Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Tuesday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have a nice sized 11 game 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.
Let’s dig in to today’s slate!
MLB DFS: The Aces
Brandon Woodruff ($10.2k) vs. St. Louis Cardinals – On paper the match up isn’t great for the highest priced pitcher on the slate. Cardinals are a solid lineup that over the past month has only struck out 23% of the time vs. righties. That said, we saw last night that they are susceptible to strike outs against strike out pitchers. Peralta was able to fan 9 in just 6 innings of work.
W/ Woodruff we have very similar strike out upside to Peralta, if not greater. Over the last 30 days Woodruff has a near 32% K rate. No pitcher on tonight’s slate has the pure K upside that Woodruff has. However, you could make a strong case tonight on FD to fade him due to him being the only arm over $10k. If he fails and the masses gravitate towards him you’d be a step ahead of your peers.
Jordan Montgomery ($8.8k) vs. Texas Rangers – Montgomery might be my favorite arm tonight (this says more about the slate than it does about Montgomery). Cortes was able to strike out 7 Rangers last night in just 4.1 innings last night. While I don’t expect Montgomery to strike out the Rangers at the same pace, I do expect him to go a little deeper than Cortes did. With him going deeper I think we can get Montgomery up to 6 innings with 5-6 strike outs. If he does Montgomery could be close to the top tonight when all is said and done.
Alek Manoah ($9.6k) vs. Tampa Bay Rays – Manoah very well could get tagged with a negative number. The Rays are a deep lineup, especially against righties. That said, Manoah has faced the Rays 3 times now on the year and has struck out 29 rays in just 18 innings of work.
In his last outing he dominated them with 10 K’s in arguably his best start in the majors. He made an adjustment in his pitch mix last outing and if he does it again he should do well. He threw his slider 39% of the time in his last outing vs. the Rays. It’s a pitch that guys like Cruz, Arozarena, and Zunino really struggle with. If he continues down that path tonight with his slider, we’re looking at a ceiling game.
MLB DFS: The Bats
Oakland Athletics vs. Marco Gonzales – Over the last 30 days Gonzales has a 6.13 xFIP and just a 14.9% K rate. He’s given up 8 homers and 10 barrels over that stretch. While he’s had a few good games over the last month, some of it has been a mirage. There are some numbers that are telling me there’s regression coming. His xFIP is almost 2 runs higher than his ERA and he’s giving up a ton of contact with contact rate of nearly 85%.
He’s going to get shelled at some point and I think tonight’s the night against a solid Athletics lineup. We want to attack Gonzales with righties and the A’s should throw out a lineup that has 8 righties in it. Righties have a .326 ISO against Gonzales over the last month. We’re talking about a nightmare scenario tonight.
The guy I’m going to build around is Matt Chapman ($3.5k). Over the last month Chapman has been crushing lefties with a .474 ISO. I’m not in the business of calling homers, but there’s a good chance Chapman homers tonight. Other guys I like here are Harrison ($2.9k), Marte ($3.8k), and Canha ($3.2k). They’re all solid against lefties and have historically hit sinkers well.
Atlanta Braves vs. Luke Weaver – Weaver’s not an awful pitcher but he’s a pitcher with a clear weakness. Lefties. Over the last 30 days lefties have been crushing him. They have a .480 ISO and .430 wOBA. They also have a 52% hard hit rate against him. This is a match up that we want to exploit and the Braves have several lefties that we can do that. The guys I’m focused on here are Freeman ($3.9k), Albies ($3.8k), and the underpriced Eddie Rosario ($2.8k).
Rosario is about $500 under what he should be priced for this match up. Over the last month he has a .382 ISO against righties and a .425 wOBA. He’s my anchor here. If the Braves can get to Weaver early and we get the Diamondbacks bullpen this sets us up for a huge night. The Dbacks bullpen is one of the worst in the league.
Milwaukee Brewers vs. Jake Woodford – It’s only a matter of time before Woodford has a blow up game. It’s coming and I think it comes tonight. Here’s why I think he’s due. He has an 88% contact rate and a 46% fly ball rate. So he’s giving up a ton of fly balls. Those fly balls will eventually find the seats. His xFIP is also telling us it’s coming. It’s sitting at a 4.99 over the last 30 days while his ERA is at 2.03. When I see that big of a difference between the 2 I see a big red flag.
I’m looking at the lefties in this match up as they have a 64% fly ball rate vs. him over the last month. Guys like Narvaez ($2.4k), Vogalbach ($2.3k), Escobar ($3.7k), and Wong ($3.5k) really peak my interest here. They’ll all have the platoon advantage tonight and all have fly ball rates in the upper 30%’s or higher. Fly ball hitters plus fly ball pitchers equal a match made in heaven.
I also really like the Cubs vs. Jax tonight. Jax has looked overmatched at the major league level. The only reason I didn’t write them up as a top 3 stack is that the wind is expected to blow in heavily tonight at Wrigley. If for some reason the weather changes, I may bump up the Cubs higher.
The Astros also should have another monster night tonight. Look for them to dominate Naughton.
MLB DFS: The Wrap Up
Pitching isn’t great tonight but I like the spots of the 3 I’m focused on. Because pitching is cheap we should have no issues fitting in the top Braves bats w/ the A’s. The teams also align really well.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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