Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Sunday Funday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have a nice sized 10 game slate 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 the day. With today’s slate we are going to see a much smaller tournament pool with NFL starting. Today’s a day to scale back as the risk just won’t worth the reward. At first look I wasn’t going to play, but it’s a fun looking slate so I’m going to play.
Let’s dig in to today’s slate!
MLB DFS: The Aces
Logan Webb ($9.7k) vs. Chicago Cubs – Logan Webb has been one of the best and most consistent pitchers over the past month. Over his last 7 starts he hasn’t been under 40 FD points, with 3 of them going for at least 50. With a match up vs. the Cubs today I see no reason he doesn’t get to 40 again.
Let’s start by looking at why he’s been so great over the last month. The two things I’m looking at the most are his strike out rate and his groundball rate. He has a 31% K rate and 66% ground ball rate. When he’s not striking batters out, they’re mostly hammering the ball into the ground.
During his hot stretch he’s faced teams like Milwaukee, Atlanta, and Oakland. All very solid offenses. The Cubs pale in comparison to those offenses. Look for Webb to be the top starting pitcher on the day.
Max Fried ($9.3k) vs. Miami Marlins – Over the last month the Marlins have really struggled vs. southpaws. The projected lineup today has a near 30% K rate vs. them and just a .132 ISO. I’m going to look to take advantage of that with Max Fried.
Fried himself has been pretty good over that same stretch. He’s pitching to a 2.91 xFIP and has really been doing a great job at keeping hitters in check. While his K rate is only at 24% over the last 30 days, his match up gives him some upside. The Braves are looking to pad their division lead so they’ll be banking on a solid performance from Fried. Really like his chances of giving us value today.
Sonny Gray ($9.2k) vs. St. Louis Cardinals – I’m sticking with the 2 guys I mentioned fist, but Gray gives us another option that has some K upside today. Over the last month his K rate is sitting at around 22% which isn’t that great. But it’s higher against righties and he’s going to face a team loaded with righty bats today.
Also, the Cardinals have been striking out a ton over the past week as they have a 29.7% k rate. We’ve seen the Cardinals fall asleep against righties at time this year and today could be a day for Gray to have a ceiling game. He’s a high risk/high reward play.
MLB DFS: The Bats
Philadelphia Phillies vs. Ryan Feltner – We don’t have much to go on w/ Feltner because he made his debut a week ago. That debut did not go as intended as he got rocked for 6 ER in just 2 innings of work. Both sides of the plate lit him up.
With the Phillies we have a team that’s currently in the playoff hunt. This time of the year those are going to be the teams that we focus on as they’re still going to be putting their best lineup out there. We also have a team in the Phillies that has some really hot bats.
The three Phills I’m going to be focused on today are Bryce Harper ($4.4k), Jean Segura ($3.2k), and Brad Miller ($2.4k). Those three guys give us a mix of expensive, evenly priced, and cheap. They are also the Phillies hottest hitters. All three have OPS’s greater than 1.000 over the past week. Harper is as locked in as I’ve ever seen him. He has 5 homers and 7 barrels over the last 7 days. He’s making his case for MVP down the stretch. Look for the Phillies to put a big number today.
Chicago White Sox vs. Nick Pivetta – Looks like Pivetta has hit a bit of a speed bump as pitching has been a of a struggle for him recently. He’s given up 4 ER in 3 straight games. If the White Sox can be patient at the plate today they should have a dominant game. I preach patience for the White Sox because Pivetta’s struggles of late have come with the walk.
In his last 10 innings he’s walked 10 batters. That’s not going to cut it. Outside of his walks, he’s also been getting hit pretty hard. He’s giving up a 44% hard hit rate over the last 30 days and a 44% fly ball rate. Pivetta’s been giving up more hard contact and more fly balls to righties and that’s where I’m going to hang out today.
The righties I’m focused on are Jose Abreu ($3.8k) and Luis Robert ($3.9k). Both guys have been hitting righties well over the last month. Abreu has a .250 ISO against them and Robert has a .425 wOBA. The value plays I like in this lineup are Garcia ($2.5k) and Goodwin ($2.2k).
While Pivetta’s been better against righties, he’s still susceptible vs. lefties. Both Garcia and Goodwin will provide us the value we need and have wOBA’s over .340 against righties over the last month.
Washington Nationals vs. Bryce Wilson – The Nats are my cheap stack today. I’ve recommended some pretty pricey guys so far so we’ll need more value. The Nats are going to provide that today with a great match up vs. Wilson. Wilson is someone I like to attack because he gives up a lot of hard contact and doesn’t miss many bats.
Over the last 30 days his swinging strike rate is just 9% and his hard rate is approaching 40%. 40% isn’t overly high but when you look at his low SwStr% it means he’s putting more balls in play which means more hard hits in play. Wilson has also been a reverse splits guys and the righties from the Nats are cheap.
Righties have a 56% fly ball rate and 50% hard hit rate against Wilson over the last month. Kieboom ($2.6k) and Thomas ($2.4k) are really my top values here. Thomas has been very serviceable of late with 6 games of double digit FD points in his last 9 games. At that price he’s going to be a great value if he continues playing like he is.
If you want to prioritize the Nats today over the other teams I mentioned, both Bell ($3.6k) and Soto ($4.5k) are swinging hot sticks with OPS’s greater than 1.000 over the last 7 days. They should both do very well today and will probably be low owned.
MLB DFS: The Wrap Up
My lean right now is to use either Fried or Webb. I love how the Phillies and White Sox fit together and I’m going to prioritize getting them into my lineups.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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