Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Sunday Funday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have a smaller than usual 9 game main slate of MLB DFS on Fanduel to navigate through.
For the first time since baseball resumed from the All Star break there shouldn’t be any concerns with weather outside of a few showers in Atlanta.
We have a trio of aces of going today and I probably won’t want to stray too far from them.
Let’s dig in to today’s slates!
MLB DFS: The Aces
Zack Wheeler ($11k) vs. Miami Marlins – Wheeler hasn’t pitched much over the past 11 days as he only faced 1 batter in the All Star Game. This should mean he has a fresh and rested arm going into today’s matchup vs. the Marlins. He’s facing a Marlins team that just isn’t very good.
Over the past 30 days they have the second highest K rate in the majors at nearly 27%. If Vinny Velasquez and the Phillies bullpen were able to quiet this lineup last night, I don’t see any reason why Wheeler won’t be able to do the same.
He faced this team a couple of months ago and had one of his best outings of the year with 10 K’s thru 7 innings pitched. Look for Wheeler to have a dominant game tonight.
Corbin Burnes ($11.2k) vs. Cincinnati Reds – After a little bit of a rough stretch in mid-June Burnes has recently re-found his touch with 3 very solid outings in a row.
While his K rate over the past 30 days is down a bit form his season long number (26% vs. 38%) he’s facing a Reds team that has been striking out quite a bit over the past 30 days. Their K rate in the last month is nearly 26% with limited power numbers. I like Burnes to be one of the top scoring pitchers at the end of the day.
Carlos Rodon ($10.6k) vs. Houston Astros – This won’t be an easy task for Rodon today. The Astros have been one of the best teams in the league this year against lefties. That said, Rodon has proven time and time again this year that he’s up to the task when facing tough lineups.
He hasn’t had a game in the last 2 months where he hasn’t struck out at least 8 batters, with one of those games coming against this same Astros team. I normally don’t make it a habit of using a pitcher against the Astros but with Rodon I’m going to make the exception today.
With high priced lineups like the Blue Jays and Dodgers being off the slate and the Padres facing Scherzer today I don’t really see the need to stray from the top echelon of pitchers this afternoon. There will be enough value in the lineups we choose to allow us to comfortably fit the aces.
MLB DFS: The Bats
San Francisco Giants vs. Wade LeBlanc – If we look at last night’s box score we’ll see a team that struggled to put up any offense against a lefty. However, if we look a bit deeper we’ll see that the Giants just couldn’t find any holes last night. They had an insanely low BABIP of just .158 with just 1 strike out against Kim.
Thankfully for us they get a lefty again today and one who’s not nearly as good as Kim. Over the past 30 days LeBlanc is giving up a ton of hard contact at more than 38% with limited swing and miss stuff. Leblanc is going to throw a ton of cutters and sinkers to batters today.
The guys I want a piece of today are going Austin Slater ($2.3k), Yastrzemski ($3.3k), Ruff ($2.9k), and Flores ($2.5k). All have shown strong power numbers vs. this pitch selection from lefties.
Detroit Tigers vs. J.A.Happ – This didn’t work out too well a week and a half ago when Happ threw his best out of the year against this same Tigers team. I still the love the match-up here and I still think that Happ is a gas can. I’m going to go right back and try to attack him.
On the year he’s giving up a 40% hard hit rate with a 44% fly ball rate. That many fly balls and that many hard hits are just asking for trouble. The Tigers will throw out a lineup that will most likely be all right handed today. Against righties Happ is giving up a 44% fly ball rate and 43% hard hit rate which adds up to a .272 ISO against.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally and that’s what happened last outing. Give me all the Grossman ($3.2k), Schoop ($3.2k), and Haase ($2.9k) today. All three have crushed left handed pitching this year. Haase did leave the game early yesterday so we’ll need to monitor his status, but he tried staying in the game so I think he’s back in there today.
Tampa Bay Rays vs. Drew Smyly – Smyly’s ERA over the past 30 days is just 1.61. Why are we attacking a pitcher with such a small ERA? I’ll tell you why. He’s been getting extremely lucky and the Rays are just the team to end his string of luck.
There’s a lot of regression in that ERA. He’s stranded nearly 90% of the batters he’s left on over the last month. He has just a 10% swinging strike rate, a 35% hard hit rate, and a 43% fly ball rate. At some point his luck is going to run out. Brian’s Rays are going to the be the team that ends it.
The guy I love the most today is Austin Meadows ($3.2k) with some lefty on lefty crime. On the year Smyly is actually giving up a much higher ISO to lefties than righties, .303 vs. .194. Other guys I really like here are Lowe ($3.2k) and Zunino ($2.5k). All line up really well vs. Smyly’s mix of fastballs and curveballs as their ISO’s are north of .200 against these pitches.
I also do love attacking Harvey with the Royals today. Harvey is at the tail end of this experiment with Orioles. Royals should be able to take advantage of both Harvey and the O’s bullpen today.
MLB DFS: The Wrap Up
This Sunday funday should be a fun one with some top level arms going against teams that have been striking out at a healthy pace and some gas cans we can attack.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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