There 13-games on the main slate for Major League Baseball tonight. Jon Jansen gives out his favorite plays for the MLB slate and to help him with that is Fox Sports The Gambler’s Tim O’Keefe on the 4.20 Bettor Baseball Podcast!
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Marathon Day! Nothing better than baseball at 11a and Jon Jansen gave out his pick for that game. Jon Jansen gives out his favorite bets of the day and is joined by Brian Tulloch to go over his plays from his MLB DFS Picks and Pivots article on the 4.18 Bettor Baseball Podcast!
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Huge Major League Baseball slate on tap today. Jon Jansen and Brian Slone breakdown the monster MLB slate and give their best bets for the day on the 4.16 Bettor Baseball Podcast.
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Good mix of day games and night games on today’s MLB slate! Jon Jansen gives out his best bets of the day and is joined by special guest Keith Kavanaugh Jr.!
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The Bettor Baseball Podcast is back and with a large MLB slate to go over. Jon Jansen and Brian Slone look at some of the best games of the day and put together their favorite picks on the 4.13 Bettor Baseball Podcast.
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A bit of a smaller slate today and some volatile pitching matchups! Jon Jansen and Brian Slone try to find their favorite bets of the day on the 4.9 Bettor Baseball Podcast!
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We’re back in action for Friday and it’s a smaller slate than we’re accustomed to but there’s money to be made nonetheless. Starting Rotation was about as good as it can get yesterday, nailing six of the top seven DK scores on the slate. If you played someone, your pitchers did well and that is simply what you love to see. I have to say that today’s slate looks like a challenge. If you’re just looking at the fantasy points per game, there are a ton of options. There’s also a lot of volatility to each pick so let’s dig into the Starting Rotation 4.9!
Lance McCullers ($9,100 DK/$9,000 FD)
The fact McCullers is starting the cash picks should tip you off about how unstable some of these options are. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big McCullers fan but he’s not exactly known for his consistency. The first thing that jumps out at me for McCullers is hello to his new slider! He’s never thrown a slider before this season and McCullers introduced it with a bang, using it the most of any pitch. Of his seven strikeouts, six came from the slider and he didn’t give up a hit against it. Perhaps even more fascinating was that he threw it 34 total times and 33 came against righty hitters. Only three Oakland hitters are in the positives against the slider and one (Jed Lowrie) hits lefty.
There were other encouraging metrics as well, including an 80% ground ball rate and just 30% hard contact rate. On top of that, the 34.1% CSW would be the top number of his career if it held out. McCullers only went five and is not normally super efficient with his pitch count. That was the case last time with 95 pitches thrown but at least we know he’s stretched out, right? Some of the other plus signs with McCullers are his career ERA at home is 2.51 (save the jokes, only I make terrible jokes in this article) and both the FIP and xFIP were under three from the first turn. I never love McCullers in cash, but armed with a new pitch I’m willing to chase his strikeout upside a bit.
Tyler Mahle ($7,500 DK/$8,400 FD)
I do have to note right off the bat that Statcast and FanGraphs disagree on pitch types. FanGraphs has Mahle throwing a cutter 21.4% and the slider only 8.3% so I’m not sure where the truth lies. Either way, Arizona is 13th against the cutter so I’m not freaked out if Mahle’s pitch is closer to a cut fastball. What did the damage for him was the four-seam and he sat 2 MPH higher than normal and it touched 98 MPH during that start. It was his main strikeout pitch as well so that’s always a nice trick to have up your sleeve.
Mahle generated a 32.1% CSW in his first start but he also got a little lucky by some measures. The hard-hit rate was 60% and his FIP was 6.05 compared to the 3.60 ERA. Another scary aspect is over his career, Mahle has scuffled significantly with lefties. They own a .371 wOBA, a .270 average, and a 2.10 HR/9. While he’s scheduled to face four of them in the D-Backs lineup, the quality of those lefties is questionable. Ketel Marte is on the IL so the most dangerous lefty might be Eduardo Escobar? We saw even in Coors they couldn’t get much going without Marte yesterday. I’m not totally on board with Mahle but he does fit nicely on DK as an SP2.
Note – I’m throwing in two pitchers that interest me here but I can honestly say I don’t have a good handle on projected ownership the night before. We’ll go with the chalk in cash like always but we’ll need to wait until tomorrow to hash out exactly which pitcher goes into what category.
Zach Plesac ($9,600 DK/$8,600 FD)
We can’t skip Plesac in this article but I’ll be upfront and say I’m lukewarm about playing him as the highest-salaried pitcher on the slate for DK. I almost certainly wouldn’t for GPP if he’s chalky. Here’s my largest concern with Plesac coming into this start –
His 2019 wasn’t spectacular by any means. The K/9 was very mediocre at best and the FIP/xFIP combo was over 5.00, hiding his ERA of 3.81 in my view. That sample was over 115 IP, so not exactly a small amount. Last season he pitched well, and he was only 25 so folk thought he had taken a step forward. That could definitely still happen, but you can’t tell me his first start didn’t look identical to his 2019 season. we’re paying a top salary for that? I don’t know about all that.
The Tigers are still stringing out at a hefty mark of 26.6% so there’s plenty of room for Plesac to rack up some strikeouts and pay off. I just am not convinced that’s super likely. His fly-ball rate coming out of that start was over 47% and his CSW was 17% Last season it was 29.5% so that’s a big jump. Most pitchers so far have seen it be relatively stagnant through a start or two. This could be chalked up to an average start but Plesac has a lot more time as an average pitcher in the majors than a good one right now. Look, if he’s chalk I’ll play him in cash but my overall interest isn’t that high.
Joe Musgrove ($8,500 DK/$9,700 FD)
Big Joe Musgrove was on fire the last start, going six innings and whiffing eight hitters. I’ve always felt his raw stuff could have him in the mix for a very strong two or three starter in the league, and he flashed all of it last game. So why is he not in the sure-fire cash game picks? Texas has a bad offense by our preseason educated guess, right? Not so fast, at least to this point in the season.
I fully expect after 162 games, the Rangers will have a sub-par offense. At this juncture, they are smacking around righty pitching with a .402 wOBA, .183 ISO, .913 OPS, and a .408 slugging. All of those marks are inside the top-eight in baseball currently. The K rate is over 26% but Musgrove also has a career .326 wOBA to LHH. He’ll face four or five tonight and that could be problematic. His CSW after one start is a massive 42.3% in part because his velocity was up across the board on every pitch. If he’s not chalky, I won’t take that risk in cash but I like Musgrove to tame the Rangers’ offense. It’s just a matter of format as to where I would play him.
Honorable Mention – Possibly above all else, I’m not sure what to do with Zack Wheeler. There’s no denying that he was phenomenal against the Braves the first time out, with seven innings and 10 strikeouts. The CSW was 36.7% and his velocity was up a little bit as well. Atlanta has started slowly overall with a K rate over 30% to righty pitching and a bottom-six mark in wOBA but I’m not sure how long that lasts. I don’t think we’ll make money, in the long run, targeting Atlanta’s offense and I’m not looking to do it tonight. For me, he’s totally out on FD as the most expensive option. I’m not sold on Wheeler yet, but as always will let the projected chalk guide me.
Gas Can of the Slate – This might be the first main slate we’ve had access to the 2021 version of the Big Red Machine. They won’t see my Buccos pitching tonight, but they do draw Taylor Widener of the D-Backs. He pitched well enough against the Padres in his first start but we have 120 innings from 2019 on between AAA and the majors. In that time frame, his HR/9 has been over 2.00 with a fly ball rate over 40%. His xFIP during that time is over 5.55 so there’s nothing in his profile that makes me think we should shy away.
Enter the Reds, who are literally top-two in average, slugging, OPS, ISO, wOBA, and wRC+ at this stage of the season. Widener used his fastball over 70% of the time in that first start and in his 26 IP has a career .397 wOBA, .268 average, and a 2.70 HR/9 to LHH. Enter Mike Moustakas who feels like a must-play at just $4,100. He’s mashing with a .520 wOBA so far and the price simply isn’t high enough. Additionally, he was the third-best fastball hitter last year behind Joey Votto and Nick Castellanos. He’s the lone expensive Red but is their best fastball hitter and is nuclear at the plate right now. Keep an eye out for cheap lefties like Tyler Naquin and Tucker Barnhart as well to take advantage of the lefty weakness for Widener. I’ll stack Reds until they make me stop.
Secondary Options – Jonathan India, Eugenio Suarez
Yesterday was a Cubs and Mets ML parlay, so I’d like to say good morning to Michael Conforto and I hope that fastball you’re getting hit with later on doesn’t hurt too badly.
Record – 6-3
Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 4.9 and make sure you follow me on Twitter at @bucn4life! Be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD ACCOUNT account here at Win Daily Sports. Gain access to our Projection Models and jump into our Discord where we will have our experts talking plays across every sport and slate!
Another slate of afternoon baseball games today! It’s a short slate, so Jon Jansen and Brian Slone try to find their favorite bets of the day on the 4.8 Bettor Baseball Podcast!
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The Bettor Baseball podcast is back after a perfect 7-0 on Monday’s picks Jon Jansen and Brian Slone go over a big afternoon MLB slate with plenty of great matchups on today’s 4.7 Bettor Baseball Podcast.
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Thank goodness we have some real options tonight, it’s only the fifth day of the season. We have eight games but there are four legitimate ace-caliber pitchers on the slate and none are over $10,000 on DK. It certainly looks like a double-ace kind of night at my first glance but let’s dig into the Starting Rotation 4.6 and see what we find!
Note – We’re starting to use pitch data from this season. It’s still a very small sample but we need to start migrating to this season. Also, all images are from baseballsavant.com.
Lucas Giolito ($9,300 DK/$9,600 FD)
I think the righty for the White Sox might well be the best bang for your buck on both sites tonight. He’s the SP3 in terms of salary but the upside is no different than anyone else. We’re going to start using the 2021 stats and by those numbers, Seattle doesn’t look like a great matchup. They’ve only whiffed 23.1% of the time and are top-five in ISO against righties so far. That’s fine but Giolito is inside the top 10-12 pitchers in baseball.
The Angels are a tough team to whiff as well but he struck out 40% in his first start and that’s after a 33.7% rate last year. The CSW (called+swinging strike rate) in the first game was 34.5% which is good news for where Giolito was in his first turn. The Mariners were a 24% K rate team last year and that’s plenty for Giolito to exploit. Even the splits from 2020 are excellent for Giolito. He held RHH to a .243 wOBA and stuck out LHH slightly more at a 34.7% rate compared to 32.3% for RHH. It’s hard not to love him tonight.
Tyler Glasnow ($9,100 DK/$10,700 FD)
It’s a day that ends in Y which means I’m going to write up Glasnow. I will get this out of the way that I’d probably just play Yu Darvish on FD since he’s cheaper. Glasnow being the SP1 in terms of salary on that site doesn’t make the most sense. On DK, he’s the SP4 and I’m all over that. His first start of the season was fascinating. Glasnow developed a slider in the offseason and he threw it more than his curve, which surprised me. I assumed the slider would be just to keep hitters off-balance and maybe that will be the case. It could have been just to get the feel for it. It worked as he only gave up one hit across six innings and he whiffed six hitters on under 80 pitches. The leash should be longer tonight and I’m very excited about it.
Boston’s offense woke up a little bit last night but that’s not a huge concern to me. Glasnow had a 37.7% CSW in the first turn through the rotation and the slider generated a 41.7% whiff rate on the 26times he threw it. If the slider is a weapon and not just a “third pitch”, the ceiling for Glasnow is massive. Boston has whiffed almost 24% of the time so far and even with Wacha struggling last night, he struck out six hitters through five innings.
Clayton Kershaw ($9,500 DK/$9,000 FD)
Oakland only has 14 at-bats to lefties this season coming into Monday, so we’re still using 2020 stats for the A’s offense. Yes, Kershaw didn’t pitch that well in Coors Field but I’m not sure I care about that even a little bit. Going into Oakland is a pretty massive upgrade for the pitching environment and we’re still talking Kershaw here. He used the slider a ton in the first turn but he did lean on it as his primary pitch last year as well. In 2020, Oakland whiffed 24.2% of the time against lefties and finished no better than 20th in average, OBP, OPS, slugging, ISO, wOBA, and wRC+. They were a very poor offense against this handedness, not to mention not a single current hitter had a FanGraphs rating above 0.4 on the slider last year. I’ll be curious to see where the popularity lands but Kershaw is still an excellent option tonight.
Honorable Mention – I’m not planning on using any pitcher outside of the top four in salary in cash this evening.
Yu Darvish ($10,000 DK/$10,200 FD)
The ranking for the Giants against the cutter is interesting because they were 26th last season. That could be the small sample size breaking through and it’s not a factor that leaves me off Darvish. I have him in the GPP section simply because he’s the most expensive on DK and the field may not find the need to go there with three cheaper options. Likewise, on FD, they could just flock to Giolito. That does NOT mean that Darvish is not a great choice on his own. We talked last time that the D-Backs were not the best possible spot for him and they went out and proved it. Darvish struggled a bit but the BABIP from that game was also .429. He was due regression from the 2020 campaign but that’s obviously extreme.
Darvish still struck out 26.1% of the hitters he faced. My biggest “fear” is there are five lefties projected for the eight lineup spots. Darvish was slightly worse to that side of the plate last year with a .261 wOBA allowed and only a 26.1% K rate. He whiffed 39.8% of the righties he faced, so the Giants lineup may not give him the upside you want when he’s the highest-priced option on the board for DK. Let’s see what’s projected but that is the main reason I’d go just GPP for Darvish and lean towards the other three ahead of him.
Freddy Peralta ($7,600 DK/$6,400 FD)
I’m highlighting something a little different for Peralta. He’s worked out of the bullpen once this year for two innings and promptly struck out six hitters. Now, he also walked three and threw over 50 pitches in two innings of work but that’s why he’s in the GPP section. What catches my eye is the fastball velocity. It’s up about two MPH over last season and he threw the curveball more as well. Those changes could be to his benefit because throwing a fastball almost 75% of the time is tough to survive on. Peralta has always been a total dart throw for consistency but he has a career 31.5% K rate over 194.2 IP.
What could be the key factor here is the Cubs have been putrid against the fastball since the start of last season. They finished 2020 ranked 25th against that pitch and that was with Jason Kipnis having a 4.4 rating. No other current hitter other than Ian Happ is above 0.4. This season, the Cubbies have risen…to 21st. They only have one player over a 1.0 mark early and it’s Jason Heyward. If Peralta has any version of control, he could make some noise and has serious strikeout upside. The control isn’t guaranteed so the range of outcomes is quite wide.
Honorable Mention – I really wanted to use James Paxton as he was throwing fire in the spring but a lefty pitcher against the White Sox is basically a no-fly for me. If you play 20 lineups or more, that would make more sense.
Gas Can To Attack – We have Coors back on the slate so that’s going to get plenty of attention and I think there’s a pretty clear path to stack Giolito/Glasnow at pitcher and play at least five Coors hitters. German Marquez toes the rubber for the Rockies and he’ll be opposed by Luke Weaver. Marquez in his career has a 5.06 ERA at home with a .350 wOBA and .307 average given up to LHH. That side of the plate has always been an issue and my biggest focus is Ketel Marte.
He’s started 9-16 on the season with two bombs and is not even $5,000 yet. He really struggled last season but in 2019, Marte posted a .404 wOBA and .250 ISO with just a 14.1% K rate to righty pitching. We can kick in bats like David Peralta and Josh Rojas as they are both under $4,000. Rojas has been leading off for the D-Backs and maybe the thin air gets him moving a little. Peralta has had two straight seasons posting roughly a .350 wOBA and about .150 ISO against righties, positioned in the five-hole most likely.
For the Rockies, my two main hitters are Charlie Blackmon and Ryan McMahon. Both hitters had average years last year but in 2019, both hammered righties at home. Chuck Nasty had a massive .476 wOBA, .359 ISO, and a 1.187 OPS while McMahon sat at a .353, .242, and .849 mark respectively. Lefties demolished Weaver last year with a wOBA over .400 and a 2.63 HR/9. That latter number actually got worse on the road, so Coors isn’t where he wants to go. That setup still leaves you with $3,500 with catcher, first base, and third base to fill. It’s intriguing in GPP and a Blackmon/Marte combo is likely a cash game lean for me.
TBD
Record – 2-3
Thank you for reading my Starting Rotation 4.6 and make sure you follow me on Twitter at @bucn4life! Be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD ACCOUNT account here at Win Daily Sports. Gain access to our Projection Models and jump into our Discord where we will have our experts talking plays across every sport and slate!
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