Daily Fantasy Baseball Picks for ScoreStreak 8/28/14

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.

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Total Bases

Anthony Rizzo
Dylan Axelrod has one good game this season. And behind that a history of being a very bad pitcher. Because I minored in Early American History in college (thereby making me an expert on all things historical) I'm leaning toward the past performance rather than six innings of decent pitching this season. Rizzo's raked righty pitching this season with an .875 OPS. His walk rate is a little high for the total bases slot, but I think the matchup and ballpark are so choice that I want to have him in there on the short slate.

Evan Gattis
Scorestreak is the kind of format that just begs you to find separation plays because the number of guys you start on the offensive side is so limited. Gattis is one of those guys today. Unless your opponents are reading this, they won't be on him. But you should be. He murders lefty pitching for his career and in fact (thanks to a crazy high Babip) is among the league leaders in the platoon this season with a 1.129 OPS. That is beyond his skillset, but it points to the idea that he lives off this platoon. Get him in there today.

Hits

Joe Mauer
Danny Santana
For hits today I'm targeting some Twins against my boy Jeremy Guthrie. And by "boy" I mean, the guy I pretend like I'm friends with but really I'm just making fun of him to his face. That kind of boy. Guthrie allows a sick amount of contact mostly stemming from the fact that he can't really strike anyone out. There are some pitchers who can get away with a low K%. He isn't one of them. His xFIP sits in the mid 4's and he just generally stinks. Mauer and Santana both hit righty pitching well and Santana in particular makes a lot of contact on that side of the split. They both have 15% K percentages but Santana never walks. If I was shooting for multiple hits, that's where I'd go with Mauer for safety. I'm all over the bad pitchers and Guthrie is one of them.

Strikeouts

Mike Minor
Just as a note: I don't see either of these guys as anywhere close to favorites to hit 9 K's today. I'm shooting for the seven and six category and will just throw some random in the highest slot. Minor though is in a nice spot to pick up some strikeouts. The Mets are brutal against lefty pitching, ranking 28th in wOBA and striking out more than 24% of the time. Minor's had a bad run of it this season, but he's still striking out 8 batters per nine and his xFIP is significantly better than his ERA. On a weird pitching day, he's a sold option.

Jake Arrieta
The Reds are a bottom-feeding offense on the season and Arrieta's been a damn good pitchers. He's striking out more than a batter an inning and he limits his walks making his peripherals on point. I don't love the ballpark for keeping balls in, but overall he should have his strikeouts enough to fill one of the lower slots. I suppose if I were to really shoot the moon he could hit 9 K's, but I don't think the risk is worth it.