Written by Greg Landry | @glandry on LineStar | @GP_Landry on Twitter

🔊 4/20/19 | “On Deck” Weekend Podcast w/ Joe Pisapia & Chris Meaney

⚾️ 2019 MLB Preview & Strategy Guide

Happy 4/20? Is that still a thing? It’s been a while since I was in college. Welcome to another Saturday edition of the Daily Ledger. Hope you guys all had a great week. Honestly, when I first noticed this was only a five game slate, I considered not writing an article at all. But after taking a look, it turns out this is actually a super interesting five game slate with a lot of directions you could go in.

Here are tonight’s match-ups & Vegas lines:

First, it’s a Coors slate so we have to figure out how we want to approach that. We also have a game in Texas tonight, otherwise known as “Coors Jr.” (I don’t think it’s actually known as that but you get the point). Our two stud pitchers of the night (if we look at 2018 data) are each pitching in one of those parks, which makes them more risky than they should be. Gerrit Cole is taking on the Rangers in Texas and Aaron Nola is on the hill at Coors tonight. Nola, as hopefully you’ve noticed, has been awful to start the season, but the sites have both done a fantastic job pricing him down today to at least make us consider using him. He’s just $8.1K on DraftKings (previously $9.6K) and he’s only $7.4K on FanDuel! Like it or not, that will put him on the radar for tournaments.  

Aside from those two studs, we have Luis Castillo, who is pitching like a stud to start the season, but his price has now caught up to his recent production so we have to decide if we are buying it or not. We have Yusei Kikuchi, who has been underwhelming thus far, but he’s facing an Angels team that is the worst in baseball against left-handed pitching. See what I mean? There’s actually quite a bit to work with tonight and definitely a lot to consider, which makes this a pretty fun five-game slate.  

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Pitchers to Consider

Gerrit Cole (DK: $10.7K, FD: $11.1K) | RHP | HOU @ TEX

This shouldn’t come as a surprise but Cole is the top pitcher on the board tonight. What’s going to be interesting is to see where his ownership ends up. I think a lot of people are going to take the savings and land on Luis Castillo tonight which, as I’ll explain in a bit, is not a direction I’m planning on going in myself. This COULD leave us with Cole at less ownership given the difficult ball park, powerful Rangers lineup, and his price tag. Against right-handed pitching this season, the Rangers have a .807 OPS, .198 ISO, .347 wOBA and 114 wRC+. Not exactly numbers I want to go out of my way to attack with pitching. But they also strikeout 25.2% of the time, which is a nice lift on Cole’s already massive strikeout rate. In 2018, Cole had a 2.91 SIERA, 1.03 WHIP, and 34.7% strikeouts. Even better was his 41.1% strikeout rate against left-handed hitters, which is where most of the Texas power comes from. Cole allowed below average 27.7% hard contact and just a .236 wOBA against lefties last season. This will be no easy task for the Rangers lineup. The Astros are currently -230 favorites and although the 4.2 implied runs against number is high for Cole, it’s still low for a team playing in this ballpark. I will do my best to find the money for Cole as often as possible when building lineups tonight.  

Eric Lauer (DK: $7K, FD: $7.3K) | LHP | SD vs. CIN

On the other side of the game facing Castillo, we have the much less exciting Eric Lauer. My initial reaction to the mid-tier today, at first glance, was to go with Yusei Kikuchi but I’ve since backed off of that after I had a chance to dive into the numbers a bit more. The Angels are one of the worst teams in baseball right now against left-handed pitching, which would seemingly give Kikuchi a big advantage but they also strikeout an astonishingly low 16.6% of the time. Kikuchi, meanwhile, has a very low 17.9% strikeout rate himself. Without any strikeout upside you’re essentially relying on Kikuchi to pitch a shutout and eat up as many innings as possible to get his fantasy points today, especially on sites where earned runs lead to negative points. I’ll take my chances elsewhere, which is what has lead me to Lauer. The Reds have been a bit better as of late, going 5-5 in their last ten games. Their numbers against lefties are actually solid as well with a .362 wOBA, .276 ISO, and 122 wRC+. But they strikeout an abysmal 28.9% of the time against lefties, which is great news for Lauer. Better yet, they are also terrible on the road with just a 1-7 record and a very low .223 wOBA, .148 ISO, and 33 wRC+. Tonight they are on the road and get a massive park downgrade going to San Diego for this game. Lauer and the Padres are underdogs in this game but not by much. With the added strikeouts, he should be able to pick up against this lineup I like him to return value tonight.  

Chase Anderson (DK: $6.7K, FD: $5.5K) | RHP | MIL vs. LAD

This is risky but he’s super cheap, particularly on FanDuel, and is expected to get the bulk of the innings tonight. Even in a bad matchup there’s enough to work with here for Anderson to exceed value on his price tag on both sites. With Freddy Peralta on the IL (every time this season I’ve typed DL and had to erase) the Brewers are expected to use the “opener” method made famous by the Tampa Bay Rays. The Brewers executed this strategy a few times at the end of last season with success. Anderson is reportedly going to receive the bulk of the innings, which puts him on our radar as a tournament option tonight. It’s not a good matchup. I’m not trying to hide from that. The Dodgers are currently the best team in baseball against right-handed pitching with a .884 OPS, .241 ISO, and .370 wOBA while striking out just 17.5% of the time. But one thing working slightly in our favor is Chase Anderson is a reverse splits pitcher. The numbers still aren’t great but they are at least better against left-handed hitting than right-handed hitting, which is important against a team with so many strong left-handed bats. In 2018, against right-handed hitting, Anderson had a 4.92 xFIP, 1.21 WHIP, 19.2% strikeout rate, 15.4% soft contact rate, and allowed a .336 wOBA. Against left-handed hitters, however, he had a 4.68 xFIP, 1.17 WHIP, 20.5% strikeouts, 26.2% soft contact, and allowed just a .299 wOBA. The xFIP and strikeout rates aren’t great but I am encouraged by the high soft contact and the low wOBA he allowed to left-handed hitters. If he can use that to limit the damage then it won’t take a ton of strikeouts for him to reach value at these prices.

Team Stacks to Target

Quick Note: Keep in mind, there’s no rule saying you *have* to roll out four and five man stacks. Sometimes mixing and matching two and three man stacks with some one-off hitters is the better route to go in order to give yourself more exposure to different offenses.

Stacks are interesting tonight. The most obvious one, in my opinion, is Houston against Adrian Sampson. Then we have Philadelphia, in Coors, against Antonio Senzatela. After that it's less clear. I'm going to skip over the obvious ones and make a case for a few others that should go under the radar but have the potential to put up some runs tonight while keeping our lineups different from the rest of the field.

Seattle Mariners vs. Trevor Cahill (RHP - Los Angeles Angels)

Trevor Cahill has allowed five home runs in four starts so far this season. That’s a 2.05 HR/9. Ironically, the only start of the season where he didn’t give up a home run was against these same Mariners. I’m feeling pretty confident he won’t be able to pull that off twice. Cahill has a 46.2% fly ball rate and is allowing 36.4% hard contact. The Mariners have a league leading 45 home runs this season to go along with a .219 ISO and .345 wOBA against right-handed pitching. Sample sizes this season are still a bit small for my taste, but Dan Vogelbach tops my list with his .475 ISO and .530 wOBA against right-handed pitching. Santana (.198 ISO, .388 wOBA), Encarnacion (.172 ISO, .369 wOBA), Narvaez (.375 wOBA), Beckham (.194 ISO, .342 wOBA), Healy (.304 ISO, .322 wOBA), and Haniger (.269 ISO) all have excellent numbers against right-handed pitching at this point and can put us in position to compete with the more popular stacks tonight. By the way, make it a league leading 46 home runs now because Vogelbach just hit a bomb while I was typing this section.

Milwaukee Brewers vs. Hyun-Jin Ryu (LHP - Los Angeles Dodgers)

This isn’t my favorite option tonight but we have to remember, on a small slate like this, it’s more about game theory in tournaments. We need to take some shots on teams that have a chance of going off and will be low owned. I don’t see the Brewers being on anyone’s radar but we know they have a ton of upside and they play better at home. Ryu is being activated off the IL today after a blister issue. There’s always a chance of a setback there. He also, just like his opponent Chase Anderson today, has reverse split tendencies and actually struggles more with left-handed hitters than right-handed hitters. This plays directly into the hands of this Brewers offense that has a ton of left-handed power. For his career, Ryu has a 3.36 xFIP, 1.15 WHIP, 22.9% strikeout rate, and has allowed a .289 wOBA to right-handed batters versus a 3.69 xFIP, 1.41 WHIP, 18.9% strikeout rate, and allowing a .331 wOBA to left-handed batters. Any Brewers stack starts with Christian Yelich. In 2018 he had a .983 OPS, .415 wOBA, and .250 ISO against left-handed pitching. Grandal (.324 wOBA, .178 ISO), Braun (.360 wOBA, .277 ISO), Thames (.185 ISO, 41.2% hard hits) and Aguilar (.389 wOBA .267 ISO in 2018) despite his early season struggles are on the radar. This is not a stack I will be heavy on but an argument can certainly be made for them, so I will give myself at least some exposure and hopefully catch lightning in a bottle. 

San Diego Padres vs. Luis Castillo (RHP - Cincinnati Reds)

This is my favorite stack of the night and the unpopular opinion I referred to in the title of this article. Before you guys rip me apart in chat later, I will add this disclaimer – this isn’t guaranteed to work. Castillo has been excellent this season. He has a 1.46 ERA, 33.3% strikeouts, and a ridiculous 0.89 WHIP in 24.2 innings pitched. However, the advanced stats are painting a bit of a different picture. The 1.46 ERA is impressive but it comes with a 3.76 SIERA, which is a red flag being over two runs higher than his ERA. That’s the first sign of incoming regression. Next, Castillo has a completely unsustainable .184 BABIP against him, which tells us he’s been getting a little lucky so far. The 33.3% strikeouts are nice and show off his upside but the 13.5% walks are scary bad and could get him into trouble in a hurry. Castillo is going to be popular tonight. It’s a good matchup, a pitcher friendly park, very low total, and he’s significantly cheaper than Cole. But there are a lot of reasons to be pessimistic about his outcome in this game. This is an opportunity to gain leverage on the field if you’re willing to stomach the risk. A perfect spot to plant our flag on a small slate and hope it hits. Let’s not forget these are not the same San Diego Padres that we’ve been so used to picking on over the years. Machado has a .356 wOBA and .183 ISO against right-handed pitching. Tatis Jr is living up to the hype so far and finds himself at the top of the batting order recently. He has a .375 wOBA and .305 ISO. Reyes (.342 wOBA, .311 ISO), Margot (.326 wOBA, .220 ISO), and “THE GREAT” Hunter Renfroe (.347 wOBA, .295 ISO) are all looking pretty good (and affordable) on paper. Eric Hosmer has been awful but he’s $3K on DraftKings tonight and Castillo has a history of struggling with lefties (4.30 xFIP, 1.53 WHIP, 42.4% hard contact allowed in 2018). Will Myers is off to a bit of a slow start also but he’s capable of popping off at any point and carries a .525 wOBA + ISO over his last 150 games against right-handed pitching.  

One-Off Hitters

Here I’ll highlight players at [roughly] different price points (high, mid, low) that could be used as a ‘one-off’ piece in lineups -- or perhaps part of a two man mini-stack. 

Omar Narvaez (DK: $3.9K, FD: $3K) | C | SEA @ LAA

Finding catchers you can count on is not easy in DFS. It’s too early to decide if this is for real or not given the small sample size but Omar Narvaez is knocking the cover off the ball lately. He has 18 or more fantasy points in three of his last five games and he bats in a respectable spot in the order (typically sixth or seventh) in this very powerful Seattle lineup – again something that is sometimes difficult to find with a catcher. The best part of Narvaez’s hot streak is it shouldn’t come as a total surprise. Even over his last 150 games, he has a very respectable .531 wOBA + ISO against right-handed pitching. If you’re rolling out Seattle stacks tonight, you should absolutely include him. If you need a one off catcher, he’s a guy with a ton of upside that won’t break the bank. If you want to be different you could play him on FanDuel as well, where the catcher position often gets overlooked because it’s not required.

A.J Pollock (DK: $4K, FD: $3.2K) | OF | LAD @ MIL

I talked about Chase Anderson and his reverse splits earlier. He’s obviously not unhittable or anything like that against left-handed batters but the numbers clearly show he’s better in that situation. This puts Pollock in a good spot as one of the more powerful right-handed batters in this Dodger lineup. Anderson had a 4.92 xFIP, 46.4% fly ball rate, and 38.3% hard contact allowed against right-handed hitters last season. He also had a below average 19.2% strikeout rate. Meanwhile Pollock, who started off rather slow on his new team, is starting to get it going with double-digit fantasy performances in two of his last three. Over his last 150 games against right-handed pitching, Pollock has a .562 wOBA+ISO and a 2.03 FP/PA. He’s also reasonably priced, particularly on DraftKings, at only $4K.

Jose Altuve (DK: $5.2K, FD: $4.6K) | 2B | HOU @ TEX

My favorite team on the board today is Houston, so at the top of the priority list when taking price out of the equation is Altuve. The Astros have a 5.3 implied run total, so you’re going to want as much exposure as possible here. In his last 20 games he has a .756 wOBA+ISO and 2.47 FP/PA. If we look at a larger sample, over the last 150 games, he has a .531 wOBA+ISO and 2.02 FP/PA. It’s really difficult to find a night when we don’t have interest in Altuve but everything lines up tonight for him to put up big numbers. For the record, San Diego makes it easy to fit Houston. 

Best of luck today! Be sure to give the “On Deck” podcast with Joe Pisapia and Chris Meaney a listen if you haven’t already! You can find it linked at the top of the newsletter.

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