July 8th DraftKings Analysis
I’ve added you paid subs to the new DFS matchups sheet, so let me explain that real quick. What I have done is get the relevant splits data for each hitter and pitcher on the slate.
So take the Ronald Acuna example. He is a right-handed hitter, facing Erick Fedde who is a right-handed pitcher. The script gets Acuna’s splits marks against righties and puts them in the “Hitter __” columns, and it gets Fedde’s splits against righties and puts those in the “Pitcher __” columns. So we see that Acuna has slugged .403 against righties and righties have slugged .382 against him this year.
What we can do then is do some filtering to find really advantageous matchups. I downloaded it into Excel first, I would recommend doing that if you’re viewing on a desktop with MS Office. I want matchups where both hitter & pitcher have a barrel rate above 10% and a strikeout below 23%:
Horrid screenshot there but you can see four matchups meet the criteria
Mookie Betts
Will Smith
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Ryan Mountcastle
Only one of those bats turns out to be cheap tonight, but you could loosen up the criteria and find guys like that. It won’t be all that much different than just looking at the projections since the projections factor all of this stuff in, but just another resource I thought was cool to make!
Pitchers
Zack Wheeler $10,000
Chris Bassitt $8,700
Charlie Morton $9,200
Aaron Ashby $7,300
Tyler Wells $6,300
It feels weird not to want to play Lucas Giolito at $7,800 against Detroit, but he’s just so scary this year.
A 19% K% over his last four with a 10.7% SwStr%, seems like something just isn’t working so I’ll leave it alone.
Wheeler is the top guy but he’s expensive, Morton is right there with him in terms of strikeouts recently. Neither matchup is great (Wheeler vs. STL, Morton vs. WSH), but I think Wheeler’s is slightly better given the Nationals’ freaking 19.6% K% since June 1st. The Cardinals have been falling down the offensive ranks for a few weeks now, so I think I’ll go with Wheeler there.
The model is also really liking Chris Bassitt, which makes sense because he’s been great this year and especially lately with a 27% K% and a 3.9% BB% over his last three.
The other really tempting name is Tyler Wells. The Angels numbers are just laughably bad against right-handed pitching, here are the marks on their projected lineup against righties:
They just give so much strikeout help, but Wells isn’t a strikeout pitcher..
I think I’m staying away, but I get it if you really want to stack the Dodgers or not have to use 2 spots on cheap hitters, or something like that.
Ashby is probably the highest per-dollar upside guy on the board. I think it’s pretty likely he goes and throws 90 pitches and strikes out 8 Buccos, but it’s just his second start back from the IL and he threw less than 70 pitches in that first one so I’m not willing to make him a single-lineup play.
I’m going Wheeler and Bassitt for now.
Team Offense
Here are the pitchers to pick on
Bad righty splits:
Bad lefty splits:
So for me, the team stacks are
Royals vs. Civale (preferring the lefties)
Yankees vs. Seabold
Dodgers vs. Thompson
Orioles vs. Detmers
Hitters
Let’s just fill out the hitter pool by position one-by-one.
Catchers
If I’m paying nearly $19K for pitchers I have to punt this, although Will Smith is pretty enticing against Keegan Thompson. Not only does he have a strong projection and he showed up on the splits matchup thing, he has also qualified as a super hot hitter on the daily notes. Alejandro Kirk is also fun against Kirby, but the way I imagine this will go is one of these $2000 guys (Luke Maile, Jason Delay, Jose Herrera), or Yan Gomes $2900 against the lefty.
First Base
Two guys really stick out to me today and those names are Ryan Mountcastle $4200 and Vinnie Pasquantino $2800. Vinnie P has more walks than strikeouts and a 10% barrel rate early on this year, and Civale has been crushed by lefties.
Second Base
Not much to like at the top of the board, so I’m gravitating towards a Whit Merrifield $4200, Andres Gimenez $4000, or just an outright punt like Sam Haggerty $2000 (guy has hit .303/.343/.485 through 35 PAs).
Shortstop
Trea Turner gets a nice matchup against Keegan Thompson who has given up a .292/.350/.500 line with a 13% Brl% to righties since June 1st, but he’s very expensive.
Tim Anderson is the model’s top player against Skubal who has been bad lately and does have quite a bad history against righties, and Anderson hits lefties really well. But I think I’ll just find the extra $200 for Trea if I’m going to play Anderson.
Not many good cheap options at the position besides maybe Mauricio Dubon if he’s really hitting at the top of the Astros lineup again. So I’ll just put Trea in for now and check back later when some lineups come in.
Third Base
Jose Ramirez is one of the top projected hitters on the board, but he still busted and I’m not playing him until we see a change.
Austin Riley is the next guy, and that’s a fine play but it’s not amazing. Manny Machado is here as well against Sam Long / SF Bullpen.
The best play, I think, is Justin Turner at $4100. He’s another “super hot” hitter with a .391 xwOBA, a 14% Brl%, a 75% Contact% and a 17% K% over the last two weeks. Over the last month, he has hit .290/.349/.430 with three homers and a 9% Brl%. I’m not sure if a heightened barrel rate recently has to do with anything but luck, but either way, he’s a solid floor play regardless as his contact rate has been great all year, and the RBI opportunities are there
Outfield
The model really likes AJ Pollock against the lefty here. He has hit .314 with a .627 SLG against lefties. A 15% Brl% and an 83% contact% is pretty sick.
Mookie Betts is my favorite play at $5300, I’ll hold off on the huge price tags on Acuna and Judge (not that I have a choice if I’m playing Wheeler, Bassitt, and Trea…).
Yordan Alvarez must be mentioned. Andrew Vaughn $4000 is a great play against Skubal if he’s back in the lineup - but I’m a little hesitant to invest heavily in the White Sox given that I think Skubal can bounce back - he was just elite until a few weeks ago, but Vaughn has proven to be an elite hitter against LHP in his career so I’ll probably play him if he’s back in the #2 spot in the order.
Marcell Ozuna is on the “super hot” list, slugging .568 with four homers and a 17% Brl%, 82% Contact% over his last 48 plate appearances. He fits in beautifully at $4000
Others:
Kyle Tucker $5000
Kyle Isbel $2200
Riley Greene $2600
The Lineups
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