Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Tuesday edition of Aces and Bases. Tonight we have a massive 15 game main slate of MLB DFS on Fanduel to navigate through.
With tonight being a full slate of games we’re bound to have a ton of pitching options right? Nope, think again. We have another slate of questionable pitching. Over the past week or so I’ve noticed a trend in which the top pitchers have been coming from the mid-tier and lower-tier. There are a couple of arms in that range that I’m going to focus on for tonight’s slate.
Let’s dig in to today’s slate!
MLB DFS: The Aces
Kent Maeda ($8.3k) vs. Detroit Tigers – I’ll be honest, I’m not overly enthusiastic about attacking the Tigers lineup right now. They’ve shown a ton of upside of late and if Maeda proves to be the chalk today I may even consider the Tigers as a stack. With all that being said, the price point on Maeda just continues to be too hard to resist.
We’re in a period with pitching where it’s been extremely volatile and I really want some consistency with my pitcher. Over the last 2 months Maeda has only one start where he’s been less than 24 FD points and the majority of his starts have been in the 30’s.
Over the past month Maeda has really been solid. His K rate is sitting at 31% and he has a near 15% swinging strike rate. He’s also done an exceptional job of limiting hard contact with a higher soft contact rate than a hard one.
Facing the Tigers right now is not a safe pick, but at the price of Maeda tonight I just can’t not consider him.
Lance McCullers ($10.5k) vs. Seattle Mariners – Seattle exploded for 11 runs last night. They also struck out 14 times last night, with 9 against Luis Garcia in just 4.2 innings. No team in baseball has struck out more than the Mariners over the past week. They’ve struck out 73 times.
The next closest team is the Indians/Guardians with 59. In DFS strikeouts are what matters with pitching and we have a great combo on our hands tonight in this game. We have a high strike out team and a high strike out pitcher.
Of all the pitchers on the hill tonight, only Robbie Ray has a higher K rate over the past 30 days than McCullers. McCullers CSW of 33.6% over the last month is also second to none of everyone on the hill.
McCullers throws his sinker/slider combo more than 63% of the time. It’s a combo that the Mariners as a team have really struggled against this year. This is a really good spot for McCullers tonight.
Taylor Widener ($6.5k) vs. Texas Rangers – This is my wild card pick tonight. Anytime you pick a guy in this range you have to know the risks. I’m going here for a couple of reasons. The Rangers as a whole have been extremely bad of late.
Over the past week they have a 31% K rate and not generating any power with just a 4% barrel rate and 23% hard hit rate. Widener will rely on both his fastball and slider today. If he throttles up the usage of his slider (Matt Herges, if you’re reading this, do it) tonight he should be in for a solid night.
Rangers have a -22 run value this season vs. sliders. This has the potential to be a high risk/high reward type of pick tonight.
MLB DFS: The Bats
Chicago Cubs vs. Vladimir Gutierrez – Outside of Coors, no stadium is impacted more by the elements than Wrigley. If the wind is blowing in and it’s cool, it’s a pitcher’s paradise. If it’s warm and the wind is blowing out, it’s a hitter’s paradise.
It’s forecasted to be near 90 at first pitch tonight with wind blowing out to right center at more than 10 mph. This is going to be a high scoring game and I want a piece of the action. In this match-up I’m siding the Cubs as they’re facing a pitcher that is giving up fly balls at a 51% rate over the past month.
With giving up that many fly balls in this type of environment tonight, we have the potential for a little home run derby. Gutierrez gives up way more fly balls to lefties but he also has a .222 ISO against righties so we can really target him with the entire lineup.
If we look at the lefties first we’ll see they’ll get a heavy dose of curveballs. Anthony Rizzo ($3.3k) has a .325 ISO against right handed curveballs over the past few years and I’ll use him as a building block of this stack.
Other guys I’ll look to include based on success against sliders are Kris ‘future Met’ Bryant ($4k), Wilson Contrares ($3.1k), and Patrick Wisdom ($3k).
Washington Nationals vs. Matt Moore – Moore is on the list. He’s on the list of pitchers I make it a point to stack against. Last time out against the Braves it proved to be successful as he gave up 6 ER in 6 IP. The match-up tonight is even tougher for him as he’s facing a lineup that has been really good against lefties this year.
First the ‘Why’ as to why we’re attacking Moore. In his last 18 innings of work he’s given up a 40% hard hit rate, 44% fly ball rate, and just a 21% K rate. He’s the ideal type of pitcher to attack.
He is an extreme splits type of pitcher. We want to attack him with righties and the two guys right off the bat I want are Trea Turner ($4.3k) and Ryan Zimmerman ($2.6k). Both have ISO’s greater than .250 on the year and have long records of being successful against lefties.
While Moore is pretty good against lefties, I expect this game to go to the bullpen early so Juan Soto ($4.4k) should be included in any Nats stack tonight.
Toronto Blue Jays vs. Garrett Richards – The Blue Jays somewhat disappointed last night in a great match-up vs. Pivetta. They get an equally good, if not better match-up tonight vs. Richards.
This going to be the fifth time they’ve faced Richards this year. In 3 out of the first 4 outings, they’ve managed to put up 4 runs against him. They just match up very well with him and his pitch type.
Guerrero ($4.5k), Springer ($4.3k), and Hernandez ($3.7k) are my favorite targets here as they crush fastballs and that’s what they’ll see the most tonight. If McGuire ($2.2k) is behind the plate again tonight he’ll make a nice cheap addition to this stack and gives you the wrap around with Springer.
MLB DFS: The Wrap Up
With pitching tonight we’ll want to exploit lineups that have not been hitting much of late and we’ll get that with both McCullers and Widener. We’ll also want to take advantage of the ideal hitting conditions in Chicago.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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