MLB DW Slate Preview - May 13
My rundown of today's MLB slate, including full projections and analysis for each game
Weather
Your high PPD risk spots:
Twins vs. Orioles
Brewers vs. Guardians
Cardinals vs. Phillies
Other possible issues:
Red Sox vs. Tigers
White Sox vs. Reds
Pirates vs. Mets
So it’s pretty ugly. If you aren’t fully ready to adjust to the weather, I’d say it’s a pretty good night to sit it out. I will be sitting it out, as I’ve got some people coming over to my house this evening, so I’m not trying to be adjusting DFS lineups while I host that. But I’ll do my best to give you a good look at the slate. Let’s just ignore the weather for now, and I’ll leave it to you to adjust to things as they come.
Pitchers
Dylan Cease ($8,300) vs Angels
We talked about this yesterday with Michael King. The Angels are a strikeout-heavy lineup. And Cease is (usually?) a strikeout heavy pitcher.
It’s a great spot for Cease, and there are no weather issues in this one because California does have that one really nice thing going for it. Cease projects 1.5 points above the rest of the slate, and the price is still down after his bad start to the year.
It’s not that Cease is trustworthy. He’s been under 20 DraftKings points in all but two of his eight starts. But something interesting happened last time out. Check out two plots:
The fastball velo hit a season-high, and so did his fantasy point total. He struck out nine Yankees in that last start. I’m thinking that Cease is in for another 7+ strikeout game, and the ceiling is sky high on this play.
Ben Brown ($7,500) vs. Marlins
The Marlins matchup will always boost projections, and we see that here. Brown has a season-high projection tonight after his nine-striekout performance last week against the Giants. For the year:
→ 26% K%
→ 9.5% BB%
→ 13.0% SwStr%
→ 35.8% Ball%
→ .332 xwOBA
Pretty solid numbers. He has been, strangely, a lot tougher on lefties (30.5% K% vs. a 21.8% mark against righties). But when you bring in last year’s numbers, he strikes out both sides of the plate at a high rate (26% vs. RHB, 29% vs. LHB). The Marlins have a pretty even split of high strikeout bats and low strikeout bats.
So the strikeouts will have to come off of Sanchez, Stowers, Norby, and Mervis. The rest of those guys get the ball in play, but a few of them don’t have much at all in the power department.
Remember that Brown is very dependent on the curveball. His four-seamer has been middling with a 49% Strike% and a 9.1% SwStr%, but the curveball has just been amazing at a 19.5% SwStr%, 48% Strike%, and .295 xwOBA. So how do these Marlins do against the type of stuff that Brown brings to the table? It’s another mixed bag:
But there’s a fair amount of swing-and-miss here, and overall, it’s not a threatening lineup. So I think we can go with Brown. I just can’t guarantee a big game. I mean, I can never guarantee a big game for anybody, but especially not for a guy like Brown. But he is the model’s #1 value pitcher of the night.