MLB DW Slate Preview - May 5
My rundown of today's MLB slate, including full projections and analysis for each game
We have a ten-game Monday, with eight being on the DFS main slate. I’m on a quest to take down the $4.5K Mini-Max on DK using the projections, an optimizer, and Excel skills. That’s the goal for this week! And if it doesn’t happen, it will still be #fun.
Let’s go game-by-game.
Dodgers vs. Marlins
This is not on the main slate, but it is a very interesting one for fantasy baseball purposes. The Dodgers find themselves, once again, hurting for starting pitching. And one solution could be this Ben Casparius fellow. It seems like he’s maybe being built up to handle 4-5 innings at a time. He threw 54 pitches last time out, and I could see another 10-15 on top of that tonight.
For the season, he has a 27% K% and a 3.5% BB%, so he’s been fantastic. The projected pitch count is 65, and that is probably pretty close to his max for this outing. That makes it tough to believe he’ll get through five innings, but it’s certainly possible if he’s pitching like he has been. DraftKings doesn’t have much to say about his length tonight. They have not priced an outs line. But they’re thinking he’ll get four or five strikeouts. My model is at 4.2 innings with 4.5 strikeouts and one walk.
Casparius has shown a really strong four-pitch mix this year with a double-digit SwStr% on all four offerings. The slider has been absolutely filthy with a 15.3% SwStr% and a .210 xwOBA allowed. The cutter and curve have also been mostly untouched this year. He looks very good.
On the other side of it is Sandy Alcantara, who seems to be getting worse. He walked five last time out and gave up a .611 xwOBA to these Dodgers. His K% is at 16%, and the walk rate is close to it at 14% this year. It’s not looking good.
But this one isn’t on the DFS slate, so I don’t really have much to say about it. My model is still projecting Alcantara as a decent walk rate pitcher, because that’s what it has mostly seen from him in his career. He’s been a wildly different pitcher this year than in the past. And that makes him really hard to project. I’m just going to leave this game alone, and see what Casparius looks like to see if he should be a priority waiver wire add later this week.
The one thing we do know is Casparius + Dodgers bullpen for nine innings is an extremely good group of pitchers. This is not a good spot for the Marlins to do much base running.
The BOOM hitters algo really likes Freddie Freeman today. He has a .490 xwOBACON against pitches like Sandy’s. That’s insanely high. But I wouldn’t count on a longball, as Freeman is more of a line drive hitter than a fly ball guy.
Guardians vs. Nationals
Luis L. Ortiz is another pitcher that is tough to figure out. He changed teams this offseason and has really raised the strikeout rate this year to 26%. But his command has not been good with an 11% BB% and a .342 xwOBA allowed. The model likes his strikeout under, but again, that’s mostly because of what he did the past couple of years in a different situation. The K% gains might be here to stay, so I’d skip over Ortiz today.
There’s also a lot of weather issues in this one. It looks like there will be a lot of rain on the east coast. So I think I’ve said enough about this game, let’s get to the DFS main slate.
Padres vs. Yankees
This is another rain consideration. Kevin Roth has it “orange”. So this one might end up getting taken off the slate. But let’s take a look.
Pitchers
Nick Pivetta ($10,000) has the second-highest projection on the slate. It’s a good spot for strikeouts, but it’s also a scary spot in that he is a fly ball pitcher in Yankees Stadium. Pivetta has given up just two homers all year, but he’s still letting balls get into the air at a high rate (33% GB%). The high strikeout rate helps, of course, but he’s going to give up homers. And like I said, this is a risky spot. So, I’m not sure Pivetta is the cash play on this slate, but he’s one of three arms with big potential here, so we have to have some of him in the tourney build.
Carlos Rodon ($9,500) is another one of those three high-upside arms on this slate. The Padres make a good amount of contact, however, so he doesn’t have quite the same ceiling.
Offenses
I do think you can do a little bit of mini-stacking on the Yankees side because Pivetta is so vulnerable to the multiple homer game. And it should be pretty low owned. So I’m down with a small % of Yankees stacks, assuming the game plays. Hopefully we get some better news on that before lock, but it’s another thing that will keep the Yankees ’ ownership down. I’m into that.
DFS Plays
Nick Pivetta $10,000
Carlos Rodon $9,500
Yankees Minis
Aaron Judge $6,500
Ben Rice $5,000
Trent Grisham $4,000
Paul Goldschmidt $4,100
Props
Nick Pivetta Over 6.5 Strikeouts +130 (FanDuel)
Jorbit Vias Over 0.5 Singles +210 (DraftKings)
Reds vs. Braves
Pitchers
I am calling Brady Singer ($8,800) an easy fade at that price. The K% is at 23% the last two years, which isn’t awful, but it’s not what I’d like to have for that price. He’s awfully close to the big three in price. I don’t really see too many paths to a Singer fade being the reason we fail tonight.
AJ Smith-Shawver ($7,500) has some upside, but he’s also insanely risky. He has a 26% K% this year with a 10.5% BB% and a .487 SLG against. He gives up a bunch of longballs. But this matchup isn’t bad. The Reds don’t profile to hit for a ton of power (.427 SLG in the advanced algo). I could see AJSS piling up 6+ strikeouts here, but it could also go absolutely terribly. His splitter has been terrific on 110 offerings (55% Strike%, 27.3% SwStr%), so that’s a good thing to see - but it further shows how volatile he is going to be. But he’s definitely a pitcher to go in the DFS tourney pool.