Daily Fantasy Baseball Picks for FanDuel, DraftStreet, and DraftKings 4/16/14

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A little note about baseball picks

If you're coming over from basketball - welcome. If you're a lifelong fantasy baseball player, welcome. I want to give a quick heads up about how we are going to do our baseball picks.

Unlike basketball, contextual information matters very little baseball. Guys rarely take days off, and "playing well recently" means almost nothing. Playing time hardly ever changes (unlike in basketball where guys can increase their opportunities by 50% on a coach's whim), and when it does, it's fairly obvious.

So, we're going to be giving picks each day without huge write-ups. The only thing that changes about a player in a given day (for the most part) is the park he's playing in and the pitcher he is facing. Most of the other stuff is noise, unless a player has drastically changed his position in the lineup. For pitchers, all that really matters is who they are facing, which park, and if they've been recently injured.

We cool?

Let's do it.

 

Pitchers

A weird day for pitchers. All of the cheapest guys are very similar values, and show tremendous upside potential. My favorites of the cheap pitchers are De La Rosa in San Diego, and Vogelsong at home vs. the Dodgers. But people tend to play big money pitchers, so here's my take on them.

Anibal Sanchez FanDuel 7800 DraftKings 9800 DraftStreet 17093
The Indians were fully 44 OPS points better vs. lefties last year, which is one of the largest splits of any teams. I also think the Detroit offense is going to absolutely overwhelm McAllister, and that Sanchez is well suited for a win in this outing.

Cliff Lee FanDuel 8800 DraftKings 10800 DraftStreet 19809
The Braves struck out 13% more than the average team against lefties last season. They aren't patient, have heavy strikeout guys in the Upton brothers sitting near the top of the lineup along with Heyward and Freeman, who while not terrible against lefties, don't do as well against the southpaws. Very nice spot for Lee considering how far down on the salary list he is today.

Yu Darvish FanDuel 9900 DraftKings 12600 DraftStreet 25328
Heck of a match-up for Darvish, even if it is at home. True, Seattle prefers righties by a considerable margin, but they also strike out a lot, and Darvish's stuff plays in Texas just fine, especially before it gets smoking hot down there in the summer. Probably too expensive on DraftStreet at a whopping 25K (or 25% of your total salary). But because FD has a hard ceiling on

R.A. Dickey FanDuel 7000 DraftKings 8400 DraftStreet 15357
I'm not a big believer in Dickey generally, but the Twins were in the lower third of the league in terms of OPS against righties last year, and Dickey should be able to rack up a few Ks against some of the Twins' freer swingers.

 

Catchers

Buster Posey FanDuel 3600 DraftKings 4900 DraftStreet 7158
Posey has an absolutely staggering 172 wRC+ against lefties for his career. To give you some frame of reference, Miguel Cabrera has a career 152 wRC+. So, yeah. And Maholm isn't the kind of guy who is going to give Posey any trouble - even if it is a pitcher's park.

Salvador Perez FanDuel 3100 DraftKings 3600 DraftStreet 5790
Perez sported an .867 OPS versus lefties last season and is always a guy I target when facing the opposite hand because his platoon splits are stark. Like him against Keuchel today.

Miguel Montero FanDuel 3200 DraftKings 3600 DraftStreet 5606
Resident righty-masher Miguel Montero hasn't been crushing homers this year, but he's barreling up the ball very nicely recently. His best permutation by far is facing righties at home.

Chris Iannetta FanDuel 2300 DraftKings 2900 DraftStreet 4872
It'll come down to whether or not he plays, but if he does, Tommy Milone makes a perfect match up for him. He's got a giant spread of success vs. righties and lefties, and his biggest weakness (striking out) is mitigated by Milone's pitch to contact approach.

 

First Basemen

Chris Davis FanDuel 4600 DraftKings 4900 DraftStreet 5355
You're obviously paying, but you can absolutely make a case for going cheap on pitching today and spending on guys like Davis. Odorizzi simply isn't a threat to a guy like Davis at this point in his career, and Davis' perfect scenario is hitting at home vs. righties, where he's amassed a solid 143 wRC+ in his career so far.

Billy Butler FanDuel 2200 DraftKings 3700 DraftStreet 4411
Has been horrible to start the year, but I'm hopping on him now. He simply isn't this bad and has a great shot to break out of it against the lefty Keuchel. Butler isn't a superstar, but he has plenty of hits in that bat. This is a great time to buy super low on a guy hitting cleanup who OPS'd 800 against lefties last year.

Allen Craig FanDuel 2900 DraftKings 3600 DraftStreet 4850
It's a tough slate at first base today, but I like the struggling Craig against Wily Peralta. Craig's not been the cat's pajamas so far this year, but we're dealing in incredibly small sample sizes, and I like the rest of the Cardinals' lineup to do some damage in this one as well.

Adam Lind FanDuel 3300 DraftKings 3800 DraftStreet 7230
Not a bad start to the season for Lind, and now he draws ex-Met failure Mike Pelfrey. Lind has the single most staggering lefty/righty split I've seen - with a career .602 OPS vs. lefties, and an .852 OPS vs. righties.

Also considered Joe Mauer

 

Second Basemen

Dustin Pedroia FanDuel 3500 DraftKings 4300 DraftStreet 5539
Sat out yesterday but word is he'll be back today. That is great news. Well not for John Danks, but for you. Dustin slaughters lefties and had a wOBA of over 400 last season against them. If he is back in the lineup after the wrist inflammation you can feel good about putting him in lineups.

Daniel Murphy FanDuel 2800 DraftKings 4200 DraftStreet 6952
Murphy is an underrated platoon split guy - which makes him a great play in great parks against so-so righties. With an OPS a full hundred points better against righties, and the D-backs' home park yielding an additional 4% of run scoring to opposing offenses, I love Murphy today.

Howie Kendrick FanDuel 2900 DraftKings 4100 DraftStreet 6082
Kendrick's a funny guy. While he's sort of under-performed his prospect hype from a fantasy perspective, he does have some things he does really, really well. One of those things is hit lefties in his home park. Against them, he has a 130 wRC+, and an .850 OPS. His next highest scenario? On the road vs. righties, where he has a .777 ops and a 110 wRC+. Milone's game is working around the zone, and Kendrick should have some very hard hit balls today.

Also considered: Kolten Wong, Brandon Phillips.

 

Shortstops

Xander Bogaerts FanDuel 3000 DraftKings 3700 DraftStreet 4895
With Pedroia out of the lineup, Xander moved up to second in the order. He promptly struck out three times, but hey, we can look past that kind of thing. Tonight he faces John Danks, an inferior lefty and gets to do so in a great hitters park in Chicago that really boosts the home run expectancy for righties.

Hanley Ramirez FanDuel 4500 DraftKings 5600 DraftStreet 9493
You'll see a Dodgers in these picks tonight because the matchup is just so ideal. Vogelsong can struggle to get outs and while Hanley doesn't come at a discount he does have significant upside if the rest of the order is doing their thing.

Also considered Derek Jeter

 

Third Basemen

David Wright FanDuel 3700 DraftKings 4400 DraftStreet 6469
D-Wright has started the year slowly with only two extra base hits in his first fifteen games. Buy now while the price is low. He will be among the big boys in terms of salary before long. Wright doesn't have a big platoon split and can be counted on to hit soft tossing righties like McCarthy.

Brett Lawrie FanDuel 3000 DraftKings 3700 DraftStreet 4975
Sat yesterday but gets Big Pelf today in what could a big outing for the Jays. Lawrie's price is the real story today. He's sitting well below expectation, partly because he's started the season slowly (though he did hit a grand slam the other night). I'm buying low on him here.

Also considered Juan Uribe

 

Outfielders

Christian Yelich FanDuel 3000 DraftKings 4600 DraftStreet 7238
Like we said, there are a bunch of aces on the mound who you'll want to avoid. Yelich has a decent matchup against Roark. Yelich crushed righties in a smaller sample size last year and has begun the season nicely this year. He can add stolen bases to make up for the lack of power and Roark is no ace.

Jose Bautista FanDuel 4800 DraftKings 5100 DraftStreet 9447
Mike Pelfrey is not a good pitcher. That being said, he doesn't let up the long ball. But he does let up runs and he doesn't strike anyone out. I like Jose today for those latter reasons and the chance for an extra at bat or two against a pitcher who won't be mowing down the side with any consistency.

Nick Markakis FanDuel 2700 DraftKings 4300 DraftStreet 4337
Nick is a guy our system consistently has high up in the OF rankings. He won't win you big tournaments because he doesn't have the power to put up huge games. But he gets on base enough and hits leadoff for a potent offense.

Yasiel Puig FanDuel 4000 DraftKings 4300 DraftStreet 7604
On a day in which we are targeting the bad pitchers Puig has a chance to really do some damage to Vogelsong. The Giant's pitcher has a 1:1 K/IP rate this year, but he's also been knocked around quite a bit. We'll be putting Dodgers together in some stacks today even with San Francisco suppressing power.

Wil Myers FanDuel 3000 DraftKings 3300 DraftStreet 4831 and
Matt Joyce FanDuel 2700 DraftKings 3300 DraftStreet 5930
I'm putting these two guys together because they are right next to each other in our system (on FanDuel at least) and happen to play on the same team. Miguel Gonzalez is merely average and this game will go down in Camden Yards which is equally advantageous to both righties and lefties in terms of power. The park factors indicate a bump from both sides of the plate. Look for one of these guys to put one out today.

Domonic Brown FanDuel 3300 DraftKings 3800 DraftStreet 6549
Though Teheran is a solid pitcher, the price here on Brown warrants consideration, especially if last year's power rounds into form this year.

Hunter Pence FanDuel 3400 DraftKings 4400 DraftStreet 6477
Pence crushed lefties last year to the tune of a .976 OPS against with a wOBA of .415. Those numbers are significant and Maholm isn't exactly Koufax in his prime.

Also considered Austin Jackson
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