Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Sunday Funday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have a nice sized 11 game main slate of MLB DFS on Fanduel to navigate through.
We are back to having another day of dicey pitching options. Today’s goal will be to try to navigate some land mines and grab 3 pitchers and 3 stacks that will take us to the cash line.
Let’s dig in to today’s slates!
MLB DFS: The Aces
Zack Greinke ($8.4k) vs. Texas Rangers – I’m going to chase here and it’s due to the Rangers lineup just not doing anything right now. Over the past week the Rangers offense has been one of the worst. They have a 28% K rate, a 3% barrel rate, and just a 24% hard hit rate. Last night they were 0-7 with RISP.
They’re just not getting anything done right now offensively. While Greinke is no longer a strike out pitcher, he is someone that is going to give us a comfortable floor. In today’s day and age with how volatile pitching has been, a floor is something that I’ll want. Even though he isn’t a high strike out guy, he is someone that’s been pitching pretty well recently.
Over the last month he has a 3.68 xFIP and just a 28% hard hit rate. With his price in the mid 8K region today, I feel pretty safe in saying that Greinke will bring some value back to us.
Tarik Skubal ($8.2k) vs. Kansas City Royals – Skubal’s K rate has down a bit over the past month as it’s hovering around 25% vs. 27% for the year, but honestly who’s isn’t? Skubal is another pitcher that’s going to give us a decent floor. Since late April Skubal hasn’t given us less than 20 FD points and the majority of his games have been greater than 30.
With Skubal we know that he has the ability to K a high amount of batters as he’s gotten it up to 9 K’s on more than a handful of occasions this season. The Royals aren’t a high strike out team, especially against righties. That said, they’re also a team that he was able to K 7 back in June. Look for another solid outing of Skubal today.
Sonny Gray ($8.6k) vs. St. Louis Cardinals – Will they notice if I don’t write up a third pitcher today? Outside of his last start vs. the Brewers Gray has been pretty good since returning from IL. Even with his rough outing, he was still able to score 17 FD points due to this 6 strike outs.
Today he gets a match-up against a Cardinals team that has been susceptible to strike outs. Over the past week only a handful of teams are striking out at a quicker pace than the Cardinals. As long as the weather cooperates today in Cincy, Gray should have himself a solid day.
MLB DFS: The Bats
Detroit Tigers vs. Daniel Lynch – Lynch is returning for his second stint with Royals. His first stint was a disaster. He pitched to a 6.17 xFIP and gave up entirely way too much hard contact. While he is a top prospect, until he proves otherwise at the Major League level he’s someone that we need to consider attacking. We’re going to attack him today with one of the hottest lineups in the Tigers.
We don’t have much data to go on because his first stint was brief, but what we can tell is that he was far worse against righties as he gave up a 53% hard hit rate to them with just a 15% K rate. The Tigers have the potential today to stack their lineup with batters entirely from the right side.
Grossman ($3.3k), Haase ($2.8k), and Schoop ($3.5k) are my main targets here as they’ve crushed lefties all year. They should all fare well against the fastball slider combo they’ll face. All other Tigers will also be in play today.
New York Mets vs. Ross Stripling – Mets gave up a 10 spot last night. Today, they return the favor. Over the past month Stripling has struggled mightily. In just 14+ innings of work he’s given up 7 homers. That equates to one every other inning. In his last outing he didn’t make it out of the first after giving up 6 ER against the Red Sox. His outing before he gave up 4 ER through only 3.
We have a pitcher here who is in a funk and we should look to exploit it. His platoon splits are pretty neutral so all Mets are in play today. He throws his low 90’s fastball more than 50% of the time to both righties and lefties. The guys that crush this pitch are Brandon Nimmo ($3k), Pete Alonso ($3.7k), JD Davis ($3.2k), and Michael Conforto ($2.9k). All have ISO’s greater than .375 to this pitch. The ball should be flying out of Citi today.
Los Angeles Angels vs. Bailey Ober – More often than not this year Ober has been someone that we have been able to rely on. Not from a solid pitching standpoint, but someone that we can attack. He’s given up at least 1 homer run in 5 of his last 7 starts.
Over the last 30 days he has a near 43% hard hit rate and a 47% fly ball rate. This screams for us to attack and that’s exactly what I plan on doing today. The two Angels that I’ll be building around today are Ohtani ($4.4k) and Walsh ($3.2k) as both have crushed righties this year with ISO’s of .375 and .252 respectively. Walsh has been a bit cold of late but he’s also been extremely unlucky with a .143 BABIP. Look for Ober to be his slump buster today.
MLB DFS: The Wrap Up
Weather will be a bit of a concern today as there are forecasted thunder showers in a handful of games. With it being Sunday always make sure to keep an extra eye on lineups as they tend to get a bit funky.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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