Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Thursday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have another nice sized 8 game main slate of MLB DFS on Fanduel to navigate through.
The day ends in Y so it means we have another dicey pitching slate. Feel like it’s been a month since we’ve had a slew of solid pitching to work with. Pitching looks tough tonight but we have some lineups in great spots.
Let’s dig in to today’s slate!
MLB DFS: The Aces
Sean Manaea ($9.1k) vs. Seattle Mariners – Manaea gets to take on a Mariners lineup today that has really struggled against left handed pitching this year. On the year they have a near 27% K rate with limited power. If we look at Manaea we can see that he’s been pretty good of late, outside of a few long balls.
Over the last month he’s improvement up on a handful of metrics compared to the whole season. His K rate is up to 27% vs. 24% for the year and his xFIP is 3.26 vs. 3.85. The Mariners are coming back from Coors and I’m hoping for a post Coors hangover.
Kent Maeda ($8.1k) vs. Los Angeles Angels – Of all the pitchers throwing tonight no pitcher has a higher K rate over the past 30 days than Maeda. Outside of one start vs. the high powered White Sox offense Maeda has been really good since his return from the IL.
He has 4 games of more than 7 K’s. Coming out of the All Star break the Angels haven’t been putting up much offensively. In 157 at bats they have just 7 barrels to go with a 26% K rate. Look for Maeda to keep the ball rolling with another solid outing tonight.
Walker Buehler ($10.5k) vs. San Francisco Giants – . I’m not overly in love with the match-up tonight but our options are very limited. The projected lineup has just a 20% K rate and a .208 ISO vs. righties. With keeping all that in mind, Buehler has been on a nice roll.
He’s reached 49 FD points in three of his last 4 outings. From a pure talent stand point, he’s probably the top arm tonight. I’m sticking with either Manaea or Maeda tonight, but Buehler will give you the highest ceiling potential tonight.
MLB DFS: The Bats
Tampa Bay Rays vs. Cal Quantrill – Quantrill will have his hands full tonight with a very solid Rays lineup. Let’s first look at what Quantrill has been doing of late. Over the past 30 days he’s giving up just a ton of hard contact at nearly 41%. He’s given up 9 barrels in 24 innings.
That’s not a good pace. Add in the fact that his swinging strike rate is sitting at just 7.3% over that time period we can see here that we have a pitcher that just hasn’t figured out how to get the ball past big leaguers yet.
If we dive into splits we can see lefties are a big weakness for him. His fly ball rate jumps from 25% vs. righties to 45% vs. lefties. That’s’ a pretty significant jump. Quantrill is going to face a lineup tonight that potentially has 7 guys batting from the left side. This is what nightmares are made of.
Brian’s favorite player tonight will be my building block. Austin Meadows ($2.9k) should have a field day tonight. Quantrill has been throwing his sinker more than 35% of the time lefties. Meadows has a .256 ISO with an average distance of 343 feet vs. this pitch over the past few years. If he’s in the lineup Walls ($2.1k) has also had success against this pitch. All Rays, especially the lefties, should be in play tonight.
Atlanta Braves vs. Matt Moore – Moore hasn’t yet had a blow up game in a while. It’s coming folks. The metrics say it’s coming. My hope is that it comes tonight vs. Braves. Here’s why I think Moore regresses tonight.
In the last month he has a swinging strike rate of just 9.9% but he has a 44% fly ball rate and a 37% hard hit rate. He’s not missing bats and he’s giving up a ton a of hard hit fly balls. He also has an 85% LOB%. Leaving that many people on every game is just not sustainable.
The majority of the damage against him comes from the right side of the plate. He has a .290 ISO against righties with 43% fly ball rate and a 47% hard hit rate. Braves will more than likely throw out 5 right handed hitters tonight.
The three guys I’m most focused on here are Dansby Swanson ($3.3k), Albies ($3.6k), and Riley ($3k). All have ISO’s great then .200 this year to lefties and should be able to handle the 91 mph fastball coming from Moore. .
Minnesota Twins vs. Andrew Heaney – This is going to be a really tough match-up for Heaney tonight. His biggest weakness is righties and he’s going to face a ton of them tonight. And the righties he’s going to be facing all hit for power.
Over the last month Heaney has really struggled with the long ball. He’s given up 6 homers in just 18 innings of work. We are in a spot tonight where we can really chase the long ball.
Looking at his splits we can see that he gives up way more fly balls to righties at 40% and way more hard contact at 50%. Garver ($2.4k), Cruz ($3.7k), and Donaldson ($3.1k) are going to be keys here as they hit for a lot of power vs. lefties. Garver and Donaldson profile the best and will be locks for me in this stack.
MLB DFS: The Wrap Up
Like most nights recently, picking the right stack tonight will be key. The three offense I layed out here have the best opportunity to do the most damage. Rays and Twins fit very well together.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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