Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Thursday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have 2 slates 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 each slate.
Let’s dig in to today’s slate!
MLB DFS: The Aces (Early)
Max Scherzer ($11.3k) vs. Colorado Rockies – It’s a steep price to pay for a pitcher throwing in Coors but with a pitcher like Scherzer I’m not as concerned with “Coors effect” as I am others. When you have a near 20% swinging strike rate you’re just not putting as many balls in play as your peers.
Scherzer is in as good a form as we’ve seen him. Over the last month his K rate is hovering around the 38% mark. We chase K’s in DFS and with Scherzer on the hill, we chase. My hope is that with him being in Coors his ownership will be lower than normal. He’s the top pitcher on the slate and it’s not really close.
Logan Webb ($9.8k) vs. San Diego Padres – If you’ve made the decision to fade Scherzer the next best option would be Logan Webb. Webb is quietly putting together a solid season. Over the last month his xFIP is just 2.58, the lowest of any pitcher on the slate. While he doesn’t have the K upside of Scherzer, he’s still striking out around 27% of the batters over the last month.
Where he excels though is keeping the ball on the ground and inducing soft contact. More than 21% of the contact he’s been giving up is soft and his GB rate is approaching 60%. 10 of his last 11 starts have been quality starts so the QS bonus is almost a given. I really like his chances of making it 11 out of 12 today. If you want the $1,500 savings over Scherzer you could do a whole lot worse than Webb.
Adam Wainwright ($9.5k) vs. Milwaukee Brewers – I’m going to stick with the top 2 pitchers, but if you want to go a different route Wainwright comes into the conversation. He lacks the K upside of the first two as his K rate is just 15% over the last month. What he provides us with is length which normally equates to another strike out or 2.
Similar to Webb, he also provides us a decent floor. In 9 of his last 10 starts he’s finished with a QS. That 4 point bonus is always key on FD as it’s essentially 1 more K. Brewers are striking out almost 25% of the time vs. righties over the last month and that’s good for Wainwright. He faced the Brewers a couple of weeks ago and had a 4K game with a Win and QS. Good for 38 points. He’s not my first choice today but he’s a solid choice if you go that route.
MLB DFS: The Bats (Early)
Atlanta Braves vs. Madison Bumgarner – I suspect the Braves will be popular to chalky today. They get a great match up vs. a pitcher that is a shell of what they used to be. Over the last month MadBum is pitching to a 6.17 xFIP. He’s giving up hard hits almost 46% of the time. He’s just not good anymore. We want to attack him with righties as his splits are pretty clear.
Righties have a .282 ISO vs. him and a .379 wOBA. Lefties have a .182 ISO and .250 wOBA. That’s a 100 point difference in the ISO category and we want power in DFS. With the Braves clinging to a 3 game lead over the Phillies we can expect them to put their best foot forward today.
My core with the Braves will be Soler ($3.2k), Riley ($3.5k), and Swanson ($2.8k). All three have historically hit lefties extremely well. Over the last 30 days they all have wOBA’s in the mid .300’s or greater vs. lefties. They should be able to get MadBum and then get to take on the Diamondbacks porous bullpen.
Oakland Athletics vs. Yusei Kikuchi – I used the A’s against Gonzales the other day and I’ll be honest, they were a disappointment. I’m going right back to the well with them today against another lefty. Kikuch is very attackable. I’ll add here though that if you go with the A’s today, you need to go all in. He doesn’t give up many homers so he’s not someone to use a one off hitter and hope that they homer. Kikuchi is more someone that gives up a ton of contact, and a ton of hard contact.
Of all the pitchers on the day slate no one is giving up more hard contact that Kikuchi. His hard hit rate over the last 30 days is sitting at 41%. While the match up is great here, the real reason I’m going here is that the A’s provide us value. The back of the A’s lineup is very cheap today. We have guys like Gomes ($2.8k), Pinder ($2.2k), and Davis ($2.1k) who all get the platoon advantage today and are all under $3k. With having an expensive pitcher in Scherzer we’ll need value. The A’s provide us that today.
San Francisco Giants vs. Yu Darvish – Darvish has had a very up and down year. He’s been brilliant at times and then absolutely awful at times. The match up today is screaming an awful outing for him. Over the last 30 days he has an extremely glaring weakness and that’s lefties. They have a .476 ISO and .521 wOBA against him. His K rate plummets from 39.7% against righties to just 6% against lefties.
The Giants have a lineup filled with lefties. I’m focused on the lefties here and I think we can chase homers with them too. It starts with Belt ($3.8k) who has a .485 ISO against righties over the last month. I think he takes Darvish deep today!
Other guys I like here are Crawford ($3.3k) and Wade ($2.9k). Both guys have ISO’s over .200 vs righties over the last month and have power upside. Giants are clinging to a 2 game lead over the Dodgers so you can be sure they are still playing their hardest. I think we can get some of these Giants at much lower ownership than they should be today.
MLB DFS: Main Slate
There are really only two arms I trust on the main slate tonight. Aaron Nola ($9.1k) and Lance McCullers ($10.2k). My lean right now would be to go with McCullers. The Angels have been striking out a ton of late and have a 28% K rate vs. righties over the last month. McCullers will more than likely face a lineup that has 5 lefties in it. Over the last month he’s striking out lefties at a 29% clip. This is a solid match up for McCullers.
My lean to McCullers over Nola is due to the Pirates being a low strike out team. Over the last 30 days they have just a 23% K rate vs. righties. While Nola does tend to strike out lefties at a higher rate this match up just doesn’t look like a good one for him. I can see Nola closer to his floor than ceiling tonight.
With bats we have some options. My lean right now is to favor the Texas Rangers vs. Zac Lowther. Lowther has been getting rocked over the last 30 days. His xFIP is in the mid 5’s and his hard hit rate is 68%. Just not what you want to see out of your starter. He has pretty clear splits.
Righties have a .306 ISO against him. The righties I’d pick here are Garcia ($3.4k), Ibanez ($2.8k), and Kiner-Falefa ($3k). Ibanez and Kiner are the hottest hitters on the Rangers right now. While Garcia has been struggling, he has a 45% fly ball rate over the last week and a modest 36% hard hit rate. If anyone can homer in this lineup, it’s him.
My core of bats will the Blue Jays. They’re going to be popular but it may be chalk we need to eat on a short slate. Blue Jays bats are hot right now. Vlad Guerrero ($4.5k) and Gurriel ($3.4k) are the hottest of the bunch. They both have OPS’s greater than 1.000. Gurriel is absolutely smashing the ball right now with 4 barrels over the last week.
Pineda is a guy that can be had and with the Blue Jays on the cusp of the final Wild Card sport you can be rest assured that they are going to continue to play as hard as anyone in the league. Blue Jays put up a big number today.
My final stack will be on the other side of the game with the Minnesota Twins vs. Steven Matz. Matz biggest weakness is righties. Over the last 30 days they have a 45% fly ball rate and 37% hard hit rate vs. him. The Twins have 3 guys at the top of the lineup that are crushing lefties over the last month.
Buxton ($3.8k), Polanco ($3.8k), and Donaldson ($3.3k) are my lean here. Polanco and Donaldson have ISO’s at or approaching .500 vs. lefties over the last month. Matz will not be able to cool them down. Garver ($2.5k) is also a nice cheap addition to this stack. On the year he has a .272 ISO against lefties and should be in the lineup.
Summary
We get two decent slates on the day. I do like the day slate much batter and with weather risk in the night slate a case could be made to just skip it and enjoy TNF.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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