Daily Fantasy Baseball Picks for ScoreStreak 8/12/14

DFSR has partnered 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.

New users who deposit through DFSR will get an extra $10 to play with. We are putting in picks every night and giving you some of our top plays each day. Two are on us, the third is all you. Or go your own way. As always, if you are new to daily fantasy baseball, make sure read our Free Baseball e-book. It contains one mistake that basically everyone in the daily fantasy baseball industry is making!

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Total Bases

Mike Trout
With so many good arms on the mound today we want to make sure we avoid “real” starters whenever possible. Thankfully Jerome Williams isn’t one of those guys. Though not as bad as his 6.07 ERA would suggest, dude still doesn’t strike many batters out and is a bit prone to the long ball. Mike Trout doesn’t need to worry about platoon splits. He chooses to destroy both hands with the same reckless abandon. Will be in one of my top two slots for sure.

Mark Trumbo
Probably a little off board here, but if you read these posts you know our system loves the guy against lefties. He has a career mid .800’s OPS against lefties and I like slotting guys like him in the bigger ScoreStreak six-man competitions when possible because I think it allows for a little separation. T.J. House is decidedly average and though the ballpark is completely ideal, I’ll still take Trumbo here.

Hits

Victor Martinez
When I’m sniffing out hits on a daily basis one of the main things I’m looking at are contact rates. I want to know a batter has a solid chance of getting the ball in play. Babip lets us know that they won’t always turn into hits, but increasing the expectation is the first place to start. V-Mart is one of those guys. He’s nearly impossible to strike out (less than 8% of the time against righties) and Edinson Volquez isn’t an overpowering pitcher. This is a nice matchup for Martinez.

Martin Prado
Weren’t expecting this name were you? This is why you come here though. To gain an edge. Prado is one of the best hitters in the lefty platoon you’ll see this season. He’s rocking a ridiculous .950 OPS on that side of the split and that’s with K and BB less than 7%. That means it’s all coming through the bat. Hitting lower in the order hurts a little, but I like him sneaking out a hit against Chen today.
 

Strikeouts

Chris Sale
Sale’s the obvious play here. He’s been magnificent this season posting fantastic peripherals in striking out more than a batter an inning and walking less than two per nine. He’ll be showing up nearly everywhere in my lineups as he faces the Giants who rank 21st in the league against lefties. They strike out more than 21% of the time in that split and I think Sale has the chance to get to 9 K’s here. I’ll have him shifted between the 9K slot and the 7K slot depending on game type.

Adam Wainwright
Wainwright isn’t nearly the same strikeout guy as Sale so be careful how much you overrate his swing and miss stuff based on his ERA. He only strikes out about 7.5 batters per nine. That’s a pretty low number from an “elite” pitcher and he needs to be super fine to rack up any real numbers. I’m comfortable with him in the 6 K slot against the Marlins who strike out a ton, over 24% of the time against righties.