Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Tuesday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have a really big 14 game main slate of MLB DFS on Fanduel to navigate through.
After a bunch of underwhelming pitching slates over the past week, boy do we have a packed house with solid pitching today. With MLB starting to check for substances yesterday, we’ll need to start keeping an eye on regression from some pitchers.
Let’s dig in to today’s slates!
MLB DFS: The Aces
Max Scherzer ($10.8K) vs. Philadelphia Phillies – We’ll need to monitor Scherzer’s status before the game, but all signs point to him pitching tonight after throwing a successful bullpen session this weekend. If he does pitch, he’s my top pitcher tonight as he gets a great match-up against the Phillies and we’d be getting him at his cheapest price since early April.
Max has been his dominant self this year with a 3.30 xFIP and an elite 35% K rate. With the Phillies, we’re getting a team that has struggled against righties this year. They’re striking out a lot with a 25% K rate and a wOBA south of .300.
While they Phillies have had a lot of injuries this season that have brought their numbers down, they’ve also shown even when healthy they can strike out a ton. This is a good spot for us to attack today with Scherzer and he’s only the third most expensive pitcher.
Freddy Peralta ($9.5k) vs. Arizona Diamondbacks – Anytime that I can get a pitcher less than 10k that has the strikeout potential of Peralta I’m going to jump at the chance to grab him. On the year Peralta is sporting a 37% K rate. While he has seen that come back down to earth over the past 30 days to the tune of 30%, 30% is still nothing to sneeze at and is in the elite range.
He’s getting to face a team that has been far better against lefties than it has righties. Against righties this year the Dbacks are striking out nearly 25% of the time and not producing much else with just a .129 ISO and .288 wOBA. He faced this very same team just a couple of weeks ago and struck out 9 in only 7 IP. While anything can happen in the game of baseball, this is a good match-up tonight for Peralta.
Zack Wheeler ($11.4k) vs. Washington Nationals – He’s the most expensive of the bunch, but he’s also been arguably the best of the bunch. Wheeler has been lights out this year. He has a 2.98 xFIP and near 33% K rate. While the Nationals don’t K much to righties, there’s some potential today for Wheeler when we dive into pitch mix.
To lefties, he throws his slider almost 33% of the time. Schwarber, Soto, and Bell all have whiff rates of 30% or greater to this pitch. If his slider is on, he’s got a real shot at K’ing a bunch of guys tonight. Look for Wheeler to continue to his dominance tonight.
MLB DFS: The Bats
Oakland Athletics vs. Taylor Hearn/Jordan Lyles – Rangers will be using Hearn as the opener today and then will most likely go to Lyles. Hearn hasn’t pitched more than 2 innings all year so I’m going base my write up on Lyles.
Lyles has been dreadful this year. No other way to put it. He has a near 5 xFIP and is giving up a 47% hard hit rate. Lyles has been pretty bad to both sides of the plate so we don’t really need to be overly concerned with platoon splits.
He throws his FB more than 50% of the time to lefties. From the left side I want to focus on both Tony Kemp ($2.2k) and Matt Olson ($4k). Kemp is still way too cheap for his recent productivity and should be an anchor to your lineup tonight. On the right hand side I like both Chapman ($3k) and Murphy ($2.4k). Murphy has excellent numbers against sliders and that’s what Lyles throws most of the time to righties.
Seattle Mariners vs. Kyle Freeland – This says more about the match-up than it does about the Mariners. On the year, Freeland has an xFIP of 7.09. You read that right. I should preface that with saying his sample size isn’t the biggest as he only pitched in 5 games this year. What he’s done in those 5 games though is pretty remarkable.
In his last 3 outings, with 2 outside of Coors, he’s given up 18 runs in only 12 innings of work. Freeland has also given up 14 barrels in his last 20 innings of work. For some reason the Rockies are giving him a long leash in each outing. I hope that trend continues tonight.
My stack of the Mariners tonight will focus on the heart of the lineup. Haniger ($3.3k), Seager ($2.9k), France ($3.5k), and Moore ($2.4k) are all primed to have good nights.
Chicago White Sox vs. Tyler Anderson – I wish the hitting environment were better tonight as the game is in PNC Park and it’s supposed to be in the mid 60’s all game, but Anderson more than makes up for a lack of perfect hitting conditions.
White Sox have come back down to earth a bit after their scorching start vs. lefties. That said, they’re still one of the best teams in the league against left handed pitching with a 123 wRC+ and a .183 ISO. Anderson has really struggled against right handed hitters this year with a .234 ISO and a 40% hard hit rate and fly ball rate. Lucky for us the White Sox will throw out a predominantly right handed lineup.
Anderson ($3.3k), Engle ($2.4k), Abreu ($3.2k), Vaughn ($2.2k), and Grandal ($2.7k) are all cheap or very reasonable considering the match-up and how well they hit left handed pitching. Abreu and Grandal are my favorites as they both crush left handed change ups (one of Anderson’s favorite pitches to righties).
I could have really kept going in terms of hitting spots. With the lean toward expensive pitching tonight I wanted to provide stacks that are cheap to reasonably priced and in great spots against bad pitching.
If you decide to fade all the high priced/high strike out arms tonight, going with a team like the Houston Astros could yield great results as the match-up against Lopez is as pretty as they get. The one must from the Astros I’d go with is Alvarez ($3.8k). Lopez is a sinker ball pitcher and Alvarez has a .268 ISO and 55% hard hit rate against right handed sinkers.
MLB DFS: The Wrap Up
We haven’t had a slate like this in terms of pitching in a while. It will be interesting to see which guys struggle tonight in terms of not being able to use the foreign substances anymore.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green tonight!
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