Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Monday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have a nice sized 11 game main slate of MLB DFS on Fanduel to navigate through.
At first glance with today’s slate I find myself shying away from the top pitchers. Yu Darvish is the highest priced arm on the slate and I just don’t know if I can trust him against a Braves lineup that is still pretty good despite missing Acuna.
Kevin Gausman gets a tough match-up against a finally healthy Dodgers lineup and I just don’t feel overly comfortable spending that much money on an arm against them. Thankfully for us today we have some arms in the mid-tier that I think will do well for us tonight.
Let’s dig in to today’s slate!
MLB DFS: The Aces
Kyle Gibson ($9.1k) vs. Detroit Tigers – The Tigers helped us cash with their offense against Happ yesterday. They should help us cash again today, just on the opposite end of the spectrum.
Gibson is one of my top arms today. Over the past 30 days he’s been really good. His xFIP is sitting at 3.42 and his K rate is a little north of 27%. The lineup that he’s expected to face today has a near 30% K rate against righties this season.
That is absolutely something we can attack and I plan on it with Gibson. He faced this lineup a couple of weeks ago and was able to mow down 7 Tigers. Look for him to replicate that part of the game tonight, just minus some of the damage he gave up.
Zack Greinke ($8.6k) vs. Cleveland Indians – Since returning from the All Star break no team is striking out more than the Indians with a 32% K rate. With a team striking out at such a high clip recently, I really want to try to take advantage of that.
With Greinke we’re getting a pitcher that has seen an improvement in almost all of his metrics over the past 30 days. His xFIP is at 3.93 vs. 4.46 for the year and his K rate is 20% vs. 18% for the year. While his K rate is nothing to sneeze at, he has shown at times that he still has the ability to rack up some strike outs when the opportunity presents itself.
Against this very same Indians team a couple of weeks ago he was able to notch 8 k’s. With his price being in the mid 8k range we really don’t need a double digit strike out game from him. We need 5-6 K’s and a QS. Against an Indians team that is struggling since returning I have confidence he can get that for us tonight.
Shohei Ohtani ($10.2k) vs. Oakland Athletics – Ohtani is about $1,500 more than I’d like but our options are pretty limited tonight. I will more than likely go with either Gibson or Greinke tonight, but if you want to chase strikeouts with someone that has elite K upside when he’s on you could do a lot worse than Ohtani.
The A’s have been striking out a lot more than normal of late with a 29% K rate coming out of the break. Ohtani has an elite 31% K rate on the year and although we haven’t seen that side of him as much over the past 30 days, we know it’s in there and we have a team that’s striking out a bunch of late. With Ohtani I’d tread lightly tonight, especially at this price point.
MLB DFS: The Bats
Miami Marlins vs. Jon Lester – I’m not going to go too in depth here because I don’t want to steal Brian’s thunder. Lester is bad and we should take advantage of it any chance we can get. Lester’s xFIP on the year is approaching 6.
In his last 19 innings of work he’s given up 5 homers to go with a near 33% hard hit rate. He’s not missing bats and he’s not giving up any soft contact. On the year righties are tagging him with a 35% fly ball rate, 36% hard hit rate, and a .242 ISO. The middle of this lineup is a bunch of right handed hitters that hit for a lot of power against lefties.
Cooper ($2.5k) and Duvall ($3.1k) both have ISO’s over .200 against lefties this year. Aguilar ($3k) isn’t too far behind at .192. Rojas ($2.7k) at the top of the lineup should set the pace tonight as he has a modest 5 game hitting streak.
Cincinnati Reds vs. Jerad Eickhoff – I’m attacking Eickhoff for a couple of reasons tonight. The first reason is that he spells his name wrong. The second reason is that he’s just not a major league caliber pitcher. He’s been horrendous in his brief stint with the Mets this year. In his last 2 starts he’s given up 6 homers in just 8 innings of work. You don’t need to be a mathematician to know that’s a pretty bad ratio.
Since his body of work this year is small I want to look at the last few years. Lefties over the last few years have a .540 ISO against him. This is primarily due to the 56.6% fly ball rate and 54% hard hit rate he’s given up to them. Guys like Votto ($2.9k), Winker ($3.3k), and Naquin ($2.2k) should absolutely feast tonight. With the Mets bullpen scuffling of late the Reds could very well put up double digits tonight.
New York Mets vs. Vladimir Gutierrez – This game should see a lot of fireworks tonight. We have 2 bad starting pitchers and 2 offenses that have a lot of power potential. While the pace at which Gutierrez is giving up homers isn’t as high as Eickhoff, he’s still give them up at a pretty good pace with 6 in his last 27 innings pitched.
He’s giving up a ton of hard contact of late with a 38% hard hit rate and a 42% fly ball rate over the past month. He tends to give up more fly balls to lefties so I want to make sure I get a piece of Conforto ($2.8k) and McNeil ($2.6k). Both guys have ISO’s over .210 vs. curveballs which will be one of the top pitches that Gutierrez will throw to lefties.
Gutierrez’s fastball has been getting crushed this season. Alonso ($3.8k) is one of the best in the game at hitting for power against low 90’s fastballs, to the tune of a .564 ISO over the past few years.
MLB DFS: The Wrap Up
We have our first Monday slate after the All Start break and it looks to be a great one. We have some nice mid-tiered arms we can use and some bats that are in a great spot to put up big numbers.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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