Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Tuesday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have a massive 15 game main slate of MLB DFS on Fanduel to navigate through.
To our surprise, we actually have some pitching options today. We have a couple of ace level pitchers hoping to rebound, but what I’m most excited about is some of the pitchers we’ll get to attack tonight.
Let’s dig in to today’s slates!
MLB DFS: The Aces
Zack Wheeler ($10.7k) vs. Washington Nationals – Wheeler gets a rematch against the Nats after a little bit of a shaky outing last go around. He struck out 5 in that one but also gave up 3 ER and took the loss. This time around he’s going to get a very different Nats team.
The majority of the “damage” done in that game came from Josh Harrison and Yan Gomes. They are gone though and this match up tonight for Wheeler should be a much easier one.
While his K rate has been down over the past month, he’s being doing a great job of really limiting hard contact as he’s giving up more soft contact than hard. Wheeler has also been a bit unlucky as his BABIP is at .360. Look for Wheeler to be the top pitcher on the slate tonight.
Dylan Cease ($8.3k) vs. Kansas City Royals – I normally don’t make it a habit of picking on the Royals as they are stingy team that doesn’t K much. In the past week only 7 teams have struck out at a higher rate than the Royals.
With the Royals starting to struggle a bit I want to see if we can attack them. In looking at how Cease matches up with the Royals, I think we can. Royals have a very righty bat heavy team. Cease throws his slider more than 40% of the time vs. righties.
Merrifield has a 47% GB rate to the pitch, Perez has a 43% whiff rate, and Dozer has a near 50% whiff rate. This is a solid spot for a pitcher that’s in pretty good form of late. Over the past 30 days Cease has a near 30% K rate. If his slider is on tonight he’s going to give us a ton of upside and value.
Sean Manaea ($10k) vs. San Diego Padres – This is my high risk/high reward pitching pick tonight. Of all the pitchers on the hill tonight no pitcher has a higher K rate over the past 30 days than Manaea. It’s sitting at 36.5%.
Manaea is in peak form and he’s getting a Padres lineup that will be without Tatis tonight. The Padres still have a bunch of quality bats, but without Tatis they are nowhere near as scary.
Manaea is mostly a sinker ball pitcher. If we look at the Padres projected lineup, only Machada and Profar have had real success against the pitch. He faced this team a week ago and was lights out. I see no reason he can’t do it again.
MLB DFS: The Bats
San Francisco Giants vs. Madison Bumgarner – I’m thankful we’re getting the Giants vs. Madbum on a full slate because it should depress ownership. We typically see ownership more widespread on full slates.
Giants are in an absolute smash spot tonight. Madbum is just a shell of the pitcher he was in his prime. Over the past 30 days it’s been even more apparent as his hard hit rate is nearing 50% and so his is fly ball rate. Add in the fact that his SwStr % is just 8%, he’s someone that we’ll want to take full advantage of.
Madbum’s platoon splits have been pretty equal this year so I’ll want to just take a look at the Giants that have had the most success vs. lefties this year. Enter Mr. Kris Byrant ($4.2k) and his .367 ISO and .464 wOBA vs. lefties in 2021. He will be my building block in this stack and I’ll surround him with Austin Slater ($2.3k) and Darin Ruf ($2.4k) as both guys are also hammering lefties. If Flores makes the lineup he’ll be a favorite of mine too.
Atlanta Braves vs. Jon Lester – Lester makes his first appearance for the Cards tonight and it couldn’t have come at a worse time as he gets a revamped Braves lineup that now includes Soler ($3.3k) and Duvall ($3.2k).
Lester’s biggest struggles this year have been against righties. His ISO against jumps to .236 vs. just .108 against lefties. His hard hit rate jumps from 25.9% against lefties to nearly 37% against righties. Braves will more than likely have 7 righties in the lineup tonight with the lone lefty being Freeman.
This is not a match made in heaven for Lester. My building blocks here will be Albies ($3.6k), Soler, and Swanson ($3.2k). All have ISO greater than .250 this year vs. lefties.
Secondary pieces will be Riley ($3.5k) and Freeman ($3.7k). There’s a little added incentive with getting to Lester today. When all was said and done during the trade deadline, guys like Rizzo and Bryant waved goodbye to the fans while Lester saluted Nats fans with flipping them the bird. Go Braves!
New York Yankees vs. Alex Wells – The Yankees were, for all intents and purposes, embarrassed last night in front of the home crowd. Newly acquired Heaney gave up homer and homer and when all was said and done they walked away with a 7-1 loss.
I think today is a different story. Wells has not been particularly good. He’s actually been quite bad. In his last 10 innings he’s given up 3 homers and 4 barrels. That’s just too many hard hits in a short window. We’ll need to keep an eye on the Yankees situation today because Cole tested positive for Covid.
If their regulars are in the lineup tonight this has the makings of a high scoring affair for the Yankees. My core here would be Judge ($4k), Rizzo ($4k), and Stanton ($3.4k). Rizzo isn’t someone we should be concerned with in the L/L match up. He has a .247 ISO and .439 wOBA vs. lefties this year.
We have a glut of teams that are in great spots tonight. Phillies vs. Corbin, Tigers vs. Richards, and even Oakland vs. a struggling Snell.
MLB DFS: The Wrap Up
My lean right now will be use either Cease or Wheeler as my starter tonight and then pair them with a Giants/Braves stack. Thankfully both of those teams match up great.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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