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.
Pitching today is far from what we call safe. We have a $12k Shane Bieber who is way over priced IMO. Today will be more about offense than it is pitching but with pitching, we’ll need to pick someone what won’t destroy our day.
Let’s dig in to today’s slates!
MLB DFS: The Aces
Carlos Rodon ($10.5k) vs. Detroit Tigers – Over the past 30 days Rodon has a 37% K rate. That’s the top number on the slate. In DFS, in order to maximize our points we need to have someone that strikes out batters at a high clip. We get that in Rodon.
Yes, the Tigers have been better than they were at the start of the season. They are still striking out at a 29% clip to lefties. If we drill down to Rodon’s top secondary pitch, we see he throws his slider quite a bit. Outside of Grossman, the whiff rates for the projected lineup for the Tigers are all over 30%. If Rodon’s slider is on today, he should have a dominant outing. He’s going to be my top guy today.
Framber Valdez ($10.6K) vs. Minnesota Twins – Valdez only has 3 starts to the year, but in his last 2 he has been absolutely dominant. Both were against a Red Sox team that normally does well against lefties. In those games he struck out 10 and 8 respectively. I fear the Red Sox lineup a whole lot more than I do the Twins, especially with the Twins without some of their bigger right handed bats.
If we look Valdez’s pitch mix, he is mostly a sinker ball pitcher. Cruz has an ISO of .094 to this pitch from lefties. Surprisingly the guy with highest ISO to this pitch over the past few years is Sano with a .586. But we know with Sano in the lineup we can count on at least 1 strikeout per game, most of the time at least 2. I like Valdez a lot in this match-up. He’s my number 2 guy if I decide to fade Rodon.
Bruce Zimmermann ($7.9k) vs. Tampa Bay Rays – Brian may never talk to me again after this pic. However, Zimmermann has been lights out over the past 30 days, minus one bad outing against the Nationals. In just his last 3 outings he’s K’d 6 against the lefty smashing White Sox, 7 against the Twins we just referenced, and 7 against the Mets.
We know the Rays have a high K rate against lefties. On the year it’s almost 29%. While guys like Arozarena, Margot, and Brosseau can do some possible damage to Zimmermann, we get to neutralize guys like Lowe and Meadows. Speaking of Aroz, he has a 41% whiff against Zimmerann’s top secondary pitch to righties, the changeup. There’s upside in this pick. It’s a high risk/high reward type of pick.
I’m fading Bieber today. I just can’t stomach paying $12k for a pitcher who over his last 7 starts has only 1 double digit K game. If I’m paying $12k for a pitcher, there needs to be a longer track record of double digit K’s.
MLB DFS: The Bats
Milwaukee Brewers vs. Will Crowe – I’m going to keep playing the cheap lefty Brewers against weak right handed pitching until FD raises their prices. Daniel Vogelbach ($2.6k) and Omar Narvaez ($2.2k) continue to be too cheap for their recent production + match-up.
All lefties are in play against Crowe. On the year Crowe is giving up a 42% fly ball rate and a 42% hard hit rate to lefties. His xFIP over the past 30 days is a whopping 5.94. He’s been really bad. There’s no reason to shy away from the righties in this match-up either as his ISO to righties this season is .244.
Brewers are my top stack today as they get to face a pitcher who is really struggling at the major league level. With the Pirates bullpen getting heavily taxed yesterday, my hope is that they let Crowe go a little longer than he normally would.
Toronto Blue Jays vs. Martin Perez – This is going to be a tough day for Perez. Perez has been well known throughout his career for being a ground ball pitcher, with most years being over 50% ground balls. Over the last 2 years we’ve seen that drop down to the 40% range. So he’s giving up way more fly balls than he used to.
Blue Jays are an absolute worst case scenario for him today. If we drill in to pitch data, we see that his main pitch to righties is his cutter. Semien ($3.3k), Bichette ($3.6k), Vlad ($4.3k), and Hernandez ($2.8k) all do really well against his pitch. If you want to get cheap on this stack, you can even go Grichuk ($2.5k) and Gurriel ($2.1k) who also crush this pitch.
Houston Astros vs. Michael Pineda – Up until last night the Astros offense had been rolling. Hopefully that will take some people off of them today because they have a shot at putting up a big number today.
Pineda is getting hit harder this year than at any point in his career. His career hard hit % is sitting at 36%, but this year he’s over 43%. Guys are teeing off on him now.
I won’t tell you to avoid the big 3 of Altuve ($4.1k), Bregman ($3.8k), and Correa ($3.9k). My focus on the Astros today will be their lefties as Pineda’s fly ball rates balloons from 31% against righties to almost 50% to lefties. Guys like Alvarez ($3.6k) and Tucker ($3.3k) are in prime position to do some serious damage today.
The other offenses I like today are the Giants lefties vs. Joe Ross and Reds vs. Antonio Senzatela. Also, don’t sleep on the power hitters from Miami. Smyly is giving up a ton of hard contact to both righties and lefties. If you’re looking for cheap one off players to compliment your main stacks, Miami is where you should look.
MLB DFS: The Wrap Up
All pitchers today have some risk or are way overpriced. Rodon will be my top guy today but Valdez is a very a close second. There are a ton of great hitting spots today. I honestly could have listed 7-8 different stacks that should do well today.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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