Hey Everyone,
Welcome back to another DFS article for tonights main MLB slate. I, for some reason, absolutely love Friday night baseball. For some reason I feel like I have been most successful on Friday night slates, but who knows, thats just how I feel. That means for tonight I am really excited and feeling confident. We have some great pitchers, bad pitchers, hitter friendly ballparks and weather, and everything in between. I've narrowed down to a couple plays I will be focusing on tonight and hopefully this helps you set some winning lineups.
If you are to my blog or daily fantasy sport in general, I enoucrage you to check out the introduction to one of my previous DFS posts as it provides some context to what these articles are about and how to utilize them to your advantage. I also put together a pretty in-depth article explaining DFS in general.
This article will focus on tonight's main slate of games. Your top 3 highest implied team totals as of this writing include Houston Astros (5.4), Colorado Rockies (5.33), and New York Yankees (5.3). The bottom feeders according to Vegas include San Francisco Giants (3.21), Minnesota Twins (3.23), and Boston Red Sox (3.24). As mentioned, I am feeling pretty good about tonight. Confidence level 8/10.
We have a ton of pitchers to sort through today, both expensive and cheap. Keep in mind, I focus mainly on FanDuel pricing and setup where only 1 pitcher is needed and is probably the most important piece to your lineup. I don't think ownership levels are too worrisome tonight since it is such a large slate with many areas to attack.
Charlie Morton - $9,600
Good ol' ground chuck, at least thats what we use to call him in Pittsburgh. He actually has been a strikeout machine for Houston, so I don't know if that name necessary applies anymore. In anywise, Charlie Morton's price tag has dropped a little bit over the last few weeks where we saw him floating in the low 10k range. This is mostly he hasn't been that great, showcasing two of his worst outings back to back last week and the week before. For me, I don't worry about that. He played a game in the heat of Arlington (Texas Rangers) and a game against the games most fearsome offense in Boston. This should keep people off of him in terms of ownership.
Tonight Morton faces off against the weak Kansas City Royals lineup. For the entire 2018 season, the Royals have not shown much in terms of offense and rank towards the bottom of baseball in most categories. In terms of a split vs. right handers, Kansas City has a 84 wRC+ (ranked 25th), .296 wOBA (26th), and .126 ISO (28th). Meaning they barely hit the ball and when they do its not for power. The trouble and downside is that Kansas City does not strikeout. Like at all. They rank 30th in MLB vs. right handers with a 18% strikeout rate which does limit Morton's upside. But Morton's stats including strikeout rate are not to be forgotten. Morton over the last year has a 35% rate to left handers and a 33% strikeout rate vs. right handers. He also sports a 2.93/3.97 xFIP split, supporting his success over the last year. Morton is a big favorite tonight at -214 and should have no problem getting a respectable amount of strikeouts over 6+ innings with little damage. Fire him up, there is really no downside.
Ross Stripling - $9,100
Another big win favorite tonight (-212), Ross Stripling is in a great spot if your looking to save a couple hundred bucks off Morton. I do believe Stripling will be one of the highest owned pitchers tonight as he seems to be all over the place in terms of recommendations for DFS, hence the reason I ranked Morton higher. There is no question Stripling has been great this season and a sigh of relief for the Dodgers. Over the last year, Stripling is sporting a 3.09/3.02 xFIP split to go along with a nice 27%/27% split strikeout rate. Just look at his game log, Stripling has 5 straight 40+ FD performances. No question, he has been the real deal and reliable.
He enters tonight as a home favorite vs. the San Francisco Giants who just lost Longoria to the DL. For 2018, the Giants have been respectable but not great vs. right handed pitching. They have a 104 wRC+ (ranked 7th MLB), .319 wOBA (10th), and .154 ISO (21st). Numbers don't just off the page as being terrible but nothing spectacular. This selection is more based on the pitcher rather than his opponent. The Giants do offer up a a nice 25% strikeout rate for 2018 which ranks 8th most in MLB, so strikeouts will be available tonight for Stripling. If you are looking for a guy riding a wave of great performances, not overly expensive and in a decent matchup, look towards Stripling tonight.
There are a wonderful assortment of stacks and teams in great spots tonight. Luckily, I was able to narrow down to just a few I really like. Note, these are not ranked in any particular order but rather teams I will for sure be stacking tonight.
Pittsburgh Pirates
My hometown team.....yessssss.......its not often I get to recommend them! The Pirates, for how bad management of the team and lineup and pitching and literally everything else has been, have been a pretty good offense. Unlike previous years, the Pirates have been putting up crooked numbers at times, which is something we love in DFS. They should go low owned tonight too, which is great. This is more about who they are facing. The former Dark Knight himself, Matt Harvey. There was a second there when Harvey was traded to Cinci that people thought maybe he will revitalize his career, I mean he is still like only 29 years old. Nope, last couple weeks disproved that and Harvey is back to being the bad pitcher we have come to attack the last couple of years. Over the last year Harvey is sporting a terrible left/right wOBA split of .418/.327 to go along with a low strikeout rate split of 14%/18%. Even juicier, Harvey is serving up the long ball to a tune of 2.7/1.51 HR/9. We need to take advantage of that tonight. Pittsburgh vs. right handers for 2018 is sporting a 99 wRC+ (ranked 13th MLB), .315 wOBA (15th), and .158 ISO (17th). Make sure to get the left handers in tonight as Harvey really struggles in that category. Feel confident in my boys as they take on the former Dark Knight.
Colorado Rockies
The Rockies are also in a great spot tonight for a couple of reasons. First, they are Yohander Mendez, who outside of a great name, hasn't shown much promise in his limited MLB career. Yes, we don't have many stats but what we do know is he has gotten pummeled by right handed bats. I also took a look into Mendez's minor league numbers and nothing stands out as impressive. For 2018, Mendez maintained a xFIP over 5 in AAA. The Rockies are loaded with right handed power bats that have great career numbers vs. lefties. Second, the game is in Texas where its like a million degrees, making the ball fly like crazy. We all know what the Texas heat can do to the game and tonight should be no exception. Great weather for hitting should be on the table tonight and makes for a great stack of Colorado. Third, Vegas is supporting all of this nonsense. Typically you don't see Colorado with over 5 runs implied outside of Coors field. Well tonight they have a 5.33 team implied total, 2nd most on the slate. Stack em up and lets see that Texas weather pay off.
Cleveland Indians
The other stack I absolutely love tonight is the Cleveland Indians. Lets get to the point, the Indians seriously own Kyle Gibson. They get to face him a lot in the division and man do they tag him up. To be fair, Gibson faced the Indians a couple weeks ago and did very well with only 2 hits allowed and 7ks. However, history tells us that was an anomaly. Brantley, Kipnis, Encarnacion, Ramierez, and Gomes all have great career numbers vs. Gibson including high averages and home runs. This can all be explained simply from the fact Gibson isn't that good of a pitcher with a 4.47/3.86 xFIP split along with a .339/.328 wOBA split. Lefties do the most damage and the Indians have a lot of them (switch hitters). The Indians have also been on fire over the last month or so and rank top 10 in almost every major advanced stat vs. right handers. Don't be scared of the recent performance and trust Vegas tonight who has the Indians with an implied team total of 4.77. Cleveland should eat.
Other Notes:
As I mentioned, I like a lot of bats tonight. The above mentioned teams are my focal points for stacks but I will also be getting exposure to bats from the Yankees, Dodgers, and White Sox. Each team is a great spot and could be stacked but for me I will just try to get random exposure.
Hope you enjoyed. Lets have some fun tonight and win some money!
