Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Thursday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have 2 smaller sized slates on Fanduel. One 5 game slate starting at 12:20 ET and one 6 game slate starting at 7:10 ET.
We have a handful of options for pitching on both slates and we also have the long awaited debut of the guy the Mets the traded to Seattle for Robinson Cano, Jared Kelenic.
With that being said, let’s dig in to today’s slates!
MLB DFS: The Early Slate Aces
Jack Flaherty ($10.5k) vs. Milwaukee Brewers – Flaherty has strung along 3 straight starts over 45 FD points and hasn’t been below 36 all season. Today he faces a team that has struggled against right handed pitching all season.
For the season the Brewers have K’d at a near 27% clip to righties while also having an extremely low OPS, ISO, wOBA, and wRC+ to this handed pitching. Flaherty’s K rate for the season currently stands at 25.8%. W/ facing the Brewers today I think there’s upside in that number. This should be a ceiling game for Flaherty.
Corbin Burnes ($10.8k) vs. St. Louis Cardinals – Well what do we have here, a pitcher’s duel in Milwaukee. I haven’t seen any reports about a limit yet for Burnes. He’s coming off an asymptomatic case of COVID. Will the 2 week layoff from live baseball hurt him? It’s quite possible.
Before going down Burnes had been electric. He had an out of this world 45% K rate to go along with a 1.18 xFIP and a minuscule .55 WHIP. We saw over the last 2 nights what strong right handed pitching could do to this lineup. Both Woodruff and Peralta combined to K 18 Cardinals.
We’ll need to keep an eye on any news to come out as to whether or not Burnes will have a limit. If he’s going to pitch a full load today, there’s no reason to believe he can’t outperform what Woodruff and Peralta did the last 2 nights.
Daniel Lynch ($5.6k) vs. Detriot Tigers – Lynch was dreadful last time out. I’m going to cut him some slack though. He faced the White Sox who absolutely dominate left handed pitching. A left handed rookie making his second major league start vs. a team like the White Sox is just a recipe for disaster.
Although the Tigers have been much better of late, they still are K’ing at a near 35% clip to lefties. We saw last night that even though they can string together hits and score a few runs, they’re still going to strike out a ton and K’s in daily are what we’re looking for with pitchers. W/ his price being so low he’ll afford you the opportunity to get whatever bats you want. Do you need to go here today though? Probably not, but because he’s facing the Tigers he should be in your player pool.
MLB DFS: The Early Slate Bats
Philadelphia Phillies vs. Patrick Corbin – The Phillies let us all down last night. The good thing about daily is that you can move on and start all over again the very next day. Corbin has been, for all intents and purposes, bad this year. He’s sporting a 5.37 xFIP and has given up a home run at a 1 every 3 inning pace.
For hitters, like K’s for pitchers, hitting homers will give us the most bang for our buck. It’s tough to chase homers, but when you have a guy that gives them up at the pace that Corbin does you gotta do what you gotta do.
Just looking at his game log will show that Corbin had 2 decent outings with 2 QS. Both starts show he had a greaert than 4.4 xFIP. He’s skating on thin ice every start. Do the Phillies let us down 2 days in a row? I don’t think so. Guys like Rhys Hoskins ($3.1k), Andrew McCutchen ($3.5k), Jean Segura ($3.1k), and JT Realmuto ($3.5k) all have long successful histories against lefties.
Atlanta Braves vs. Ross Stripling – While we’ve talked at length about the Braves struggles vs. lefties this year, the same can’t be said about what they’re doing against righties. For the season they have a 109 wRC+, a .332 wOBA, and .200 ISO. They’re doing really well against righties.
Today they get to face off against Stripling who has struggled this year. He’s sporting a 4.83 xFIP and has given up 3 home runs in only 16 innings of work. He’s not missing any bats with a low swinging strike rate of 7.4% and guys are getting a good read off of all of his pitches. He has a chase rate of only 21.7% which means guys are seeing the ball well and won’t swing when the ball is out of the zone. If playing the Braves today I’m starting with Ronald Acuna ($4.4k), Marcel Ozuna ($3.2k), and Ozzie Ablies ($3.3k). Vegas loves the Braves today with a 4.65 implied total. You should love them too.
Detroit Tigers vs. Daniel Lynch – I’m doing it again. I’m calling out a stack even though I wrote up the pitcher they’re going against. Yes, the Tigers are K’ing at an absurd rate of 34% to lefties this year. They’re going to K, but fortunately you don’t lose points for K’ing in daily. The Tigers bats have really woken up of late. Robbie Grossman ($3k) has been hot over the past week with a .461 wOBA and 6 wRC. Niko Goodrum ($2.9k) has been just as good with a .429 wOBA and 5 wRC. The Tigers are far from a safe team, but they’re cheap and have the chance to do well today.
MLB DFS: The Early Slate Wrap Up
The early slate will be a bag of mixed nuts. You have 2 games that should be low scoring with the Twins vs. White Sox and Brewers vs. Cardinals. You also have 2 games that should see some fireworks with the Braves facing the Blue Jays and Tigers facing the Royals. The Phillies vs. Nationals will be the wild card. While I think the Phillies should do well today, that game could really go either way.
MLB DFS: The Main Slate “Aces”
Pitching on the main slate is not pretty. While we have a few solid arms, none are in match-ups that scream success.
Trevor Rogers ($9.9k) vs. Arizona Diamondbacks – Rogers gets a tough matchup tonight w/ a Dbacks team that has fared pretty well against southpaws this season. They have a 20% K rate and pretty nice ISO/OPS/wOBA numbers. So yes, this is going to be tough for Rogers.
With all that being said, Rogers has been great this year. He has a 33% K rate and a 3.44 xFIP. Don’t get me wrong, there are some caution flags. He struggled with a bit of control his last 2 outings with 5 walks combined between them. This caused him to leave both games after 5 and has brought his salary under $10k for this time since April. If he can have better command tonight I like Rogers to have a successful evening.
Christian Javier ($9.2k) vs. Texas Rangers – Strikeout pitcher – Check. Team that K’s a lot – Check. Javier takes his 30% season long K rate tonight against the Rangers who have been striking out at a rate of 28% vs. righties this season. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a match made in heaven, but it’s close.
Javier’s last two outings were not spectacular. He did however face two stingy offenses. I know that the Rays haven’t been great this year, but they are much better lineup than they’ve showed. The Rangers are not of the same caliber as either the Rays or Blue Jays. I like Javier to have a bounce back game tonight. This very well could be a ceiling game for Javier.
Zach Plesac ($8.4k) vs. Seattle Mariners – I don’t think I’ll go here tonight but Plesac does have a nice match up. For the season, the Mariners have struggled against righties. Their 25.8% K rate to righties is one of the highest on the slate. Does this match-up present some upside for Plesac? It certainly does. It’s also nice that we’ve seen an upward trend in his K rate. His last 2 starts saw a K rate of 25.9% and 24%, both above his season average of 19.3%. I do like Rogers and Javier better tonight, but if you want to spend down Plesac is probably the only other guy I’d trust.
MLB DFS: The Main Slate Bats
Cincinnati Reds vs. Chi Chi Gonzalez – I don’t often write up Coors because it’s normally an obvious play. Today I want to write up the Reds vs. Chi Chi. Gonzalez has a slate worst xFIP of 4.83. He also has a slate worst swinging strike rate of 6.8%. Finally, he has a slate worst line drive % of 33%.
Guess where the Reds succeed? Against righties. They have an OPS of .780 and a wOBA of .340 against righties this season. Considering the match-up and location, the Reds are very reasonably priced on FD. If their projected lineup stands, I’m going with Mike Moustakas ($3.5k), Tyler Naquin ($3.4k), Eugenio Suarez ($3.7K), and Tucker Barnhart ($3.1k). Not a single one of them over $4k in Coors.
Houston Astros vs. Mike Foltynewicz – Folty has started 7 games so far this season. He’s given up multiple homers in 4 of them. Does he make 5 out of 8 today? I think so! He’s giving up a ton of hard contact this year at a rate of nearly 40%. Astros have been great against righties this season with an OPS Of .740 and a wRC+ of 115. All signs point to a short outing for Folty. Using our match-up tool we can also see that the Rangers bullpen has an xFIP of 5.2 over their last 7. Houston currently has a 5.37 implied run total. That seems low for this matchup.
Miami Marlins vs. Merrill Kelly – This is more of a bad pitcher play than it is a good hitting team play because honestly, the Marlins have been pretty bad against righties this season. High K % and lower power numbers. But Kelly is bad and he should be treated as such. Kelly has the second highest xFIP on the slate at 4.77. While that alone would say, “Attack me with hitters” I’m attacking him due to his hard hit rate and low whiff rate. He’s giving up a 40% hard hit rate this year and a whiff rate of only 9.2%. Guys are just teeing off on him. In 38 innings of work he’s given up 12 barrels. That’s about 1 every 3 innings. That’s bad.
MLB DFS: The Wrap Up
Hitting is going to be the name of the game tonight. Lots of offenses is good spots. Pitching tonight, we cross our fingers and hope for the best
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