Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Sunday Funday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have a nice sized 8 game main slate of MLB DFS on Fanduel to navigate through.
Happy July 4 everyone. Hope you will all get to celebrate with good food and a drink in hand. Today’s slate, while a little smaller than normal for a Sunday, provides us with solid options on the hill and also some solid options at the plate. It’s shaping up for a fun slate.
Let’s dig in to today’s slates!
MLB DFS: The Aces
Freddy Peralta ($9.9k) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates – I should preface this pick with saying that the Pirates are not a high strike out time. That somewhat puts a cap on Peralta’s ceiling today. Peralta however is an elite strikeout arm. Strike out pitchers find strike outs. There’s a reason they are strike out pitchers.
If Houser was able to K 5 against this team on Friday night, I see no reason why Peralta can’t get that number up to 7 or 8. My concern always with Peralta is his efficiency. He throws a lot of pitches in a short period of time and rarely goes beyond 6 innings. That said, he has a great match-up today against a weak hitting Pirates lineup. With Peralta’s elite level 37% K rate, I see some upside in him today.
Charlie Morton ($9k) vs. Miami Marlins – Over the past week the Marlins have the third highest K rate of any team in baseball and the third lowest hard hit rate. I’m going to attack them, especially when a solid pitcher is on the mound. Today we have a solid pitcher throwing against them in Morton.
Over the past month Morton has been pitching extremely well. He has a 27% K rate to go with a 3.7 XFIP. He’s giving up a ton of grounders also which really helps to limit damage as he’s only given up one long ball in his last 29 innings of work. With the Marlins struggling and Morton pitching well, he’s my clear number 2 today.
Lucas Giolito ($9.6k) vs. Detroit Tigers – This is the cheapest we are getting Giolito in more than a month. He gets a great match-up today against a team that has a 26% K rate this year vs. righties. While the Tigers will show some signs of life every now and then, if we look at their body of work as a whole this season they are still a very weak offense. Especially against righties.
They have one of the lowest wRC+’s of any team today against the handedness at which they are facing. It sits at just 91. With Giolito we’re still getting a pitcher who has a 27% K rate over the past 30 days and an xFIP under 4.
The one area of concern with Gio is that he is giving up homers at a pretty quick pace. He’s given up 8 in his last 31 innings. While it is a high number, he doesn’t put many runners on with a WHIP of just 1.03 over that same time frame. So we know if he gives up a homer or two they will more than likely be solo shots.
I also really like Robbie Ray ($10.8K). He’s just really expensive and when we look at price point and match-up, I like the other 3 better. He still warrants consideration as he has a ton of upside every outing with his extremely high K rate.
MLB DFS: The Bats
Milwaukee Brewers vs. Tyler Anderson – While I prefer the Brewers vs. against righties, they do have a handful of guys that hit for power vs. lefties.
I like attacking pitchers that have low K upside and have a high HR/FB ratio. We have that today in Anderson. His HR/FB ratio is 18.5% which is the second highest on the slate. His K rate at 12.7% over the past 30 days is the second lowest on the slate.
With how hot the Brewers have been recently, you just have to love the match-up here. The two guys that standout the most to me today with the Brewers are Garcia ($3k) and Taylor ($2.3k). Both have ISO’s greater than .260 against lefties this year and wOBA’s over .370. I’m building around them. All Brewers are in play though as they are just scorching hot right now.
Chicago White Sox vs. Matt Manning – White Sox are a little banged up right now but they have a great match-up today. Manning hast just not been good since getting called up to the bigs. So far this year he’s giving up a 56% hard hit rate with just a 6.7% K rate. So he’s giving up a ton of hard contact and not getting any K’s.
If we look at splits, the hard hit rate is pretty much equal to both sides of the plate. Where we see the difference is the fly ball rate as it jumps to 44% vs. lefties. Because of that, I want to prioritize the lefties. If Goodwin ($3.1k) hits in the cleanup spot, he’s a must play. Sheets ($3.2k) is also a must play as he gets the platoon match-up and he’s swinging a hot bat. Over the past week he has a .531 wOBA and a 1.345 OPS. All batters in this lineup should be in play today.
Minnesota Twins vs. Brad Keller – Twins lost a little bit of their lineup yesterday with Donaldson getting banged up, but I really like this spot for the Twins. While Keller is a high ground-ball pitcher, he’s also someone that when giving up a fly ball there’s a strong likelihood of the ball going over the fence due to his high hard hit rate. Keller has one of the highest HR/FB ratios of the pitchers going today.
In looking at his pitch profile he’s a sinker ball pitcher. Twins have some guys that have had great success against this pitch. Nelson Cruz ($4.2k) automatically comes to mind. Over the past several seasons he has a .255 ISO to this pitch with a low whiff rate. He’s also been heating up as he has a .505 wOBA over the past week with a 1.218 OPS. He’s my building block with a Twins stack. While he hasn’t been hot of late, Arraez ($3k) will be hitting lead-off and also has some success against this pitch.
MLB DFS: The Wrap Up
Sunday always presents us with the added risk of veterans sitting due to it being getaway day. Make sure to keep an extra eye on lineups. Unlike the last few days we are blessed with clear skies everywhere today.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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