Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Wednesday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have a nice sized 8 game main slate of MLB DFS on Fanduel to navigate through.
Eventually we’ll get a solid pitching slate right? We’ve got some dicey pitching again tonight that we’ll need to navigate though. With dicey pitching comes solid stacks though.
Let’s dig in to today’s slate!
MLB DFS: The Aces
Lance McCullers ($10.2k) vs. Cleveland Indians – This is a little more than I’d like to pay for McCullers but on a slate like tonight we may be forced to. Over the past 30 days McCullers has seen an small uptick in strike outs. His K rate during that time is a little more than 31% compared to 29% on the year.
We know we’re going to get someone that has elite K upside and that’s what we want in GPP’s. The lineup he’s projected to face tonight has a 27% K rate vs. righties this year. The Indians have really struggled coming out of the AS break. They’ve K’d 49 times in just 149 at bats and have just 6 barrels. Look for McCullers to take full advantage of a struggling lineup.
Adam Wainwright ($8.8k) vs. Chicago Cubs – The goal tonight will be find pitchers that won’t get us negative points. Kidding. Kind of. Wainwright hasn’t had a single start this season where he finished under 20 FD points. So know we have a floor with him.
Wainwright isn’t a strike out pitcher at this point in his career. His K rate over the past 30 days is only 21%. He has shown some K upside though at times with more than a handful of games over 7 K’s. With the match-up today there’s definitely a real shot at getting to that 7 K number again.
Like the Indians, the Cubs have really struggled out of the gates since the break. Of the teams in the main slate tonight, only the Indians have struck out more over the past week. While I don’t see Wainwright getting us 50 FD points, I do think there’s a real shot at a 30 point floor tonight. With some of the struggles we’ve seen with starting pitching of late, I will 100% take that.
Robbie Ray ($10.6k) vs. Boston Red Sox – This is a high risk high reward pick for tonight. Ray has been one of the better and more consistent pitchers on the year. He has an elite 32% K rate and a 3.28 xFIP. He has consistently plowed through solid lineups such that have historically been very good against lefties.
The match-up tonight against the Red Sox is not an easy one. They have a power house lineup. That said, Ray is an ace and has the ability to overpower any lineup.
MLB DFS: The Bats
Toronto Blue Jays vs. Garrett Richards – Richards post sticky stuff has been bad. He’s been one of the most affected pitchers in the game. Let’s look at his numbers over the past 30 days. 6.03 xFIP to go with 5 homers and 6 barrels in just 17 innings of work.
He’s someone that when on the mound we should look to take full advantage of. His match-up today is about as bad as bad can be. He’s facing a Blue Jays team that has just crushed righties all season long. They have a .796 OPS, .195 ISO, and 115 wRC+. Guerrero ($4.5k), Springer ($3.8k), and Hernandez ($3.4k) all profile extremely well tonight against Richards’ pitch mix and should be in your stack.
Detroit Tigers vs. Jordan Lyles – Lyles had a handful of starts recently that looked great from a distance. He had back to back 40 fd point outings and a 31 pointer. It was all smoke and mirrors. In the two 40 point games he had a 90 LOB % and an 86% LOB %. In both starts he gave up a healthy amount of hard contact.
Lyles has 9 starts this season in which he’s given up multiple barrels. He is a low strike out pitcher who gives up way too many fly balls and way too much hard contact. He is the type of pitcher you want to and have to target in DFS.
Once a laughing stock of baseball, the Tigers are now just 6 games under .500. They’re riding a 5 game winning streak and against Lyles today I like them to make it 6. Lyles is the type of pitcher who is bad against both sides of the plate. His ISO against the last couple of years is .204 to lefties and .202 to righties.
With the Tigers you need to go all in or fade. They don’t hit too many homers so we need to make sure our players correlate well. The guys I’m focused on today will be Baddoo ($3.1k), Schoop ($3.4k), Grossman ($3.2k), and Candelario ($2.7k). Haase ($2.8k) is also an interchangeable part of this stack.
Philadelphia Phillies vs. Asher Wojciechowski – Woj as I like to call him from his day with O’s is just not a good major league pitcher. He’s making what is most likely just a spot start for the Yankees today. He hasn’t pitched in the Majors this year but has struggled in a short stint in the minors.
If we look at the last couple of years we see that he gives up a ton of fly balls and hard contact. He is mostly a fastball pitcher with his fb sitting in the very low 90’s. Realmuto ($3.4k), Hoskins ($3.5k), and Miller ($2.4k) are my building blocks here as they have crushed fastballs this year with hard hit rates over 56%. The Yankees bullpen hasn’t been as bad of late so the hope here is that they keep Woj in long enough to do a ton of damage.
There are a ton of other stacks that could be talked about as well tonight. Houston is also in an incredible spot as Morgan is giving up a ton of fly balls and hard contact (the key to finding success with stacks). My hunch is that they’ll be a popular target and ownership will be high on them. If I’m going to eat chalk, I’d rather eat it with Blue Jays than Astros.
MLB DFS: The Wrap Up
Tonight will be about picking the right stack. We have a handful of teams that are facing pitchers that are gas cans and should put up big numbers. For pitching, I’m going to focus on pitchers that have a safer floor tonight. It’s a different type of strategy that isn’t normally one that wins a GPP but with how bad pitching has been of late, it may end up working.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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