MLB DW Slate Preview - May 2
My rundown of today's MLB slate, including full projections and analysis for each game
Friday night baseball and I’m ready to break it all down. The people have let me know that they much prefer the written slate preview. Which I get, and I would agree. But these things take a long time to type, so I’d better get started. Here we go!
Nationals vs. Reds
We have RAIN in this one. Roth has it as “orange”.
He also has Padres vs. Pirates as orange. So it’s pretty likely we won’t see those two games fire off. So that gives me an opportunity to just skip them! They aren’t on the main DFS slate anyways!
Diamondbacks vs. Phillies
This one is not on the DFS slate either, so I have less to say about it. But this is a good spot for Jesus Luzardo. The D’Backs profile better against righties than lefties. It’s not that they can’t hit the ball against southpaws, but their power is really zapped.
Now, that’s less true tonight with Ketel Marte and his .436 xwOBA against lefties returning to the lineup. But there are still plenty of ugys here (Naylor, Carroll, Moreno, Perdomo, Barrosa) that just don’t hit lefties super well. So I like Luzardo to get a good number of outs in this one.
It’s also a pretty fantastic spot for Kyle Schwarber. He’s on the BOOM hitters list with a .400 xwOBA and a 9.9% SwStr% against righties like Kelly. We also show Realmuto, Kepler, and Bohm showing up there.
Give me the Phillies -1.5, Schwarber over 1.5 total bases, and Jesus Luzardo over 17.5 outs.
Royals vs. Orioles
And here we begin the main slate, so I’ll start building out my DFS player pool as we go.
Neither Michael Wacha nor Dean Kremer is a strong DFS play. They both have strikeout rates around 20%. At the same time, they usually aren’t getting smoked out there. Wacha especially limits hard contact (.314 xwOBA). Kremer is a bit worse than that, but it’s nothing terrible at a .339 xwOBA. The Royals are also not the most successful offense going right now, although the best matchups model does like them as a unit, ranking them #4 on the board tonight. If there’s any truth to that, then there’s value in betting on the Royals in one way or another. But I can’t really get behind playing them on DFS as a team stack.
I think the play I like the most would be Drean Kremer over 5.5 hits (-155). The Royals are an offense that makes a ton of contact without hitting the ball out of the park very often. So they’re unlikely to push Kremer out of the game in the third inning because they’ve put up nine runs on him. Their success will usually be from base hits rather than home runs. So let’s bet on the hit parade for Kansas City.
DFS Plays
My angle tonight is to build 3-5 lineups, focusing on a small number of SPs and a few major team stacks. So nobody qualifies in this game.
Rays vs. Yankees
Ryan Pepiot has his work cut out for him here. He’s faced the Yankees twice in his young career, but never in New York. He’s done fine in those starts with 14 strikeouts in 11.2 innings and just four runs surrendered.
But there is always the risk of a blow-up with Pepiot and his high fly ball rate in these smaller ballparks. The Yankees are now without Jazz Chisholm Jr., and while that doesn’t mean a ton since Chisholm was struggling mightily this year, it does lower their overall upside.
As for the spot for Max Fried, I think it’s pretty great. Only Yandy Diaz has a high xwOBA against lefties in this Rays lineup, and we know that he has all kinds of trouble lifting the ball (22%).
Now, Fried’s lower K% (23%) does make it possible that he gets BABIP’d to death. That is typically how his bad starts work out.
Let’s just continue to build out some for-fun same game parlays to play the angles. I never feel great about Fried limiting runs since he allows balls in play, but I do like his chances of getting deep into the game since the Rays don’t walk much and they don’t figure to hit multiple homers here. We’re hoping for a decent BABIP night for Fried. Let’s focus on both pitchers here. We’ll go with Fried limiting hits and getting deep into the game, and then take the angle of the Yankees getting a couple of balls into the seats against Pepiot.
DFS Plays
Aaron Judge ($6,500) is always in play at home against non-elite pitchers, and that’s where he finds himself tonight.
Trent Grisham ($3,900) is a little bit appealing as well at $3,900 as the lead-off man.
I suppose that leads me to saying that a mini Yankees stack is in play. That would probably be Grisham + Judge + Rice if that’s the 1-2-3.
I thought I would like Max Fried here, but then I saw that his price is $9,500. That takes him off the list for me.
The Blue Jays are a big favorite here against Logan Allen. And while the Blue Jays usually aren’t a big favorite, you can understand it against Allen, especially with the form that Chris Bassitt finds himself in.
You’ll see the 18% K% for Allen there with the .364 xwOBA allowed since last year. He’s one of the more hittable pitchers in the league. That pushes the Blue Jays lineup rank into the top half of the slate tonight (14/29). The best matchups are unsurprising:
I don’t think I can ever play Bichette in DFS again. He seemingly cannot hit home runs, and that makes him a pretty easy fade for $4,100. Logan Allen has been lucky this year with just a 4% HR/FB. That’s one of the lowest numbers you’ll see, so that will be coming up in a hurry as the sample size fills out. I’m interested in betting on Logan Allen giving up some runs.
As for Chris Bassitt, I’m just not going to pay this kind of price ($9,300) for him. The K% is up to 27% for the year which has gotten his K-BB% into elite territory. And while the Guardians aren’t a hugely threatening offense, their team aggregated SwStr% in this matchup is 5.6%!
Here’s what we’re doing here:
DFS Plays
Blue Jays vs. Allen
Jose Ramirez vs. Basitt
Twins vs. Red Sox
Alright yikes! The model is liking the spot for the Red Sox against Joe Ryan.
So I guess these Red Sox hit right-handed four-seamers very well.
Joe Ryan isn’t a usual right-hander. He is pretty unique, so it’s tough to model his stuff properly. There’s just the deception there that is tough to quantify. But maybe the Red Sox are in a better spot than the sports books will think.
Brayan Bello on the other side is not a good Major League pitcher. He has a 21% K% and a .334 xwOBA allowed since last season. He does handle righties pretty well (.304 xwOBA), so the Twins lefties would be the better bats to target.
That would mean we’re into Trevor Larnach ($3,900) once again. But the Twins aren’t the greatest lineup against righties. Their main damage-doers are right-handed. So it’s not an awful matchup for Bello.
DFS Plays
The main projection model, which doesn’t consider this super-granular matchup stuff, likes Joe Ryan ($9,000). But he’s a fly-ball heavy pitcher against a lineup that can hit righties pretty hard. So I think I’ll fade him. And maybe that does push me into a mini Red Sox stack, since it’s not going to be highly owned. If the advanced model is right, we could get an edge here.
Rafael Devers $4,800
Jarren Duran $5,500
Alex Bregman $5,300
Wilyer Abreu $5,000
Edouard Julien $3,300
Trevor Larnach $3,900