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

🔊 5/28 "On Deck" Podcast feat. Joe Pisapia & Chris Meaney

⚾️ 2019 MLB Preview & Strategy Guide

*** Please Note - DraftKings has removed the KC/CWS game from the slate. FanDuel has stated that if the game starts BEFORE 8:10 ET, then all players will receive 0 for that game. ***

I hope everyone had a nice, long Memorial Day weekend. One more quick salute to all the soldiers who gave their lives so that the rest of us can enjoy our freedoms! Now we quickly get back to the grindstone today with a full slate of baseball to break down. FanDuel will include all 15 games on their main slate, which will start at 6:35 pm ET, and DraftKings has elected to stick to the 13 games that begin at 7:05 ET or later. For the purposes of this newsletter, I will look to focus only on the 13 mutually shared games on both DK and FD. But first, I think we should acknowledge how absurd some of the DraftKings pricing is getting to be -- primarily with pitchers. Skyrocketing someone like Frankie Montas to $11,300 after a couple strong outings against bottom five offenses is perhaps the most egregious pricing error I can recall this season. Also, putting someone like Nick Pivetta at $8,900 in a tough match-up when he’s been a gas can through four 2019 starts makes no sense. Not to mention they’re putting long relievers, like Ryan Yarbrough, in the mid-$8k’s now. I usually don’t look to complain about DFS pricing because we’re all on an equal playing field here, but it’s getting to where many guys are simply borderline unplayable on DraftKings! But enough ranting on that. We have a few weather concerns to track today and plenty of games to sift through, so let me shut up and get into it!

Today’s games with implied totals and moneylines:

Weather Report ⛅

CLE @ BOS: Boston will bring us our biggest threat of poor weather, as there is roughly an 80% chance of blanketing rain well before, during, and after the scheduled game time. If they play this one, some sort of delay, either before or during the game, is almost guaranteed. The risk of postponement is high enough to where I will exclude mentioning any players from this one. It’s a shame, because I like all sides of the Red Sox tonight.

STL @ PHI: Roughly a 40% chance of thunderstorms before, during, and after the game time window. Pretty decent chance of a delay here but it seems there should be enough time in between the rain (if it even affects the stadium) where they can get this game in. I’ll keep players from this one in consideration for now but will likely look to avoid the pitchers.

ARI @ COL: Scattered showers in the area may cause a delay of some sort but the risk of postponement seems very low. Not that you’d have much interest in these pitchers at Coors Field anyway, but I’d avoid them altogether unless a delayed start is announced early. Hitters should be good to go regardless.

DET @ BAL & WAS @ ATL: Temps near 90 degrees in both of these games. Bump to the bats. Keep an eye on storms near Baltimore -- they should miss the area but worth monitoring.

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

Trevor Richards (DK: $8.2k, FD: $7.5k) | RHP | MIA vs. SF

On a slate where there isn’t much clear value to be had among pitchers, Richards is in one of the better spots of the day as he takes the hill at home in the pitcher-friendly Marlins Park. The Giants rank in the bottom five against righties in nearly every meaningful offensive category (AVG, wOBA, ISO, wRC+, and OBP) while boasting a hefty 24.3% kRate. Richards has been very serviceable at home this year, allowing a .213 AVG, .303 wOBA, and 1.31 WHIP. He hasn’t gone too deep into games this season but if he can have an outing where he closes in on around 95 to 100 pitches, then the Giants are bad enough to allow Richards to land some solid fantasy numbers. Six or seven strikeouts across six, perhaps seven, innings is well within reach for him today. The Marlins are slight home favorites with San Francisco only having a 3.5 implied run total.

Marco Gonzales (DK: $6.9k, FD: $7.3k) | LHP | SEA vs. TEX

Gonzales hasn’t been on my radar for much of the year but any time the lefty-heavy Rangers face a LHP away from Globe Life Park, I’ll give that pitcher some strong consideration. On the road versus southpaws this season, Texas has just a .195 AVG, .271 wOBA, .159 ISO, 67 wRC+ and a massive 33.8% kRate. Gonzales only has a 16.4% kRate on the season but this is a match-up that could bolster his numbers in that department. The hope here is similar to Richards in that he could potentially sniff 90-100 pitches and grab 18-21 outs with a handful of strikeouts along the way. Gonzales will be about the cheapest pitcher you will find on a favored team this evening, as the Mariners moneyline currently sits at -150 with the Rangers holding an implied total of 4.4 runs.

Team Stacks to Target

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 take in order to give yourself more exposure to different offenses.

Coors Field Notice: Colorado (6.3 implied runs) and Arizona (5.7 implied runs) are once again a couple top stack options by default.

Seattle Mariners vs. Adrian Sampson (RHP | TEX)

Ownership Projection: Medium

The Rangers announced they will use Jesse Chavez as their opener but Sampson will serve as the primary pitcher. Sampson is allowing a ton of hard contact this season, 46.8% to be exact, along with a 38.9% FB Rate. Great news for power hitters. Seattle is a team that got off to an absurdly hot start over the first couple weeks of the season but have been very feast or famine since. This should be a spot where they can have one of their better games when collectively going against the opener Chavez, Sampson, and a pretty terrible Rangers bullpen. Even when we look at Texas’ bullpen splits away from Globe Life Park, they have posted very rough numbers: 5.25 ERA, 5.21 xFIP, .345 wOBA, and a 1.60 WHIP. When looking for some Mariner bats that have been hot over the last month, I’ll be targeting Daniel Vogelbach (.354 wOBA, .291 ISO), Edwin Encarnacion (.344 wOBA, .253 ISO), and Domingo Santana (.339 wOBA, .253 ISO). All three of those guys have at least five home runs in the last 30 days and Santana, in particular, has been an XBH machine in that time frame with five homers, seven doubles, and a triple.

Minnesota Twins (LHBs) vs. Zach Davies (RHP | MIL)

Ownership Projection: Medium

We’re back at it with a Twins lefty stack going against a right-handed pitcher! Zach Davies has some pretty extreme splits going this season, as he has been very strong against RHBs but has struggled with LHBs. To the left side of the plate, he is allowing a .339 wOBA, .146 ISO, 1.48 WHIP, and 6.69 xFIP. He’s also only striking out 12.4% of lefty hitters. The Twins are ahead the league by a wide margin with a .251 team ISO against RHPs this season and 84 of their MLB leading 105 homers have come at the expense of righties. That will once again put Jorge Polanco (.453 wOBA, .302 ISO), Max Kepler (.390 wOBA, .296 ISO), and Eddie Rosario (.348 wOBA, .258 ISO) firmly in play. DraftKings has all of these guys priced up above $5k, so for some salary relief, you could look at the recent addition, Luis Arraez, who has a .458 wOBA and .500 OBP through his first nine professional games.

Atlanta Braves vs. Stephen Strasburg (RHP | WAS)

Expected Ownership: Low

It’s going to be hot in Atlanta, resulting in great conditions for hitters. So this is a nice spot for a contrarian stack against the day’s top ace, Stephen Strasburg. Vegas clearly understands the potential for Atlanta here as well, considering they are giving the Braves a 4.8 implied run total -- a pretty high total which doesn’t happen often against a pitcher of Strasburg’s caliber. There aren’t many metrics of Strasburg’s that point towards this being a strong play but it is worth noting that that the Braves lineup has a .281 AVG and .841 OPS in 185 at-bats against him. Freddie Freeman has a really strong BvP case to be made as well. In 48 ABs, he has a .354 AVG with 9 XBHs including four home runs off of the Nat’s ace. Freeman would undoubtedly be the cornerstone of an Atlanta stack, especially considering how hot his bat has been over the last couple of weeks. When targeting a couple more guys in the order, here are two more batters who have been strong against RHPs over the last month: Nick Markakis (.405 wOBA, .211 ISO) and Josh Donaldson (.346 wOBA, .177 ISO). Also, keep in mind that Atlanta should get at least a couple innings against a Washington bullpen that has a league-worst 1.66 WHIP and 7.12 ERA.

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.

Anthony Rendon (DK: $5.8k, FD: $4.3k) | 3B | vs. Max Fried (LHP)

The Nationals have somewhat quietly been lighting up lefty pitching recently and might be a sneaky team to stack going against DFS darling left-hander, Max Fried. But leading the way in mashing lefties for them this year is Anthony Rendon. It may not be the largest sample size (43 ABs) but he has an absurd .511 wOBA and .429 ISO against LHP on the season. Fried is giving up 39% Hard Contact to RHBs with a 25% HR/FB Rate. This should translate well for Rendon, who has a 50% Hard Contact Rate and 50% Fly Ball Rate. I’m calling for Rendon to send one out of the park tonight. 💣💥

Nicholas Castellanos (DK: $4k, FD: $3.4k) | OF | vs. Dylan Bundy (RHP)

Bundy may have some decent ownership this evening, as picking on the Detroit offense is typically a profitable venture. Castellanos has a nice recent stretch of games going with multi-hit performances in four of his last five contests. While Castellanos doesn’t have a ton of power against righties, (.175 ISO), Bundy has been gifting homers to RHBs all season (10 HRs in 28 innings so far) and is surrendering a massive .356 ISO along with those dingers. We aren’t necessarily looking to rely on a deep shot from Castellanos, but between Bundy and that historically bad pitching staff, it’s a definite possibility.

Shohei Ohtani (DK: $3.3k, FD: $3.2k) | OF | vs. Frankie Montas (RHP)

Ohtani hasn’t had much going lately in the way of fantasy production but his DFS prices have gotten low enough that he should be usable this evening despite a tough match-up. Frankie Montas has been one of the bigger pitching surprises this season but if you’re going to attack him, it’s better to do so with lefties. While they’re not weak numbers by any means, Montas is allowing a .306 wOBA and .137 ISO to LHBs this season along with 39% Hard Contact. Since his rookie season last year, Ohtani has a Hard Contact Rate of 47% against RHPs with 22 of his 24 career HRs coming against them along with a very healthy .711 wOBA+ISO and .969 OPS. I think it’s only a matter of time before Montas comes back down to earth and Ohtani could help spark the downfall tonight (or go 0-3 with a walk… we’ll see).

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Best of luck today! Don't forget to give the "On Deck" Podcast a listen! You can find it linked at the top of this newsletter.

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