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As you’d expect with Tuesday being the fifth day of games, we’ve been graced with a relatively hideous collection of pitchers to choose from. With the lack of elite pitching, we can expect to have some extra salary to burn on top-tier hitters tonight. FanDuel has opted to include the two games starting at the odd 6:40 EST start time on their main slate, they aren’t included on the main slate over on DraftKings.
Top SP: Kyle Gibson, TEX ($9,700 DK, $8,200 FD) vs. ARI
Oh boy, top-tier pitching you say? Yeah, not on this slate. Walker Buehler is on a tight pitch count so that takes him off the board at his salary. Carlos Martinez is making his first start in a long while on the road in Minnesota. On DraftKings, paying $10,000 for a road dog with seemingly limited upside in Merrill Kelly seems a stretch to say the least. On the other side of that game the slight home favorite, Kyle Gibson features what’s one of the better K rates of the slate at 22.7%, though that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement considering the other options we have to choose from. Did I mention that the pitching on this slate is not exciting?
Honorable Mentions: Homer Bailey, MIN ($9,000 DK, $8,000 FD) vs. STL
Value SP: Josh Lindblom, MIL ($5,100 DK, $6,100 FD) at PIT
Per the MLB Odds page at FTN the Angels are the biggest home favorite on the board. If you’ve frequented the site this past off-season you may recall Patrick Sandoval he has some surprisingly good swing and miss stuff overall a 13.5% swinging K rate and 29.7% CSW. Most notably a changeup, which he threw 31% of the time, that featured an outstanding 49.6% whiff rate. But the one clear problem here is that Sandoval’s camp was delayed by illness so he was only able to work himself up to about 50 pitches in his last tuneup meaning we can’t expect him to work too deep into the game tonight.
That has me leaning into Josh Lindblom a little more. They are a comparable price point but Lindblom, who is a wildcard making his return after two years in the KBO, is probably a better bet to go deeper into his game. As of this writing, the Brewers are the biggest road favorites of tonight’s slate.
Honorable Mention: Patrick Sandoval, LAA ($6,600 DK, $5,600 FD) vs SEA; Kyle Wright, ATL ($6,400 DK, $7,500 FD) at TB.
1B Pete Alonso, NYM ($5,600 DK, $3,600 FD) at BOS
Looking at the DFS tools over at FTN, we should be giving a long look at the Mets this evening as they have a massive implied run total approaching six runs. We know the Boston rotation, like many other things, is a complete mess right now, as they will be running out the southpaw Matt Hall, who will be making his 2020 debut. Last year in Triple-A, then a member of the Tigers organization, Hall pitched to a 5.30 ERA, 1.53 WHIP with a fairly decent 27% K rate across 86.2 IP. But as you might guess things didn’t get much better upon his promotion to the big league club whereupon he logged a 7.71 ERA and 1.84 WHIP over 23.1 IP. An ugly 13.3% BB rate and 8.9% swinging K rate indicate that this a pitcher who we should look to attack. This is as good of a time as any to unleash Pete Alonso as he and his fellow Mets will look to bombard the Green Monster at Fenway against a beleaguered Boston pitching staff.
Mets pitching prospect David Peterson will be making his debut creating a perhaps equal opportunity for Boston to stack up runs should the rookie southpaw struggle out of the gate. The Red Sox offense carries a ton of upside and once again J.D. Martinez is an excellent play if you want to look at the other side of the game.
Honorable Mentions: J.D. Martinez, OF ($5,300 DK, $4,100 FD) vs. BAL; Mookie Betts, OF ($4,700 DK, $4,200 FD) at HOU; Keston Hiura, 2B ($4,300 DK, $3,200 FD) at PIT.
OF Jorge Soler, KC ($3,700 DK, $3,600 FD) at DET
Tigers scheduled starter Dario Agrazal, he of the 12.7% K rate, won’t be available tonight due to an elbow injury. Instead, we’ll get some sort of frightful amalgamation of Detroit relievers as they’ll look to piece together some innings. This looks like a prime time to unleash Jorge Soler, who according to the lineup optimizer on FTN, has one of the highest value ratings, particularly on DraftKings where that $3,700 price tag sticks out like a sore thumb.
We always like to target Joey Gallo against low-strikeout RHP, we’ll get that opportunity and at a very nice price point too against Merril Kelly who had just a 17.4% K rate against lefties last season.
Honorable Mentions: J.D. Davis, 3B/OF ($4,400 DK, $2,200 FD) at BOS; Yoenis Cespedes, OF ($4,400 DK, $2,600 FD) at BOS; Joey Gallo, OF ($4,100 DK, $3,400 FD) vs ARI; Matt Olson, 1B ($4,500 DK, $3,500 FD) vs. COL.
Value Batter: OF J.D. Davis, NYM ($2,200 FD) at BOS
We mentioned it earlier that the Mets find themselves in a prime spot to stack up some runs tonight and they look really underpriced on FanDuel. I’m not quite sure who is in charge of the salaries over on there but I for one will not stand for this disrespect of J.D. Davis. He had excellent batted ball data last year highlighted by a .380 xwOBA and is an easy play at this price. And not far behind is his teammate Yoenis Cespedes at $2,600 on FanDuel. Hey, look Amed Rosario at $2,700 too.
Over on DraftKings, Maikel Franco, who coincidentally enough just hit two home runs last night, is just $2,200. As mentioned earlier with Soler, the Royals get a bullpen date with the Tigers. He’s the exact same price on FanDuel too. The other side of that game is interesting in terms of value bats too, in particular, C.J. Cron. As of this writing, the Royals have yet to announce a starter.
Honorable Mentions: Maikel Franco, 1B/3B ($2,200 FD, $2,200 DK) at DET; C.J. Cron, 1B ($3,100 DK, $3,000 FD) vs. KC; Sal Perez, C ($2,800 DK, $2,700 FD) at DET; Yoenis Cespedes, OF ($2,600 FD) at BOS; Trent Grisham, OF ($2,600 FD, $3,500 DK) at SF; Josh Donaldson, 3B ($3,100 FD) at CWS; Amed Rosario, SS ($2,700 FD) at BOS; Jesse Winker, OF ($2,300 FD); Justin Upton, OF ($3,600 DK, $2,900 FD) vs SEA.
Lineup Stack: Dodgers at HOU (LHP Framber Valdez)
The Mets have the highest total of the evening, but we’ve already managed Alonso and Davis. So let’s talk about the Dodgers who will be returning to Houston tonight. After Josh James barely managed three innings against the Mariners, the Astros will be throwing out Framber Valdez against the Dodgers tonight. Valdez is an erratic lefty who across 70.2 IP last season managed a not so great, to put it nicely, 7.3% K-BB%. Not surprisingly, Valdez struggled noticeably more against righty bats allowing a .356 wOBA while striking them out at meager 19.1% clip. The righties here in Mookie Betts and Justin Turner might make more sense on paper initially but considering how inefficient Valdez is he should give way to the pen early creating just as much appeal for the lefty bats here especially in tournaments.
Honorable Mentions: Red Sox vs. Mets (Peterson); Mets at Red Sox (Hall); Twins vs Cardinals (Martinez); Athletics vs. Rockies (Senzatela).
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Featured image by Justin Paradis (@freshmeatcomm on Twitter)