Daily Fantasy Pitchers and Stacks – 8/2/16
Nick Rodriguez
Happy Tuesday! The work week is still fresh & NFL isn’t quite here. Which means we need some daily fantasy baseball to help entertain us for a few more days! Welcome to a full 15-game slate, packed with plenty of fresh options as well as some of the usual suspects. Aces on the mound, Coors Field, and Max Kepler. Here we go!
Pitchers
Madison Bumgarner FD 11800 DK 13000
Opponent – PHI (Eflin) Park – @PHI
FD – 41.28 DK – 27.06
We have a lot of aces on the mound, but the “safest” play of the day has to be Bumgarner. He is an elite pitcher, who has been pitching like one, and draws a favorable matchup.
He will be facing off with the Philadelphia Phillies, who have struggled against southpaws this season. They own a .282 wOBA (dead-last in MLB), so look for Mad-Bum to take advantage. He is one of the best pitchers in the game today and has some upside, so go ahead and use him in your cash games.
Jose Fernandez FD 11000 DK 12700
Opponent – CHC (Hammel) Park – @CHC
FD – 37.44 DK – 24.86
Going up against the Cubs is not an ideal matchup for a pitcher, but this is Jose we’re talking about. He owns a 36.8 K% on the year (highest in MLB) to go along with a 76.2 LOB% and 2.26 xFIP. In tournaments, we tend to look for the guy with the highest ceiling and Jose is that guy.
While the Cubs are one of the best offensive teams in the league, they have the tendency to strikeout. They own a 22.6 K% (6th in MLB) against right-handed pitchers. Mr. K meets a team that strikes out a ton, so we there is potential to rack up the K’s tonight. He is an excellent pivot from Bumgarner in tournaments on ownership alone, although this becomes a riskier assumption as NFL approaches and less MLB-savvy folks enter the ring. Pricing is the only deterrent from me taking heavy exposure.
Gerrit Cole FD 9500 DK 9000
Opponent – ATL (Foltynewicz) Park – @ATL
FD – 35.83 DK – 23.47
While Gerrit Cole doesn’t have the same upside as Jose, he does draw a better matchup and has Vegas on his side.
He will be going up against the Braves tonight, who have struggled against right-handed pitchers this year. They own a .290 wOBA (30th in MLB) and .118 ISO (30th in MLB). They haven’t had much going for them on offense and playing at Turner Field won’t help their cause.
Not many people talk about Gerrit Cole, but he’s been good this season. He is coming into this contest sporting a 74.7 LOB% along with a 2.78 ERA. He isn’t a guy with a whole lot of upside, as he owns a 20.0 K%; BUT he has gotten close to 10 SO/9 in prior years as well as in the minors. With this matchup he could migrate back towards those numbers soon. And unlike Jose, Vegas has the Pirates as heavy favorites tonight, which increases his chances of picking up the win. He presents another, potentially lower owned, cash game option for tonight.
STACK TARGETS
Coors
Well this update came a little late but after review, here is what we think so far:
First, there are some weather concerns in Coors. 30-35% chance of t-storms around game start. It clears up a bit later but the chance for PPD is definitely there.
Outside of weather, we are a little bit more bullish on McCarthy (LAD) than some might expect. With almost every Dodgers pitcher going down on injury, McCarthy has seemingly stepped it up since his return from TJ surgery. He is relying heavily on his 4-seamer and his curve has improved a lot. The numbers in his short 26 innings pitched are pretty solid with a sub .9 WHIP to prove that point. But the below average goundball rate on his fastball at ~32% can quickly lead to a ball or 2 over the fence. Not a ton of data yet but his numbers are certainly much better than the 20-ish innings he pitched last season. And that is enough to skew our eyes at Jon Gray and the Dodgers platoon.
Gray has been doing well recently as a rookie. But he faced the Phillies and the Braves and now he is back in Coors. Also, he seems to get beat up by lefties with a high hard contact rate and the Dodgers have been doing really well against Righty pitchers. They just added yet another lefty to their lineup in Josh Reddick. I’d be more interested on this side of Coors, but both sides are certainly in play.
Lefty Dodgers to look at: Gonzales, Seager, Reddick, Pederson
Cleveland Indians vs. Kyle Gibson (MIN)
While the Indians didn’t score 12 runs last night (it was the Twins), they still had a nice night putting up 5 runs. It obviously was not enough to win the game, but this is DFS! We just want our guys to score and hit dingers!
With that being said, I love generating a few Indians stacks in the mlb optimizer tonight. They will be going up against Kyle Gibson, who has struggled this season. On the year, he owns a 1.40 WHIP to go along with an ERA, FIP, SIERA and xFIP all over 4. This is a good matchup for one of the best teams in baseball, so go ahead and show them some love! It’s their turn to score 12 runs!
My top 4 guys to stack: Mike Napoli, Francisco Lindor, Jason Kipnis and Jose Ramirez
Washington Nationals vs. Robbie Ray (ARI)
Ok, Robbie Ray has looked great as of late, but for this reason and few others, we are still going to pick on him and give a hard look at the Nationals.
Like we’ve mentioned, the D’backs bullpen is just awful and we saw it last night. They allowed 6 runs after Bradley’s 8, so watch out for something similar. As for the Nats, not only have they been hot but they also smash lefties. They own a .341 wOBA (5th in MLB) along with a .207 ISO (1st in MLB). The Nats’ get a southpaw, a terrible bullpen and a hitter friendly park, what more can we ask for? Well besides free beer?
Again, stay tuned for more stack options and some further details on Coors.