Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Thursday edition of Aces and Bases. Tonight we have a small 4 game main 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 a small slate comes a limited pool of options.
Let’s dig in to today’s slates!
MLB DFS: Early Slate Thoughts
Pithing isn’t great on the early slate. Thankfully we only have to pick 1. My lean right now is to stick with either Chris Flexen or Dylan Cease. Flexen will probably be my main target as he gets the best match up vs. the lowly Rangers.
With bats we go right back to the well against the Orioles. Lopez has really struggled the last 30 days and his biggest weakness has been the lefties. They have a .451 wOBA against him over that period. Lowe ($3.7k), Choi ($2.5k), and Meadows ($3.2k) are the targets there. If Phillips ($2.6k) plays he’ll also crack my lineup.
White Sox vs. Irvin will also be a place to look at for offense. Irvin is giving up a 43% fly ball rate to righties over the past month and I’ll want to use the likes of Abreu ($4k), Vaughn ($2.5k), and Hernandez ($3k) as they’ve been crushing lefties of late.
MLB DFS: The Aces
Brandon Woodruff ($10.7k) vs. St. Louis Cardinals – I’ll start by saying that the Cardinals are not an easy task. They are a low strike out team. That said, Woodruff is one of the top strike out pitchers on the slate and that’s what we chase in DFS.
Over the past month he has a near 29% K rate. He’s also been doing his usual thing in limiting hard contact. It’s sitting at just 24.6%, which is the lowest on the slate. Woodruff faced the Cardinals once earlier this year and was able to strike out 10. While I don’t know if he’ll get there today, I do think he has a solid day.
Luis Castillo ($9.7k) vs. Miami Marlins – Outside of his start to Cleveland, Castillo has been in top form of late. Five of his last six outings have gone for over 39 FD points. Today he gets a great matchup against a poor Marlins lineup.
The projected Marlins lineup tonight has a 27% K rate vs. righties. Castillo should face a lineup that will have 6 righties in it. This is in wheelhouse as he has a 27% K rate vs. righties over the last month. With Castillo in top form, he will be my favorite pitcher of the bunch tonight.
Walker Buehler ($11.6k) vs. New York Mets – The Dodgers haven’t named Buehler the starter yet as of writing this, but if he starts he gets a great matchup against a struggling Mets lineup. Buehler faced the Mets on Saturday night and was dominant. He struck out 10 in 7 innings.
With the Mets potentially losing their top hitter in Alonso yesterday, there’s no reason to think that he can’t replicate his last outing. I’m going to side with Castillo tonight due to the $2k savings over Buehler, but Buehler very well could be the highest scoring pitcher of the slate if he pitches.
MLB DFS: The Bats
Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Taijuan Walker – Yes, Walker threw 6 no hit innings vs. the Dodgers last week. Prior to that outing Walker had been absolutely awful.
Over the past month Walker has been giving up a ton of hard contact and way too many fly balls. He’s given up 11 homers in his last 27 innings. During that stretch both sides of the plate have been getting to him, especially righties with a .382 ISO against him.
The 4 guys I want to target here are the Dodgers hottest hitters since worrying about platoon splits against Walker won’t get us that much of an advantage.
Muncy ($4k), Justin Turner ($3.8k), Will Smith ($3.5k), and Seager ($3.2k) all have OPS’s greater than 1.000 over the past week. There’s no reason to think they will cool off against Walker tonight. Prices aside, the Dodgers are my top stack tonight.
Cincinnati Reds vs. Zach Thompson – After the usual getaway rut that the Reds faced yesterday, they’re back in action at night and get a great match up. Thompson is a very attackable pitcher as he is a very low swing and miss pitcher.
Over the past month his swinging strike rate is just 9%. For comparison purposes, Woodruff is over 16%. That’s a significant difference. With Thompson we have very clear splits. Over the past 30 days his ISO is .233 against lefties while just .085 to righties. His wOBA is .392 to lefties while just .197 against righties.
My main building blocks here will be Votto ($4k), Naquin ($2.8k), and Moustakas ($2.5k). All 3 guys have long track records against righties, with Votto and Moose having ISO’s greater than .250 against them over the last few years. Other guys I’ll want to target here are India ($3.9k) and Stephenson ($2.7k).
Milwaukee Brewers vs. Jon Lester – As I’m sure Brian will be going in depth with this one I don’t think I’ll need to give you all the reasons to play the Brewers against Lester. My main reasons though are that he misses few bats and gives up hard contact.
His swinging strike rate over the past month is just 6.5% and his hard hit rate is approaching 45%. Those 2 reasons are enough to prioritize the Brewers tonight. I’m going to look at prioritizing the righties here as Lester is giving up a 50% hard hit rate to righties over the past month. That’s pretty high!
Adames ($3.3k), Escobar ($3.6k), and Garcia ($3k) all have ISO’s over .200 and wOBA’s over .330 against lefties this season. Garcia is my favorite of the 3. If Pina ($2.2k) is in the lineup tonight he should also be in your lineup. He’s cheap and also has great numbers vs. lefties this year.
MLB DFS: The Wrap Up
With pitching tonight I’ll look to stay with the top 3 salaried guys as the low range are all high risk. We have 3 great stacks to target as we really have some major gas cans going.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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