Sunday Night Baseball 3/31
Our first Sunday Night Baseball matchup of the 2024 season is set for tonight between the Cardinals and the Dodgers. Los Angeles will send young right-hander Gavin Stone to the mound. In his short stint in the big leagues last year Stone pitched to a 5.15 xFIP and held lefties to a .161/.360 line but allowed a .210/.393 line to righties. Stone’s strikeout numbers were low with just a 14.5% K rate last year but he did generate a solid amount of swings and misses with a 14.4% swinging strike rate. Stone is a fine play on this slate but we’d stick to him in a flex spot on this one. He’s a bit too expensive for the captain slot with the number of high-end bats you can make on this slate. Steven Matz will get the ball for the Cardinals after a nice 2023 season for them. He held both sides of the plate to xISOs under .140 and xwOBAs under .310. His K numbers don’t jump off the page but are respectable around 22% against both sides of the plate. Matz has decent numbers in his career against this Dodgers lineup with a .197 xISO and .313 xwOBA allowed to them in his career. Matz will likely be a bit higher-owned on this slate and is a fine play in all formats. On this slate we think you only need to use one of the pitchers. Some potentially available bullpen arms that you can use for value are Ryan Brasier, Andrew Kittredge, Evan Phillips, and Daniel Hudson.
The Dodgers have three of the top bats in this one with their top 3 of Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, and Freddie Freeman. All three had fantastic numbers against southpaws last season with xISOs over .250 and xwOBAs around .400. Betts and Ohtani both really stick out in our projections with over a point more projected than any other hitters on the slate. They are the two top options to target and good Captain options as well. We expect Mookie to come in higher owned of the two on this slate. Teoscar Hernandez has solid power numbers against lefties throughout his career and hit two homeruns for the Dodgers yesterday. He’s still expensive but falls in a slightly more affordable price range. Paul Goldchmidt and Nolan Gorman are high upside options from the Cardinals’ lineup. Both hit righties for xISOs over .220 and xwOBAs over .350. Nolan Arenado is a step below these bats but is viable as well. Stone was hurt on his four-seam fastball to righties last year for a .523/.588 line and Arenado crushed this pitch for a .332/.396 line last season. Two good value tonight are Chris Taylor and Brendan Donovan. Taylor is one of the few Dodgers with good lifetime numbers off of Matz with a .246 xISO in 16 career plate appearances and held a .217 xISO against lefties last season as well. Donovan finished last season with a .351 xwOBA and just a 14% K rate against right-handed pitchers. Taylor projects to be higher owned so we prefer him in cash games tonight and Donovan in GPPs. Two more even cheaper value plays you can use are Alec Burleson and Enrique Hernandez.