balls to them and hard hits. He had a fly ball rate of 36.5% vs. righties. My main areas of focus here will be Hernandez ($3.6k), Renfroe ($3.6k), and Bogaerts ($3.7k). One way to differentiate this stack is to bring Iglesias ($2.3k) into the mix.
He’s cheap, gives you a wrap around with Hernandez and Renfroe, but most importantly he’s one of their hottest and most consistent hitters right now. Over the last week he has a .945 OPS and .404 wOBA. He’s not going to hit you a homer but he gets on base and stands a good chance to score a run or two if this stack goes off.
Minnesota Twins vs. Tyler Alexander – The Twins vs. Alexander today is my regression type play. Over the last 30 days Alexander has just a 3.2 ERA. That’s pretty good. There’s always, always more to it than meets the eye. He has several things that really stand out to me. His swinging strike rate is just 6.9%, has a 45% fly ball rate, and a 35% hard hit rate. Guys are hitting him hard and putting the ball in the air. It’s only a matter of time before all of those caution signs add up to a blow up outing for Alexander.
Against a pretty solid, but underperforming Twins lineup it very well could be tonight. Alexander’s main pitch to righties is his cutter. Buxton ($4k)and Polanco ($3.5k) profile extremely well against this pitch. Buxton has a .933 slugging % against cutters this year. Other guys I’d like here are Donaldson ($3.2k) and Rooker ($2.2k). Both guys have been hitting lefties well over the last month.
Kansas City Royals vs. Aaron Civale – Since coming off the IL Civale has been an inconsistent mess. He looked dominant against the Yankees but gave up 7 ER to both the Brewers and the White sox. Righties have been his Achilles heal as they have a .514 ISO against him since his return. They are just teeing off on him and the Royals have a few righties we’ll want to grab.
Any Royals stack has to start with Salvador Perez ($3.5k). He’s currently tied with Guerrero for the major league lead in homers with 46. I have no doubt that over the last week he’s going to give it his all to get the magic number of 50. I’ll also want to grab Merrifield ($3.4k) and Dozier ($2.5k). Dozier has a .333 ISO against righties over the last month and is extremely cheap.
I didn’t write up the Rockies as one of my top stacks but they are also in a great spot vs. a pitcher in Corbin that has home run tendencies. They are also way too cheap for the environment tonight. If you go Rockies you want the right side of the plate as Corbin is giving up way more power to them. Righties have a .269 ISO against him in September.
MLB DFS: The Wrap Up
We are in the home stretch folks. It’s the last week of the season. We’ll want to focus on the teams in the hunt with our pitching. As it stands, my lean is either Wheeler or Woodruff. I love Sale as a pitcher, but I’m nervous about the match up tonight. Red Sox will be my priority tonight as they get a great match up and have something to play for.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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