Daily Fantasy Baseball Picks for ScoreStreak 8/20/14

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Total Bases

Nelson Cruz
Adam Jones
Going with a couple of O's today against the righty Noesi. While it's a bit odd buying Cruz in a reverse split, you'll see why in a moment. Cruz's .800 OPS this season in the righty platoon split shows he can at least get the ball in play and for his career he slugs close to .500 against RHP. Meanwhile, for his career Jones is actually better against right handed pitching. That hasn't played out this summer, but historically his wOBA is about 17 points higher against righties. That lines up with Hector Noesi's career splits that have him getting rocked by righties. Right handed bats OPS around .800 against him. Both guys walk very little against righties making the total bases expectation higher in a solid matchup.

Hits

Brian Dozier
He's getting Babip squeezed this season with that number about fifty points lower than his career averages. Even with the bad luck he's been above average against lefty pitching this season. For his career he has an OPS over .800 with a 129 wRC+. T.J. House pitches to contact and doesn't strike out an inordinate amount of batters. I'm liking the upside on Dozier today and think he could be in for multiple hits from the two hole in the lineup.

Michael Brantley
Man Ricky Nolasco just reeks of average, ho-hum pitcher. His K rates are always on the low side (6.16 K/9 this season) and his xFIP just lives in the fours. I'm always on Brantley when he's facing a low K righty because dude is just near impossible to strike out. That means hits baby, hits. A great daily play in this format when the matchup is right, Brantley puts the ball in play around 86% of the time. That's what we are looking for in the hits category plain and simple.

Strikeouts

Because I targeted the late slate of hitting I'm doing the same with pitching. If you play the early run Cole Hamels and Jeff Samardzija

Alex Wood
Don't think I'll be looking to confidently for a nine strikeout guy in the later slate. The matchups are just too tough. So I'm targeting the six and seven slots and buying on safety. Wood is one of those guys with a K rate close to a batter an inning. He's turned in some big games this year though he isn't the most consistent pitcher in the world. The Pirates are below average against lefties, coming in the bottom third of the league in team wOBA. They also strike out close to 21% of the time.

Johnny Cueto
Basically, in this instance I'm just looking for the other arm on the slate that generates strikeouts. The pitching is thinner in this grouping and Cueto is one of the few swing and miss guys going. He's turned in a fine season and strikes out 8.97 batters per nine. He's hit at least six strikeouts in eight of his last nine games and he'll need to bleed every ounce of his swing and miss stuff because the Cardinals don't K much. They are one of the more difficult teams to put down on strikes, but I'll play it safe with Cueto that he at least hits the lower markers.