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

🔊 4/9/19 | "On Deck" Podcast w/ Joe Pisapia & Chris Meaney

⚾️ 2019 MLB Preview & Strategy Guide

Hello again baseball fans! If you played last night, I hope things went well for ya. It ended up being a tricky one and pitching was somewhat of a minefield but that looks a bit different today. We have several aces on the mound to consider for this evening and we’ll need to adjust our offensive approach accordingly. In such a volatile sport like baseball, it’s nice that we have one constant out there that we can count on: Chris Davis’ hit-less streak rolling on (and FanDuel actually priced him at $500 today). Or maybe I just reverse jinxed him, who knows. If he gets a hit today, I’ll expect a check in the mail Mr. Davis. Anyhow, bit of a busy DFS writing day for me with The Masters just two days away, so I’ll get into plays to consider for today’s ten game main slate!

Also, feel free to visit us over in the PGA section if you’re looking to get into a new daily fantasy sport. PGA may be my favorite DFS sport to play and I’ll be happy to help anyone in chat get the basics down. The newsletter for The Masters should be out later this evening.

Here are the match-ups and Vegas lines for the ten games on today’s main slate menu:

There are no immediate weather threats concerning rain but but there are a few games with some windy conditions to keep an eye on but mostly blowing left to right (in Baltimore and Los Angeles). The 15-20 mph winds blowing out to center in San Francisco are mitigated by the stadium designed to minimize those westerly winds.

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

Pitchers to Consider

Stephen Strasburg (DK: $9.7k, FD: $10.5k) | RHP | WAS @ PHI

First off, if you can pay all the way up for deGrom and feel good about your lineup, then that’s probably the safest route to go, particularly in cash games. He’s the best pitcher in baseball right now so you’re going to want at least some exposure to him tonight. Going down by about $2k on both sites, we have another ace pitcher in Strasburg who gets a tricky match-up with a Phillies team with some serious power but they’re striking out to righties 23.4% of the time this season. Strasburg has 10 K potential any time he is healthy and steps on the mound and he should go deep into his pitch count, even if he allows a few runs. In his two recent starts against the Mets, he threw for 17 combined strikeouts against three walks with four earned runs in the first game, zero in the second and went for 96 and 108 pitches. The top of the Phillies order leans more righty heavy. Strasburg struck out 34.1% of righties in 2018 with a 2.74 xFIP (23.6% of lefties, 3.80 xFIP) so he’s equipped to handle the majority of their peskiest hitters. He’ll be the +134 underdog today and PHI has a 4.4 implied run total. Maybe reserve him for tournaments-only but I don’t think anyone would be surprised if he gave deGrom a run for his money as the top scoring pitcher on the day.

Marco Gonzales (DK: $7.6k, FD: $8.5k) | LHP | SEA @ KC

When looking for a bit of salary relief at pitcher but you still want a high K upside type guy, Gonzales probably isn’t your best bet for that sort of performance. He had just a 21.1% kRate in 2018 and has thrown just 11 K’s in 19.2 innings for a 13.4% kRate this season. However, he is 3-0 in as many starts and has the explosive Mariners offense to back him up. The Royals offense is pretty middle of the pack thus far in the season, as their 4.44 runs per game rank 15th. Since the start of the 2018 season, the Royals against lefties have a 23.4% kRate, .291 wOBA, .289 BABIP, and .127 ISO. All rank towards the bottom of the league. Gonzales is a slight -110 favorite with 4.2 implied runs for the Royals. It’s no slam dunk play but the odds are better than not that he can get you near 20 DKP/35FDP.

John Means (DK: $4.5k, FD: $5.5k) | LHP | BAL vs. OAK

There’s hardly ever any reason to pay way down for a pitcher on FanDuel but on DraftKings, maybe you want deGrom and also want to splurge a bit on several big bats? Well, you can’t get any cheaper when throwing a dart at John Means for your SP2 today. He’s getting the start after moving from the bullpen where he has tossed 9 K’s thru 5.2 innings (36% kRate) in three appearances so far this season. Oakland is not a good match-up for LHPs (.323 wOBA, .181 ISO, .322 OBP since 2018) and chances are that he doesn’t go very deep into this game, maybe four innings on 70-80 pitches maximum if he’s pitching well. But that would be more than enough time to rack up, ideally, 3-5 strikeouts and pay off this bottom barrel pitcher’s salary. He could also get rocked out of the gates and put up negative DK points, so don’t put any money on him you aren’t willing to lose! Regardless, you could make some intriguing ‘go big or go home’ type lineups with him.

Team Stacks to Target

It’s a Coors slate once again, so ATL & COL are two of your best stacking options by default if you can afford them.

Milwaukee Brewers vs. Matt Harvey (RHP - Los Angeles Angels)

I’m still shaking off the self-disgust I have from writing up Matt Harvey as a potential play in last Thursday’s ugly three game slate. I may suggest a random relief pitcher before I do that again. Harvey is working with a 5.87 xFIP, 12.5% kRate, 1.90 WHIP, and a .344 BABIP through 10 innings of work through his first two starts this year. Both sides of the plate should be in play when stacking Brewers, as Harvey had about a 1.30 WHIP and 20% kRate against righties and lefties last year. However, I’d lean pretty strongly towards the LHBs when looking for potential homers against him. Harvey gave up 1.94 HR/9 on 43.2% Hard Contact and 42.9% Fly Balls in 2018. Yelich, Shaw, Moustakas, and Grandal would be my initial Brewers I’d target.

Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Mike Minor (LHP - Texas Rangers)

In two starts, we’ve seen very different sides of Mike Minor after he allowed 6 ER in 4.2 innings on Opening Day against the Cubs, then went out five days later and shutout the Astros in 7 full innings. We’ll see which Mike Minor we get today but I do like several players for this Diamondbacks team to fly under the radar. Arizona, as a team, has been hitting extremely well against left handed pitching so far this season in 147 plate appearances. They have a .381 wOBA and .245 ISO with 6 homers and 16 doubles on 43.6% Hard Contact against LHPs. I’ll give Jones, Marte, Walker, Peralta, and Ahmed some strong looks when building a lower owned Diamondbacks stack today.

San Diego Padres (RHB) vs. Derek Holland (LHP - San Francisco Giants)

The Padres, as a unit, seem very well built to crush lefties. We’re still working with some small sample sizes this early in the season, but in 112 plate appearances against lefties, they are hitting for a .357 wOBA and .271 ISO on 47.3% Hard Contact, 41.7% Fly Ball Rate. In 2018, Holland allowed a ton of contact to righties: 45.4% Hard Contact, 39.7% Fly Ball Rate (and just 14.7% Soft Contact). He also allowed a .318 BABIP and 1.43 WHIP on that side of the plate as well. Load up on the powerful Padres righties in this one: Machado, Myers, Reyes, Renfroe, and Tatis Jr. should be big time home run threats tonight.

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. 

Cody Bellinger (DK: $5.2k, FD: $5k) | 1B/OF | LAD @ STL

Bellinger’s 10-game hit streak to open the season came to an end yesterday but he still managed some fantasy production with two walks, an RBI, and a run. There’s no reason to believe that Cardinals RHP Dakota Hudson stays on the mound too long today but when Bellinger faces off against righties, you’ll usually want some exposure. In his last 20 games against RHPs (54 plate appearances), Bellinger has a monstrous 1.164 wOBA+ISO on a .447 batting average with 7 home runs. He’ll be looking for his 8th homer in just the 12th game of the season tonight.

Michael Conforto (DK: $4.3k, FD: $3.7k) | OF | NYM vs. MIN

Conforto has been reasonably productive to start the year but busted out with back-to-back home runs on Saturday and Sunday. In his last 20 games against RHPs like Kyle Gibson, who he’ll face today, he has a .759 wOBA+ISO with three home runs in 61 plate appearances. For his career against righties, Conforto has a 39.9% Hard Contact Rate on 40.1% Fly Balls. Kyle Gibson isn’t very strong against LHBs by any means: .320 wOBA, 4.39 xFIP, 18.8% kRate, and 1.49 WHIP in 2018. The Mets only have a 3.8 implied run total but Conforto would be one of the leading candidates to provide deGrom with some run support and could work well as a pitcher + one-off hitter stack for some potential positive correlation.

Brian Goodwin (DK: $3.3k, FD: $2.8k) | OF | LAA vs. MIL

For some salary relief, Goodwin has been really solid this year batting from the six hole. He has hits in every game he has started except one and is sporting a .464 wOBA, .261 ISO, and a .440 OBP. Freddy Peralta was pretty lackluster against lefties in his 34 innings pitched against them last year: .374 wOBA, .376 OBP, 1.68 WHIP, 4.86 xFIP and gave up 1.59 HR/9 on 46% Hard Contact, 47.7% Fly Ball Rate. Even though this is one of those games with some potential wind that could aide the offenses, we shouldn’t really be expecting a bomber from Goodwin but a couple base hits and RBIs would suit his DFS prices just fine. 

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