Daily Fantasy Baseball Picks for ScoreStreak 6/5/14

DFSR is proud to announce we are partnering with ScoreStreak: a new, innovative style of DFS play. Gone is the salary finagling, mixing and matching, and hair-pulling that goes into setting lineups. ScoreStreak simplifies the process in an easy-to-use interface. Employing a prop-pick style, ScoresStreak leagues are specific outcome dependent with three categories: Total Bases, Hits, and for pitchers, Strikeouts.

Your goal is to hit outcomes. The higher the number, the more points you get. Choose players who will hit their marks and you win.

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Today's picks are brought to you by new DFSR contributor Mike AKA Spetty.

Total Bases

Chris Davis
My rationale for picking Chris Davis as my #1 overall hitter in the total bases category is the same today as it was yesterday, and he delivered with a home run. To refresh your memory, from 2013 to present, Davis has a video game-ish .442 wOBA and .365 ISO vs right-handed pitching. Today, he faces yet another punching bag in Colby Lewis, who so far this year is allowing a .388 wOBA and .99 HR/9 innings vs. left-handed batters. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Lewis hangs a curveball to Crush tomorrow that ends up about 450 feet from home plate.

Miguel Cabrera
If you’ve been playing Daily Fantasy Baseball for awhile, one of the matchups you most look forward to exploiting is probably Miggy vs. a left-handed pitcher, as he’s been a lefty-masher his entire career. When facing a mediocre (at best) LHP like J.A. Happ, it’s just that much more enticing. Since 2011, Miggy has an elite wOBA of .422 and a very respectable ISO of .230 vs. LHP. Happ, on the other hand, has allowed a wOBA of .351 and 1.67 HR’s/9 innings to right-handed batters so far this year, so the matchup lines up very well for Miggy in the total bases category today, and he’s my #2 behind only Chris Davis today.

Hits

Justin Morneau
Morneau is having a career resurgence this year, which hitting in Coors Field for 50% of his games will often do for a player, however, Morneau has always had very large and favorable platoon splits vs. right-handed pitchers. Given the huge increase in ballpark favorability and also the fact that this is the first year in a looonnng time that Morneau has been totally healthy, I’m weighing his numbers vs. RHP more heavily than I normally would. So far in 2014, Morneau has a batting average of .317 vs. RHP with a very respectable 11.3% strikeout rate, which allows him to make consistent contact. What makes this pick even more of a lock to me is the fact that he’s facing Bronson Arroyo today. The bottom line is that Arroyo simply can’t get left-handed batters out. LHB have batted .288 against him since 2011. He also strikes out less than 5 LHB/9 innings, so combined with Morneau’s low strikeout rate, Morneau will have the opportunity to but the ball in play plenty. Lastly, the game will be played at Coors field, which is an added bonus for Morneau. All of these factors taken together make Morneau easily the top hitter to target in the hits category today.

Jose Altuve
It seems like Altuve was born to hit lefties. From 2013 to present, he has a very high .324 batting average vs. left-handed pitchers, thanks largely to a .360 batting average on balls in play, a very low 12.3% strikeout rate and a very solid 23.4% line drive rate vs. left-handed pitchers over the same period of time. The only downside to Altuve today is his matchup. He be going up against rookie Tyler Skaggs, who’s actually been really good vs. right-handed batters this year, as his .216 batting average against vs righties indicates. On most days Altuve would be my #1 choice, but I’m dropping him down to #2 today because Morneau is similarly skilled at hitting LHP but has a much better matchup.

Strikeouts

Madison Bumgarner
Bumgarner has pitched very well this season, and has been on fire over his past three starts, with 26 strikeouts over 20 innings. On the season, he’s averaging a very impressive 10.53 K/9 ratio. Today he gets to square off against a depleted Reds lineup, who strike out 23.4% of time vs. left-handed pitchers. On a day where there are only the depth of the strikeout pitcher pool is very limited and the other top strikeout pitchers (Wacha and Tanaka) have lousy matchups against teams who have two of the lowest strikeout rates in the league, Bumgarner is definitely the top pitcher to target for the strikeout category today, and it’s really not even close.

Jake Odorizzi
I’ll start by saying that recommending Odorizzi for anything other than changing out urinal cakes makes me feel grimy, however, he does strike a lot of batters out and that’s all we care about for this category. Despite the fact that he has a 5.13 ERA, he somehow also has a 10.77 K/9 ratio, which basically makes him the Rob Deer of pitching. To go along with his surprisingly good strikeout rate, the Marlins strike out 23.2% of the time vs. right-handed pitchers, which is basically tied for the highest strikeout % in the league vs RHP. My only concern is if they’ll pound him into oblivion before he gets a chance to rack up some K’s, but given how thin the pool is for strikeout pitchers with decent matchups tomorrow, it’s a risk I think you have to take. And with that, I’m going to take a long, hot shower to wash the Odorizzi off of myself…