Written by Ryan Humphries | @N1TRO on LineStar | @NitroDFS on Twitter

🔊 4/22/19 | “On Deck” Podcast w/ Chris Meaney & Neil Parker

⚾️ 2019 MLB Preview & Strategy Guide

MLB gets your Monday going with a ten game slate -- though weather in Boston likely scratches one game off of that list along with a couple of the higher tier pitching options (Chris Sale and Matthew Boyd). Pitcher pricing is especially jumbled in some spots between DraftKings and FanDuel today so that's something to keep in mind in the LineStar chat (as in people on FanDuel may show interest in Flaherty at $7,800 while not many on DraftKings will care to go for him at $9,800). There are a couple pitcher salaries that DraftKings bumped up, which I kinda gave a sort of Clint Eastwood eye squint at when I first pulled up today's pricing. Still, despite the fact that there are no true aces out there to choose from tonight, there are some quality arms at reasonable salaries across the board as well as several offenses that look like viable candidates to stack up. Let’s dive in!

Here are tonight’s match-ups with game totals & money lines:

DET @ BOS: Plenty of rain is expected in Boston for several hours before this game is set to begin, continuing throughout the scheduled game time, and well into the night. It’s difficult to see this game getting played and even if they try, it’d be a huge risk targeting anyone here. There’s a good chance that by the time some of you read this, the game will have already been postponed but we'll see if the weather lightens up throughout the day. For now, however, no players from this game will be highlighted in this newsletter.

PHI @ NYM: The same system hampering Boston may affect New York but these are projected to be lighter batches of rain. This game likely plays but possibly through some light showers. Monitor closely!

MIL @ STL: Winds blowing out to left field around 10 mph may give the slightest of bumps to some power hitters, particularly the righties.

Stay up to date on all weather conditions and confirmed lineups as soon as they are released over on the Daily Dashboard!

Pitchers to Consider

Joe Musgrove (DK: $8.1k, FD: $9k) | RHP | PIT vs. ARI

Musgrove has had a really impressive start to his 2019 season. In 22.1 innings of work, he has a 25.6% kRate and 4.9% Walk Rate while allowing just a .169 AVG, .232 BABIP, and 0.76 WHIP. He has also yet to surrender a home run. With only two earned runs given up this year, you can count on Musgrove’s 0.81 ERA to rise but his 3.67 xFIP can still be considered solid. The Diamondbacks are pretty “middle of the road” in terms of offensive strength and against RHP this season (557 plate appearances) they have a 25% kRate, .326 wOBA, .190 ISO, .325 OBP, and 100 wRC+. All numbers are right around league average except for a slightly higher than average strikeout rate. Musgrove has normal splits so he should handle the Arizona RHBs well. The only lefties that concern me are David Peralta and Jarrod Dyson, along with reverse splits hitter Christian Walker (if he plays) so Musgrove should be able to work through most of this order pretty comfortably, while also having the advantage of avoiding a DH. The Pirates are -140 home favorites in the pitcher friendly PNC Park while the Diamondbacks have just a 3.4 implied run total.

Yonny Chirinos (DK: $7.4k, FD: $7.3k) | RHP | TB vs. KC

No need to play the “who will the Rays roll out as a long reliever” game today as Chirinos is set to garner his third start of the season. I don’t love the match-up that Chirinos has with the Royals -- against RHP this season, Kansas City has above league average numbers: 21.8% kRate, .333 wOBA, .199 ISO, .331 OBP, and 107 wRC+. However, this is not necessarily a spot to avoid him, especially when you look at his home/away splits. Chirinos has 109 professional innings pitched with the Rays since the start of last season and his numbers improve considerably at home:

Away: 45.1 IP, 3.97 ERA, 4.25 xFIP, 19.1% kRate, .285 AVG, .326 wOBA, 1.43 WHIP

Home: 63.2 IP, 3.11 ERA, 3.79 xFIP, 23.2% kRate, .209 AVG, .257 wOBA, 0.94 WHIP

This guy is only 25, entering the second year of his MLB career and is someone to really keep an eye on because he has some legitimate talent. With him earning the start, we should feel more confident in him seeing a starter’s workload -- so about 6 IP, 85 pitches as a reasonable floor barring a Royals offensive explosion against him. With his lower DFS prices and significant home/road splits, there’s quite a bit of room for some strong value here.

Adrian Houser (DK: $5.7k, FD: N/A) | RHP | MIL @ STL

Adrian Houser? Who the hell is “Adrian Houser?” I’ll tell ya who… I don’t really know! But I’ve looked at his numbers and have decided that he may be worth a wild dart throw at SP2 tonight if you’re looking to get a little weird in a DraftKings GPP (sorry to the FanDuel players, they don’t have him as an option tonight -- not that you’d really need to use a pitcher like this in a single pitcher format anyway). With Freddy Peralta on the injured list, Houser is being called up from triple-A and will be earning his first career MLB start while stepping in Peralta’s spot in the rotation. Houser threw 13.2 innings worth of relief work last year for the Brewers and in his three triple-A starts this year across 16.1 innings, Houser is punching out batters with a 28.6% kRate, .172 AVG, 1.10 ERA, 3.90 xFIP, and a 0.73 WHIP. Even at the triple-A level and in a small sample size, that’s enough for me to throw at least some consideration his way despite a tough match-up with St. Louis, a team that is strong against RHP: 23.2% kRate, .347 wOBA, .207 ISO, .343 OBP, and 116 wRC+. This is not some sort of post-Easter Sunday special so don’t go putting all your eggs into this basket, but pairing him with another mid-tier pitcher will pretty much allow you to go wild and get whatever bats you want.

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.

Coors Field Preface: The Nationals/Rockies game is at Coors Field tonight. Both teams are pretty clear candidates to stack and won't be mentioned below.

Chicago White Sox vs. David Hess (RHP - Baltimore Orioles)

With the way things are going over the first three and a half weeks of the season, this Baltimore pitching staff as a whole will need to be targeted on a near nightly basis. Tonight’s Orioles starter, David Hess, has been generous to any offense he’s faced not named the “Blue Jays.” In general, some of his numbers across his 21 innings this season aren’t terrible: 17.7% kRate, 5.9% Walk Rate, .250 AVG, .224 BABIP, 1.19 WHIP. But he has already given up SEVEN home runs and they have all come in his last three starts (over 12.2 innings). This has led to a 3.00 HR/9, 5.57 ERA, and 5.81 xFIP. Even in his 103.1 IP in 2018 he still allowed plenty of dingers, with a 1.92 HR/9 rating and he’s also not especially effective towards either side of the plate, so there's no need to force righty or lefty bats in when creating a CWS stack. After Hess gets his four or five innings of work in (unless he gets tagged up real badly right away, like the Rays did to him in his last start), Baltimore will deploy one of the worst bullpens in baseball. The Orioles relievers have a collective 6.55 ERA, 5.28 xFIP, 2.39 HR/9, and 1.61 WHIP. There is a ton of potential home run upside here. You could make an argument for the majority of the White Sox lineup when building a stack. My favorites would be Yoan Moncada (.438 wOBA, .356 ISO vs. RHP this season) and Tim Anderson (.477 wOBA, .286 ISO) with Ryan Cordell as a viable cheaper option towards the back of the order.

Milwaukee Brewers vs. Jack Flaherty (RHP - St. Louis Cardinals)

I’m sure everyone is as confused as I am as to why DraftKings chose to price Flaherty at $9,800 today. This will be the third time Flaherty has faced the Brewers already this season. In the seven innings across their first two games against him, the Brewers have 16 hits (3 HR) and nine earned runs. Flaherty is certainly a better pitcher than his two starts against Milwaukee would indicate and I’m sure he will look to have a better performance against them in St. Louis, but it’s still worth giving a Brewers stack a look as their ownership likely won’t be too high. Christian Yelich (.575 wOBA, .541 ISO vs. RHP this year) is basically a must for any Brewers stack at this point but Mike Moustakas (.431 wOBA, .365 ISO) and Yasmani Grandal (.369 wOBA, .200 ISO) should also be in play. Jesus Aguilar’s bat is basically a giant icicle right now but his DFS prices are in the gutter (DK: $3k, FD: $2.4k) and he still likely sees a decent spot in the order.

Oakland Athletics vs. Mike Minor (LHP - Texas Rangers)

Minor is coming off of a complete game shutout and despite the sizable salary increase, that alone will likely make him a relatively popular pitching option today. I’ll look to go the other way in tournaments by stacking some A’s up despite them being in the midst of a pretty rough slump in their recent home stretch of games. Overall this season, in 275 plate appearances, the A’s have been really strong versus left-handed pitching. Their 14.9% kRate is the lowest in the league and they also have a .353 wOBA, .231 ISO and 124 wRC+, all ranking near the top of the league. Also, Minor’s 2.60 ERA so far this season looks great on paper until you notice his xFIP currently sits over two runs higher at 4.67 along with a 4.49 SIERA. Regression should be due and due soon. Also, when the Rangers bullpen does come into play, it should stand as an advantage for the A’s. While it’s not fair to judge their 1.96 HR/9 rating too harshly, considering Texas’ home park is super home run friendly, their 5.19 xFIP and 4.78 SIERA ratings are still among the worst in the MLB. You’ll get the majority of upside from the (likely) two through four hitters: Khris Davis (.491 wOBA, .571 ISO vs. LHP this season), Marcus Semien (.383 wOBA, .261 ISO) and Matt Chapman (.381 wOBA, .500 ISO).

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.

Joey Gallo (DK: $5k, $4k) | OF | TEX @ OAK

Anyone who plays MLB for more than a week or two will quickly realize how boom/bust Joey Gallo is. But you don’t draft Gallo into your lineups looking to get a couple singles, two RBI and maybe a stolen base. You take Gallo for the upper-deck bombs and extra base hits that he can provide. For someone with a career average barely above .200, his bat has been scorching hot as of late. In his last six games he has a .478 AVG (.645 wOBA, .696 ISO) with four home runs, two doubles, a triple, and 11 RBI. We’ll see how hot that bat stays as he leaves the sanctity of Globe Life Park in Arlington and goes on the road to Oakland to face the righty Chris Bassitt, who will be making his 2019 debut.

Brett Gardner (DK: $4.3k, FD: $3.8k) | OF | NYY @ LAA

I thought about just rolling with the Yankees as a recommended stack against Matt Harvey but I feel like I’ve picked on Harvey for his last few starts in the stack section and people may be over it. So while I do like a potential Yankees stack, I really like targeting Gardner as a “one-off” (or part of a mini-stack) who I assume will bat lead off tonight. In his last nine games, Gardner has a .407 wOBA, .383 ISO, .342 OBP to go with four home runs and eight RBI. Harvey has really struggled to put out lefties, allowing a .342 AVG, .482 wOBA, .468 OBP and 2.42 WHIP against LHBs this season. Gardner has just a 10.1% kRate versus RHPs on the year so another scrappy and productive day should be in order for him out in Los Angeles.

Robinson Chirinos (DK: $3.6k, FD: $2.8k) | C | HOU vs. MIN

Jake Odorizzi is a RHP with extreme reverse splits, meaning he is quite a bit worse against RHBs than LHBs. The Astros are loaded with great righties that Odorizzi will have to contend with and Chirinos should be considered one of them, despite the fact that he won’t have a high spot in the order. He has been one of the more productive catchers in the league this season with a .271 AVG, .367 wOBA, .250 ISO, .355 BABIP, and .362 OBP to go along with a pair of home runs and six doubles. One of Chirinos’ 70 career home runs has come off of Odorizzi (in four plate appearances) and he should certainly be able to play a role in the Astros scoring tonight.

LineStar MLB Freeroll

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1st Place: $5 towards your lineups or your choice of LineStar T-Shirt

Congrats to Wednesday's winner: DonJavi22 - 161.55 points!

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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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