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

🔊 5/8 "On Deck" Podcast feat. Joe Pisapia & Tim Heaney

⚾️ 2019 MLB Preview & Strategy Guide

Apologies beforehand, I am a bit under the weather today so this newsletter may be on the shorter side but the due diligence will still be done within the research. Somehow I want to find a way to blame this sickness on either Collin McHugh or Mike Fiers and his 'outta nowhere' no-hitter. But I’m sure Mike is a loyal reader so, not to hurt his feelings, I’ll just say “congrats, Mike!” But to McHugh... you're dead to me for a little while buddy. But speaking of being “under the weather,” we may have some issues out in the Rockies. More on that below.

Today’s match-ups along with Vegas totals and moneylines:

Weather Report ⛈️

SF @ COL: Troublesome weather has been expected to move in through Colorado over the next couple days and it has now arrived. Rain will be in the area heading into the start of game time and could potentially turn to snow as temps dip into the 30s. Not exactly conditions anyone would want to play baseball in or fans would care to sit through. There’s a strong chance this game is slapped with a postponement by the time you’re reading this. For the sake of this newsletter, I won’t feature any players from this match-up. Unfortunate, because I was ready for the Mac Williamson hype.

MIA @ CHC: For what I feel like is the third day in a row in Chicago, very slight chance of precipitation but most of it should hold off until after the game. The main thing to point out is 15 mph winds blowing in from the right outfield. Small advantage to pitchers.

LAA @ DET: 15 mph winds blowing left to right/in from left field.

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

Matthew Boyd (DK: $9.5k, FD: $10.3k) | LHP | DET vs. LAA

You could debate Sale vs. Kershaw when spending up at pitcher tonight but Matthew Boyd has been outperforming them both this season and he’s done so with consistency. Across seven starts, he has yet to fall below 16.8 DKFP/31 FDFP and he has gone at least six innings in all but one game. Boyd’s 32% kRate is the highest mark on the slate and his 3.05 ERA aligns almost perfectly with his 3.14 SIERA so he hasn’t had to rely on luck or incredible fielding this season. The Angels offense is dead last in batting average versus lefties this season with a .205 AVG and rank bottom ten in virtually every meaningful offensive category. Their 14.9% kRate is the lowest in the league, however, so some upside on Boyd’s end may be limited but he’ll just have to make up some ground in the way of groundouts and flyouts. Hopefully his fellow Detroit teammates on the offensive side can give him some run support -- as of now the Tigers are -120 favorites while the Angels hold a 3.7 implied total.

Kyle Hendricks (DK: $8.4k, FD: $8.2k) | RHP | CHC vs. MIA

It’s been an odd mixed bag of results for Hendricks thus far in 2019, particularly over his last three starts. He pitched a gem against Arizona on April 19th (7 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 11 Ks in 100 pitches) then got tagged up by that same Arizona team a week later (5 IP, 10 H, 7 ER, 3 Ks in 85 pitches). He turns right around and went for a CGSO against St. Louis and needed just 81 pitches to do it. Pretty bizarre. But in those two great games he was on the hill at home, like he’ll be today against the Marlins. At this point, we all know how poor the Miami offense is. If they’re not dead last in any particular offensive category, they are not far from it. Against RHPs, they hit into the most ground balls with a 49.1% GB Rate while striking out the third most with a 26.8% kRate. Conditions with the winds blowing in considerably at Wrigley Field should be about the same today as they were in last night's MIA/CHC game, which was knotted 2-2 through eight and a half innings. This game has a similarly low total as well at 7.5 runs. The Cubs are very strong -230 favorites against Miami, who has just a 3.2 implied run total.

Kyle Gibson (DK: $7.7k, FD: $7.3k) | RHP | MIN @ TOR

Gibson’s been fairly average and has really only performed well in his two games against Baltimore. But statistically, Baltimore has been reasonably better than Toronto against RHP this season, so expecting a solid performance from Gibson shouldn’t be out of the question. The Blue Jays have a .218 AVG against righties which is the fourth worst in the league. They hold a 26.7% kRate, .285 wOBA, .153 ISO, and 77 wRC+ -- all bottom six rankings. Gibson does have a solid 51% GB Rate and, though he isn’t a high strikeout pitcher with a 20.4% kRate (17.3% career kRate), perhaps he can find a way to fan six or seven across the Blue Jays' order that has seven guys with a kRate of 25% or higher against righties (three above 32%). Gibson struggled in his first match-up with Toronto this season (5.1 IP, 4 H, 3 BB, 4 ER, 4 Ks) but I’d expect a better outing today. The Twins are slight favorites and the Blue Jays have a 4.2 implied run total.

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.

Minnesota Twins vs. Trent Thornton (RHP - Toronto Blue Jays)

The Twins are a potent offense and are very dangerous against righties. They lead the league with a .232 ISO while maintaining the third lowest kRate at 19.3%. I think a lot of people, myself included, like Trent Thornton’s talent and his future, but he’s still pretty green at the professional level, so I have no problems targeting him with a strong offense like Minnesota. Thornton has struggled with lefties. Across 19.0 innings vs. LHBs, he’s allowed a .334 wOBA, .275 ISO, and given up four of his five surrendered home runs to that side of the plate. Jorge Polanco (.447 wOBA, .324 ISO, .419 OBP, 12% kRate vs. RHP) and Max Kepler (.365 wOBA, .269 ISO vs. RHP) make for high potential lefty duo stack. Nelson Cruz (.393 wOBA, .264 ISO vs. RHP) has actually been strong against righties this season and has six of his seven home runs off of RHPs.

Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Mike Foltynewicz (RHP - Atlanta Braves)

This will only be Folty’s third start of the season since coming off of the injured list and I’m not sure he should be looking forward to a match-up with the Dodgers who are explosive in general, but especially at home where they average 6.17 runs/game (2nd in MLB). Foltynewicz has only pitched 10.2 innings thus far but he’s already given up three homers off of 11 hits. Also, keep in mind when Folty is switched out that this Braves bullpen is pretty bad as well. Cody Bellinger would be the obvious spend up but other pieces of this Dodgers order that are appealing include: Justin Turner (.342 AVG, .371 wOBA, .432 OBP vs. RHP) and Corey Seager (.336 wOBA, .171 ISO). Also, he likely won’t get a great spot in the order but Alex Verdugo (.380 wOBA, .197 ISO) looks like the real deal.

Cincinnati Reds vs. Brett Anderson (LHP - Oakland Athletics)

So… a Reds stack wasn't exactly the move yesterday, huh? Maybe they’re saving all of their hits for tonight. At the very least, some leverage could be had by taking these guys at lowered ownership, so consider some Cincy bats for GPPs. The Reds haven’t faced a ton of lefties this season (248 plate appearances) but their .232 ISO vs. LHP ranks 4th in the MLB and Oakland Coliseum is a hitters park. Anderson also isn’t striking out many batters at all with a 13.3% kRate and is allowing a decent amount of runners get on base with a 1.41 WHIP. Again, a lot of these sample sizes against southpaws are limited, but the following Cincy bats will have my interest: Eugenio Suarez (.481 wOBA, .542 ISO vs. LHP), Yasiel Puig (.388 wOBA, .286 ISO), and Nick Senzel (.401 wOBA, .450 ISO). Also, if Kyle Farmer makes the lineup tonight, he has three home runs in just 15 at-bats against lefties this season.

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. 

Michael Brantley (DK: $5.1k, FD: $4.1k) | OF | HOU vs. KC

Brantley conveniently went 0-4 when I had him as a one-off recommendation on Monday but let’s hope we see better results tonight. He’s been elite in lefty vs. righty match-ups this season with a .406 wOBA, .257 ISO, 157 wRC+ while striking out just 8% of the time. RHP Jorge Lopez has given up five home runs already to LHBs in 16.1 innings this season while allowing a .413 wOBA and .319 ISO. If you’re not able to spend up on an Astros stack, Brantley seems like a nice way to gain a smaller chunk of exposure.

Eric Sogard (DK: $4.4k, FD: $3.9k) | 2B/SS | TOR vs. MIN

After sitting out last game, Sogard should be inserted back into the lead-off role tonight in a lefty on righty situation versus Kyle Gibson. Sogard has hammered righties in his 42 at-bats against them this season to the tune of a .357 AVG, .475 wOBA, .333 ISO, .460 OBP, and has just a 5.9% kRate resulting in an absurd 205 wRC+. I mentioned Kyle Gibson as a potential value pitcher tonight but if you want to attack him, do so with LHBs, as he has allowed a .348 wOBA and .265 ISO to that side of the plate.

Marwin Gonzalez (DK: $3.2k, FD: $2.4k) | 1B/OF (DK), 3B (FD) | MIN vs. TOR

I like this play more on DraftKings where Gonzalez has dual eligibility, while on FanDuel, you’ll be passing up several strong options at third base. For the price, Gonzalez is running on a nice little stretch of games. Since April 27th, in 10 games he has a .294 AVG, .351 wOBA and a .385 OBP. As a switch hitter, he’s had more success against righties both this year and throughout his career. He’ll bat lefty tonight, which as I mentioned above, is where Thornton has struggled. Can he hit his third home run of the season? Well, that’d be great… but a stretch. A couple hits and a run or RBI out of (likely) the five or six hole is much more doable and would be perfectly fine value for the price.

LineStar MLB Freeroll

We host an MLB freeroll on DraftKings every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday!

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

Congrats to Monday's winner: RaysUp - 172 points!

DM LineStar on Twitter to claim your prize!

Here is the link to today's contest!

Use the image below as your DraftKings avatar to win 2x the prize!

Best of luck today! Don't forget to give the "On Deck" podcast with Joe Pisapia and Chris Meaney a listen! You can find it linked at the top of this newsletter.

Let us know if you enjoyed the issue with a 👍/👎!