When MLB gives you a great Friday slate, ya gotta get pumped up. There are 12 games this Friday night and I can help you get situated in the slate and give you some ideas of who/what teams to play. Keep reading.
There are 4 pitchers above 8,500 who I would roster without question. As always, the targets revolve around the projected strikeout rate and the recent form of the pitcher. My research has led to four and I will share my top two below.
On offense, there are a few good teams that I would never hesitate to take a chance on, but I don’t particularly like their matchup. These teams are the Dodgers facing Cole Ragans and the Orioles facing Ranger Suarez.
The data suggests teams with good projected K/BB numbers who are hitting the ball well at the time are good teams to start to look deeper at. I have identified MIL vs Hunter Greene, MIN vs. Mitch Spence, TOR vs Logan Allen and SD vs Sean Manaea. ARI faces Chris Flexen and SF is against Tyler Alexander. There may be some players outside of these teams that really put up a great DFS score, but sometimes you have to make decisions to start limiting your player pool. Considering price, SF is always affordable as a stack and although you may have to make some sacrifices to roster Royce Lewis, MIN is generally affordable. The White Sox are a sneaky stack facing the K-less Ryne Nelson.
This looks like a very fun slate. There will be a team that scores 10+ runs and they will be on a lot of great DFS rosters. There will also be some players who score 20-30 DFS points and they could come from any team. It is important to hunt for good stacks and also to hunt for high ceiling players, usually ones who hit the ball harder than most.
Check below for more of my highlighted options and always check My Twitter for a chart containing all of the relevant data about SPs and their matchup.
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Chris Sale, SP: $10,500 – Rostering the highest priced player on the slate can be difficult when filling out the rest of your roster, but I think Sale is the most likely high priced pitcher to go for 30+. His K/BB is fantastic and the Rays will contribute to the high K environment. TBs strong hitters all have high K rates, so if Sale is throwing the ball well, he can rack up Ks to avoid damage.
Simeon Woods-Richardson, SP: $7.500 – The good points to make in his favor are the high K rates of his opponents, the A’s. I think Woods-Richardson can take advantage of those because his fastball velocity has ticked up a bit in recent starts and seemingly affected his swK rates positively. I like this range with Andrew Heaney and Hunter Brown, but the opponent and the increased Velo point me towards Simeon.
Gabriel Moreno, C: $3,400 – Moreno batted .284 last year which makes his current .240 average very underwhelming. He has been hitting the ball very hard in the month of June with multiple 100+ EV shots since then. With such a low K rate, the barrels and DFS goodness will follow.
Rowdy Tellez, 1B: $3,200 -It is not often you get to roster a middle of the order bat in Coors at such a bargain price. On top of that, Tellez swings hard at the ball and the combo of Feltner and Coors should keep the Ks low. I will look to save money with this play.
Bryce Turang , 2B: $4,700 – Turang fits among the high priced tier of 2B and it’s nice to not have to spend over 5k here, but his combination of matchup and skills make him a solid roster decision tonight if you can afford it. MIL is hard to stack and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend stacking vs Hunter Greene, but a mini stack of a few MIL players should probably include Turang.
Manny Machado, 3B: $5,200 – Machado has been crushing the ball lately, but the results haven’t been there as much as they have for his peers at the position. Still, SD is in a good spot and Machado’s Statcast data points to Doubles and HRs ahead. There are plenty of other high priced options at 3B if you have a different hunch.
Carlos Correa, SS: $4,300 – There is lots to like about this play and I consider Correa one of the standout plays of this slate. This means he will be highly owned, but deservedly so. His price is just too cheap for a bat of his caliber who is playing so well right now and has such a good lineup surrounding him.
Luis Robert Jr., OF: $4,800 – This man can hit the ball with a ton of power and often lifts the ball into the air. Against Ryne Nelson, we should expect some good things from this White Sox offense and Robert is the clear best play. The price is pretty fair.
Heliot Ramos, OF: $4,100 – The Giants get a decent matchup vs. Tyler Alexander tonight, but Alexander is a pitcher who induces a lot of fly outs. Ramos is actually more of a GB hitter (some data suggests GB hitter fare better vs. Fly Ball pitchers) whose fly balls often go for HRs due to his large barrel rate. Ramos will occasionally strikeout, but he will also do some damage at the plate tonight.
I’m Only Happy When It Rains
The main concern tonight is in New York where the Padres have a good matchup vs. the Mets. Look for updates nearer to lineup lock if you want to roster some of the SD pieces.
Doing Lines In Vegas
TOR, ATL, MIN, and ARI are lining up as the top offensive options according to Vegas tonight. I question the inclusion of Atlanta, and recognize they need that big bat from Matt Olson to put up a big score. If rostering Braves I would be sure to include him in my stacks. My analysis seems to be in lock step with Vegas otherwise.
