Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Sunday Funday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have a nice sized 9 game main slate of MLB DFS on Fanduel to navigate through.
Before we kick things into gear I wanted to wish all those dads out there a happy father’s day. Hope you get to enjoy your day.
Today’s FD slate brings us something we don’t normally get to see on a Sunday, the Coors game is included in the main slate. Any time there’s a game in Coors, I try to look for a reason to fade rather than a reason to play it. Chi Chi Rodriguez is on the hill for Colorado today so there’s no reason to fade it.
Let’s dig in to today’s slates!
MLB DFS: The Aces
Taijuan Walker ($9.4k) vs. Washington Nationals – Walker has been absolutely brilliant in his last 2 outings. He has 21 K’s in 14 innings of work. Is that something we should expect every time out? Probably not. But if we look at his larger body of work for the year, he’s been pretty damn good.
Over the past 30 days Walker has been even better. He has a 3.23 xFIP and a near 33% K rate. While both numbers compared to his whole season of work indicate there may be some regression, I do like his chances of continue his solid stretch today vs. the Nationals.
On the season the Nationals haven’t really hit for much power vs. righties. They have a .678 OPS and just a .136 ISO. I expect his K’s to come down from his last outing, but I do think he strikes out enough batters to pay off his salary. At $9.4k, he’s also not going to break the bank.
Kent Maeda ($7k) vs. Texas Rangers – Maeda is someone that won’t go deep for you. But with his price today, we don’t need that. We need someone that will go 5-6 innings and strikeout a batter per. In Maeda and with his match-up, there’s a strong level of confidence he can do that.
Rangers projected lineup today has a 26% strike out rate vs. righties. If we look at Maeda’s pitch mix we can see his pitch of choice is the slider. Outside of Nate Lowe, this is a pitch that the Rangers mostly struggle with. Almost the entire lineup has a whiff rate greater than 34%. There’s going to be some upside to Maeda today.
Zach Thompson ($5.5k) vs. Chicago Cubs – This is a risk it or biscuit type of call. I will more than likely be locking in Walker and moving on today, but I like attacking the Cubs with righties. They’ve shown a high propensity to strike out in bunches. On the year, they have a 25% strike out rate to righties.
They managed just 1 hit yesterday vs. Lopez and only 3 on the day. Thompson looked really good in his last outing against a much better lineup in the Braves. Could he replicate that performance today against the Cubbies? There’s a decent chance.
MLB DFS: The Bats
Toronto Blue Jays vs. Matt Harvey – Blue Jays will be chalky today. They’re facing a pitching in Harvey who is just absolutely struggling and at some point the Orioles will have to pull the plug on this Harvey experiment.
Over the past 30 days Harvey has a 4.5 xFIP and has given up 5 homers in just 17 innings of the work. Where you really want to attack Harvey is with lefties as he’s giving up a 43% fly ball rate and a 40% hard hit rate. This makes getting Biggio ($3.3k) into your lineup a priority.
Righties are doing plenty of damage against him too so guys like Guerrero ($4.6k) and Semien ($3.8k) should also be part of any stack. Gurriel ($2.8k) is the cheapest of the bunch and profiles extremely well against Harvey so you should try to get some exposure to him as well.
Milwaukee Brewers vs. Chi Chi Rodriguez – I touched on this in the open but with Coors slates I try to look for a reason to not play the game due to it normally being a chalky spot. I just can’t ignore the spot today with Rodriguez on the hill.
He has been just brutal “this” year. He has a 5.17 xFIP and is only striking out 13% of the batters he’s facing. He’s also giving up a ton of hard contact at 41%. Batters just tee off on him.
With Gomber getting pulled early last night the Rockies had to use 5 different relievers. They’re taxed. This could very well mean we get a longer outing out of Rodriguez today. And I love that.
Rodriguez has been worse against righties with a 51% hard hit rate to them. This means we should prioritize getting in Adames ($3.2k), Urias ($3.5k), and Garcia ($3.8k). Yes, you read that right. 3 guys under $4k, in Coors, against the worst pitcher in baseball. All batters in this lineup should be in play today though.
New York Mets vs. Patrick Corbin – While Corbin doesn’t give too many homers, he does give up a ton of hard contact. This means if you decided to use the Mets as a stack today, you need to go all in and not chase homers.
Corbin is giving up a 45% hard hit rate this year to go along with his 5 xFIP. He tends to give up more fly balls to righties so we need to try squeeze them in. If we look at pitch data we see that his pitch of choice to righties is the sinker.
Alonso ($4.1k), McCann ($3k), and Pillar ($2.7k) all come into play as they have ISO’s greater than .300 to left handed sinkers. Jonathan Villar ($3.5k) also profiles very well against Corbin.
They aren’t in the my top 3 (I’d probably rank them 3.5), but you can’t ignore what the Orioles have done against lefties this year. The Orioles have a near .800 OPS and .342 wOBA.
They are also dirt cheap on FD today and will make a fine compliment to one of your expensive stacks. Mountcastle ($2.5k) had a hat trick yesterday and is a great value. Mancini ($3.1k) has an ISO over .320 this year against lefties. Don’t sleep on the Orioles today.
MLB DFS: The Wrap Up
Pitching is very suspect today. Only one team so far has an IRT less than 4. This slate has the makings of a home run derby type of day with some of the gas cans going.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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