We are almost to the end of the regular season and we do get a full slate tonight although most teams have packed it in for the season. With that said, the list of starters will continue to be relatively short as we can focus on exactly who is important and who isn’t in the MLB DFS Starting Rotation 10.1!
The bad news is there are not a lot of trustworthy arms tonight. The one that stands out the quickest is Clayton Kershaw. He and the Dodgers are clawing to stay out of the Wild Card spot and in his last start, Kershaw got smacked around. That’s not how he wants to go into the postseason so I fully expect him to throw 75-90 pitches and try to be in his best form. Kershaw is still using the slider as his primary pitch and if he qualified, it would be the highest-rated slider on FanGraphs. It just so happens that Milwaukee is 29th against that pitch and is 0.2 away from being dead last. That is not a good matchup for them tonight and they cannot move their seeding at all. The Brewers have also been seventh in K rate against lefties all year at 24% and Kershaw has a 30.5% K rate against righties with a 2.79 xFIP. He’s slated to face six righties and the pitcher spot and I’m willing to pay the premium.
I would expect Kershaw to be chalky and that opens up a very interesting pivot in Sandy Alcantara. You could argue to play both but that is an expensive route to take and even though Miami doesn’t have a thing to play for, Alcantara is still pitching his typical workload. Philly could be eliminated by the time this game takes place but no matter what, Alcantara has been great this season. He’s also been in top form in Miami with a 2.95 xFIP, a 26.6% K rate, a 2.17 ERA, and a .235 wOBA. He has been worse against lefties on the year but a significant chunk of that has come from his road starts. The last start against the Phillies in Philly was rough but the first two generated at least 20 DK and had one over 30. Alcantara features a slider and changeup that both have a wOBA under .280 and a whiff rate over 30%.
In that same game, Ranger Suarez should be very, very chalky again as well. DK did finally raise the price to what he deserved to be but he’s coming off a 40 DK point start. That’s not even mentioning the fact that Rich Hill was chalk last night and Suarez has been pitching much better than he has. Suarez is still rocking an elite combo of a 25.1% K rate and a 60.6% ground ball rate and that could not be better for DFS. We’re either getting points for the whiffs or the ball isn’t in the air to do a lot of damage. While his strikeout rate is higher against lefties at 31.4%, it’s still 22.8% against righties and the hard-hit rate is just 29.1%. The sinker and change are his main weapons with over 70 strikeouts and both are under a .260 wOBA. We could game stack this one in GPP.
There are a bunch of talented pitchers that generally we like but face very difficult spots and I will not really be interested unless they draw a weird lineup. That list includes Shane McClanahan, Lance Lynn, Sean Manaea, and Nestor Cortes. McClanahan especially could see a shorter start with the Rays locked into the number one seed. I think there are two other potential plays in Marco Gonzales and Jose Suarez, two lefties in the same game. I don’t particularly like the salary for Gonzales but he’s just a hair under averaging 19 DK points in the past 10 games. The crafty veteran lefty draws an Angels lineup that has been in the bottom-eight of all of our offensive categories since the deadline. He is insanely risky at this salary because his xFIP against righties is 5.64 and not typically what we talk about. However, the Angels have been so bad and Gonzales has been so strong that he is worth a look.
Suarez is a lot cheaper but there is not a lot of safety here since the Mariners are fighting and Suarez is just not a stable option. The K rate is 20.3% but the swinging-strike rate is 11.2% which is fairly high. Seattle is 17th and 27th against the curveball and changeup, which make up almost 50% of the pitch types for Suarez. Now the lineup is important for him because he is rough against lefties with a .405 wOBA and a 4.98 xFIP, while the Mariners are projected for three. If that’s all, the .269 wOBA against righties and a 1.07 WHIP is much more appealing so we would need to know what he’s looking at. It doesn’t hurt that Seattle is fourth in K rate against lefties, either.
MLB DFS Starting Rotation 10.1 Stacks
I’m looking to afford the Kershaw/Suarez duo to start but I’m jamming in Blue Jays as well. They will get Thomas Eshelman as a long reliever and through 71 batters faced, he has a .427 wOBA, a 6.30 xFIP, and just a 7% K rate against the right side of the plate. He’s throwing a fastball almost half the time and Marcus Semien, George Springer, and Bo Bichette are in the top five of the team against that pitch. They also sit above a .340 wOBA and a .170 ISO. Springer and Semien are especially appealing with their ISO’s over .290 on the year and we know that if you can’t miss bats against the Jays, you’re not going to have much success.
That means we need salary relief and we’re going to get in the Cubs. they’re always a risk because they whiff so much but at the same time, they have some hitters who have played well since the deadline like Frank Schwindel, Rafael Ortega, and Ian Happ. All of these hitters have a wOBA over .335 and Schwindel is at a .415 mark, in addition to all of them being over a .200 ISO. They’re going to start with Daniel Hudson but he likely doesn’t stick around long and then we’re into the bullpen. That trio is plenty cheap for their performance and only Happ has a K rate above 19%. I’ll roll with that to get the pitching I want and at least three Blue Jays bats.
Thank you for reading my MLB DFS Starting Rotation 10.1 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!
Today’s edition of Aces and Bases focuses ONLY on FanDuel’s nine-game MLB DFS Main Slate for 7:05PM ET, hopefully finding you some green screens!
No weather that will likely impact play, and best hitting environments are in Baltimore, Cincinnati, Coors Field and Anaheim.
He’s the top ace of the day with a fine matchup against the Mets, and will likely be the most popular for cash games. With an obnoxious, almost unheard-of 1.58 FIP and 2.34 ERA in line with his 2.31 XFIP, Burnes is having a historic season. His 12.59 K/9 is amazing, but it’s even more implausible when we consider the 1.82 BB/9 rate. The Mets just got flummoxed by Eric Lauer last night, and now they face a pitcher with a curveball/cutter combo that’s among the best we’ve seen over the past 20 years. Lock him into cash lineups and move on.
Ray has had two poor starts among his last three, but his regularity in the 45-70 point range this season means he’s the best GPP play on the board against the Twins in Minnesota. We could see some portion of the field move to Burnes given the recency bias of Ray’s last start. The Toronto ace shouldn’t have too many problems with the righty-heavy Twins lineup, and although they hit fastballs well, Ray’s is among the best in baseball. Adam Strangis goes through some of the same rationales in his excellent Starting Rotation article for 9/25, and while that mainly looks at DK pricing, the thought process only affirms itself even more on FD, where you have to choose one pitcher. Ray is the best GPP option considering price and upside.
He’s a contrarian play based on the other two pitcher I’ve discussed, so if you really want to get different I don’t have a problem with using Lynn in large-field GPPs. For single entry I’d prefer both Burnes and Ray, but Lynn does have some upside in this matchup vs. Cleveland and still boasts ands nice 30-35 point floor because of his solid metrics (3.26 FIP and 27.8% K rate). The mases won’t be on him, so maybe he’s a good pivot in one-third to half your multi-entry lineups.
If we can fit these guys, I think today is one of the days we have to play them. Brandon Crawford ($3,900), LaMonte Wade, Jr. ($3,800), Tommy La Stella ($3,600), Brandon Belt ($4,300) and Kris Bryant ($4,300) and Evan Longoria ($3,700) are not cheap, but I’m hoping we can find a way to get a full four-man stack in there with a couple of value plays from the Reds and a two more (one-offs or two-man mini stack). , Mike Yastrzemski ($3,800) is day-to-day after being removed from Friday’s contest with knee soreness, so keep an eye on who starts in the outfield. We may find a player like Alex Dickerson ($2,500) in a good spot at a reduced salary.
This just feels like a Reds day facing Erick Fedde, and they’ve got good hitting weather, a hittable pitcher, and a lineup peppered with enough value plays that will let us spend at SP without much discomfort. I’m looking at four-man combinations of the following hitters: Joey Votto ($4,100), Nick Castellanos ($3,800), Max Schrock ($2,100), Jonathan India ($3,500), Tucker Barnhart ($2,200), Kyle Farmer ($3,300) and T.J. Friedl ($2,100). And that’s in order of priority.
Angels SP Jaime Barria has an xFIP over 5.00, and we have a slew of relatively inexpensive hitters from both sides of the plate who match up well in this spot. Prioritize the 1-5 hitters, especially J.P. Crawford ($3,000), Ty France ($3,000) and Mitch Haniger ($3,600) and mix in guys like Jake Fraley ($2,000) and Abraham Toro ($2,400) if you’re tight on salary.
Make sure to keep an eye on the starters as lineups are released. Good luck tonight, and please utilize the MLB Projection models to land on your one-offs and off-the-wall value plays!
Today’s edition of Aces and Bases focuses ONLY on FanDuel’s eight-game MLB DFS Main Slate for 7:05PM ET, hopefully finding you some green screens!
No heavy rain in the forecast tonight, but there are a few light showers in the San Francisco area for Braves-Giants. Nothing that should keep us off the game.
Burnes is coming off an 8.0 IP, 14 K (and no-hit) masterpiece in Cleveland on Sept. 11 where he racked up 76 FD points. The only thing that gives me pause is the fact that after a 15 K game against this Cubs team on Aug. 11, he only recorded 3 Ks in his next outing versus the Cards. But that’s nitpicking. He’s the best arm of the slate with the highest floor and ceiling, and it’s not particularly close. Unless he gets lit up, he’s probably looking at a 40-point floor and 70-point upside again.
I think we probably need to find a way to fit Burnes into most of our GPP builds tonight as well, but McCullers in a home matchup against the Diamondbacks does offer some opportunity for salary relief with about 75-80% of the upside that the Milwaukee hurler does. The biggest knock against him tonight is the fact that Lance isn’t great against lefties, and Arizona (a high strikeout team for sure) could roll out up to seven against McCullers in this game. Still — there are not any really cheap options on this slate that don’t involve massive risk, so I think the best bet is still using a top arm and finding value in the bats.
Lynn is the only other pitcher on the slate with 65-70 points upside, but it’s ben a while since we’ve seen that kind of dominance out of the right-hander. The appeal here is the tasty matchup facing the Rangers, a small cost savings from Burnes and lower projected ownership, but I’m not sure that sacrificing the upside and floor is worth rolling him out in any more than one or two GPP lineups out of 10. McCullers and Lynn project for similar outcomes tonight.
It’ll be damn near impossible to afford the top bats (Jose Altuve at $4,200, Alex Bregman at $4,300 and Yordan Alvarez at $4,000) from Houston tonight in lineups that lock in Burnes, but if we grab some value bats from the bottom of this potent lineup, we can get a piece of this high projected run total (5.7) and still get exposure. I’m looking primarily at righty killers Kyle Tucker ($3,900) and Yuri Gurriel ($3,300) with Jose Siri ($2,700) and Jake Meyers ($2,400). Chas McCormick ($2,400) is obviously also an option if one of the other OF sits.
Attacking objectively bad sinkerballer Daulton Jeffries, who is starting for the A’s, is where we can find the necessary firepower to build a winning lineup. If we start out our FD builds with Burnes and sinker destroyer extraordinaire Shohei Ohtani ($4,400), we have $2,771 per remaining hitter left in salary. This leaves us with the value options in the aforementioned stack and guys like Brandon Marsh ($2,400), Darrin Fletcher ($2,600), Max Stassi ($2,400), Jared Walsh ($3,000) and Luis Rengifo ($2,300) — who hits sinkers particularly well, as Adam Strangis points out in his MLB DFS Starting Rotation 9.18 article.
If we’re grabbing some Angels, there’s no reason we can’t get some of the other side of this matchup as well, as the Athletics offer some excellent value options in their lineup facing lefty Jose Suarez. Those bargain bats include 2B/3B/UTIL eligible leadoff man Josh Harrison ($2,900), Chad Pinder ($2,200), Yan Gomes ($2,600) (or Sean Murphy at $2,100) and Khris Davis ($2,100). If there’s room for Mark Canha ($3,200), Starling Marte ($3,800) and Matt Olson ($4,200), that’s great — we could even mix and match and exclusively game stack OAK-LAA — avoiding the chalky Houston bats altogether in some of our GPPs.
Make sure to keep an eye on the starters as lineups are released. Good luck tonight, and please utilize the MLB Projection models to land on your one-offs and off-the-wall value plays!
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