Pitching: Snell (#1 Optimal), Kirby (#2 Optimal), Boyle (#1 DK GPP/#2 FD GPP), Warren (#1 FD GPP), Rea (#2 DK GPP), Valdez (#3 GPP)
Hitting: NYY (#1 Optimal FD), ARI (#1 Optimal DK/#2 Optimal FD), HOU (#2 Optimal DK), LAA (#1 FD GPP), CHC (#1 DK GPP/#2 FD GPP), SFG (#3 GPP)
Weather: All Clear!
This afternoon’s MLB slate features 7 games on FanDuel with an earlier start time and just 5 games on DraftKings. There are a couple of glaringly obvious pitchers and then a number of options beneath the hood. Let’s break it all down!
Both of the slate’s optimal arms on this slate come from the same game and are projected to carry overwhelming ownership in this spot. George Kirby will be facing off with the San Francisco Giants. If there was one of these arms to fade for us, it would be him as he has some very concerning X stats trends of late. On the season, lefties have a .226 xISO off his heater while righties have a .242 xISO of their own. Those numbers have become markedly worse over the last 30 days. Over that span, lefties have a .337/.400 line and righties have a .442/.437 line themselves. The matchup is absolutely brutal as Wade (.179/.407), Ramos (.228 xISO), Conforto (.207 xISO), Chapman (.265/.377), Yastrzemski (.217 xISO), and Estrada (.190/.334) all hit the fastball well. Kirby still grades out as the best point-per-dollar option on DraftKings and second-best on FanDuel, which makes it hard for us to call him bad chalk per se. However, with his projected level of ownership, this is a hard spot for us to want to just blindly jump on board.
With that being said, Blake Snell is on the other side of this game and it is a spot for him to shine against the K-happy Mariners. Snell has fanned 38% of lefties and 32% of righties this season. He is projected to see 9 righties from Seattle and that should be just fine by him as he has held them to a .109/.267 line this season. His “worst” pitch to them is his heater (.136/.282) and Seattle has just been extremely poor offensively this season. There also is a bit of a revenge narrative here with him pitching in Seattle where he grew up. He was making clear overtures to the Mariners in the offseason about wanting to pitch for them and they never even made him a contract offer (thanks to Mariners ownership!). He is going to want to put on a show here and makes for an excellent optimal arm.
Turning to GPPs, our top option on the DK slate is Joe Boyle of the Oakland Athletics. He also is our second-favorite option on the FD slate. Boyle made a strong return to the rotation in his last time out against the Tampa Bay Rays. Since returning from AAA, he has posted two strong outings. Over that span, he has a 27.3% K rate against lefties and a 24% K rate against righties. He has held lefties to a .090/.276 line and righties to a .028/.281 line themselves. While the Brewers did go bonkers last night, this is a strong spot for Boyle to continue to roll for Oakland. The leash is long here as he threw 104 pitches in his last appearance and he makes for an excellent GPP option.
Will Warren stands out as the best point-per-dollar option on the FanDuel slate by a wide margin this afternoon. We just saw the Rockies get shut out last night by Carlos Rodon and company. The issue for the Rockies here is that Warren is quite reverse splits from a damage perspective. Lefties have a minute .074/.226 line against him this season compared to a .243/.377 line from righties. The issue is that his K rates are not reverse splits as he has fanned just 16.1% of lefties and 33.3% of righties. The Rockies are projected to start 6 lefties against him, which should help him control the damage but hinder his K upside. Of the righties he will see, just Doyle (.228/.428) and Rodgers (.263/.371) have good pitch value alignment. He clearly stands out from a value perspective compared to every other pitcher on the site and can be deployed in GPPs as a result.
Colin Rea is our next GPP option in his matchup with the Oakland A’s. This is an interesting spot for Rea as Oakland is a team that strikes out a healthy amount. His sinker has been an issue for him this year as lefties have a .306/.394 line against it with righties sitting at .184/.379 themselves. His K rates overall are nothing special at 18.7% to lefties and 19.8% to righties. However, over the last 30 days, they have jumped to 22.7% and 25% respectively. Despite some of these numbers, he has been absolutely shredding teams of late. He has posted 20+ fantasy points in 6 of his last 9 starts and 8 of his last 12. The only A’s with strong numbers against the sinker are Rooker (.322/.473) and Bleday (.194/.404). If he can work around the two of them, there is loads of upside for him to tap into in this spot given his price point.
Finally, we would be remiss if we did not call out Framber Valdez. The Orioles have been scuffling big time of late and won yesterday thanks to a late-inning explosion. Valdez flipped a switch at the beginning of July and has not looked back since. He has now posted 25+ fantasy points in 6 of his last 7 starts and that corresponds to a massive spike in K rates. He has fanned 9+ hitters in 5 of those 7 outings after having none of those outings the whole season before that. This can be evidenced when looking at his K rates for the season (24.7% to lefties, 23.5% to righties) and comparing them to his K rates over the last 30 days (37% to lefties, 33.7% to righties). He has married these elite numbers with a .102/.285 line to lefties and a .118/.294 line to righties. The matchup is harder than Snell’s but the numbers are quite comparable. He is projected for around ⅓ of Snell’s ownership on DK and ⅕ of Snell’s ownership on FD. Valdez is an elite GPP option in our eyes.
Offenses on this slate are a pretty condensed spot depending on site as you will see. On FanDuel, it should come as no surprise that the New York Yankees are the first optimal stack to consider. They are facing Bradley Blalock and the Rockies in Yankee Stadium. The numbers for Blalock in the early going are rough. Lefties have a .186/.419 line off his heater and righties have a .437 xwOBA off of it it. That will make bats like Torres (.198/.371), Soto (.526/.556), Judge (.462/.513), Wells (.357/.433), Stanton (.376/.386), Chisholm (.248/.324), Verdugo (.196/.339), and Rice (.216/.337) all strong options to turn to. You pretty much cannot go wrong picking a Yankee here and they are set to pop off in this spot.
The Arizona Diamondbacks are a day removed from an annihilation of the Boston Red Sox and are popping as the top optimal spot on DraftKings (and another strong optimal spot on FanDuel after the Yanks). They are facing Kutter Crawford 14 homers in his last 6 starts and continues to struggle. His fastball has been getting mashed over the last month with lefties holding a .268 xISO off of it and righties holding a .264 xISO. Lefties also have a .560/.538 line off his cutter over that span. The Snakes look really good here. Options like Carroll (.444 xwOBA), McCarthy (.179/.376), Pederson (.546/.647), Bell (.275/.346), Gurriel (.274/.429), Del Castillo (.545/.571), and Suarez (.206 xISO) pop off the page. Newman looks like strong value on DK in particular as well.
The Houston Astros are popping as an optimal option on DraftKings in particular where they are gathering ownership since the Yankees are not on the slate there. They align well enough against Albert Suarez but we are not over the moon excited about the spot they are in. Suarez has been elite against lefties, holding them to a .100/.280 line this season. Righties have had success off his heater with a .223 xISO off of it. Altuve (.249/.367), Diaz (.177/.359), Pena (.371 xwOBA), and Meyers (.255/.411) are the top dogs here. They candidly just don’t look as good as Arizona does and are projecting for similar ownership, making them a tougher click for us.
Turning to GPPs, the Los Angeles Angels look quite good on FanDuel in their matchup with the Toronto Blue Jays and Bowden Francis. Bowden’s fastball has been quite poor this season. Lefties have a .213 xISO and righties have a .274/.360 line off of it. That makes options like Ward (.357/.412), Neto (.326/.418), O’Hoppe (.221/.338), and Kavadas (.386 xISO) a very strong stack to consider. Rendon also grades out as a strong value option in our projections to round out the stack.
Finally, we love the upside of the Chicago Cubs. They are facing off with Valente Bellozo and the Miami Marlins in this one. Lefties have mauled Bellozo’s changeup (.295/.473) and righties have a .286/.397 line off his heater. The pitch values line up pretty dang well as Busch (.226/.352), Suzuki (.325/.381), Hoerner (.347 xwOBA), Swanson (.184/.323), and Amaya (.210/.393) all line up very well here. Pete Crow-Armstrong had an inside-the-park homer last night and has blazing fast speed, leading to him projecting quite well here as well. Ian Happ (.201/.433) has strong numbers against the cutter, which is another pitch that Bellozo features prominently to righties. Best of luck this afternoon!