Colorado Rockies' Carlos Gonzalez, right, reacts after hitting a walkoff home run as Los Angeles Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis looks on in the ninth inning of a baseball game Saturday, Sept. 26, 2015, in Denver. The Rockies won 8-6. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Welcome to the daily MLB updates and news article. We'll try and update it right up to line-up locks with as much information as comes across our desks.
Last night's picks can be found here, so you can wrap your mind around what you need to be looking at before lineups lock today.
By the way - we keep our projection system updated with all of the batting lineup changes as they occur throughout the day right up until lineup lock. Every day. If you want access to that system so you can cut out a lot of the research element, click the button below!
It's double-the-fun Wednesday in DFS Land, with a six-game early slate followed by a nine-gamer tonight (excluding the second half of the Dodgers/Rockies doubleheader). We've got a nice mix of pitching options and intriguing offenses on both, so let's get to it.
Personnel
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Boston Red Sox
Drew Smyly hasn't been terrible lately, but the combo of his proclivity for giving up home runs and the stud righties in the top half of the Boston lineup is just too much for the projection system to overlook. Smyly's problems with the long ball date back to last season, and while he was able to cover for them with Ks in 2015, the strikeout rate has dropped and so to has his effectiveness, resulting in a 4.34 xFIP this year. A deeper look at the numbers say the homers are no fluke, either. He gives up loads of fly balls, more than any other pitcher going today on either slate, so he'll be living dangerously with all those Boston bats taking aim at the Green Monster. The Red Sox rank third in baseball in wOBA and are tied for second in wRC+ against southpaws this season, so while Smyly's ability to miss bats brings some risk, we think the upside makes it worth taking on.
Colorado Rockies
There's baseball in Coors Field today (and tonight for that matter). The early game is the only one showing up on most sites, and per usual, both sides are in play. Forced to choose one, we're leaning toward the Rockies, mostly because we'd rather not stack up the Dodgers against a lefty. Meanwhile, Colorado will be facing Ross Stripling, a rookie who flirted with a no hitter earlier this year, but has been pretty mediocre otherwise(4.23 xFIP). He does a good job of keeping the ball in the park, but of course that's easier in Dodger Stadium than it will be today. And as we like to point out, long balls are only part of the attraction in baseball's best hitting environment. The spacious dimensions provide a boost for all kinds of offense, and the Rockies do a great job taking advantage, with a .376 team wOBA and .216 ISO at home this year. All the usual suspects are in play, starting with the lefties in the outfield.
I don't know how much longer it's going to qualify as sneaky to roll out any right-handed pitcher against the A's, but we're running it back tonight and hoping of success similar to what we got with Collin McHugh on Tuesday. The fact that Oakland hasn't struck out much this season is one of the few things this offense has going for it, and we don't think you can even count on that anymore because the composition of his lineup is quite a bit different than the one that built that tough-to-K reputation. As currently constructed, this A's lineup is very right-handed heavy in the top half, with enough swing-and-miss to make it worth targeting with the right pitcher. Now, Fiers isn't the perfect guy for that role or anything, but for the moderate price you'll have to pay, he's good enough. His strikeouts are down dramatically this season, and his homers allowed are up (but that's true for the majority of pitchers this season), which is why he's posting his worst ERA and xFIP since an abbreviated run in 2013. But if you're looking for reasons for optimism that go beyond Oakland's inept offense, Fiers has shown signs of life lately. Over his last six starts he's striking out more than a batter per inning with a 3.52 xFIP. Yeah, the sample is small, but it's also more in line with his career numbers, so we probably shouldn't dismiss it completely.
We've got a few interesting arms on each slate, but Kluber is arguably the only one who qualifies as an ace going tonight. His K numbers are down slightly and the walks are up a tick, but he remains a upper-tier guy with more than a K per inning and a solid 3.45 xFIP. Also, there's the this: The Indians are a -314 favorite as of this morning. I don't know if there's someplace to check, but that's gotta make them one of the biggest favorites of the season. Part of that is due to the fact that Vegas clearly isn't big believer in the talents of young Patrick Dean. But so what. On FanDuel, all we need Kluber to do is get through the fifth and we should be in line for significant bonus points for the W. And we think he should be able to pull that off against a Twins team that's below average against RHP while striking out in 21.6 percent of at bats.
If you're playing on DraftKings and FanDuel today, expect your lineups to look quite a bit different. There's always a fair amount of discrepancy between DraftKings and FanDuel for who the projection system sees as good value plays, but I'm pretty sure this is the most variation I've seen in the last two years. We've got multiple players showing up in all of the top 10 optimal lineups on one site and none on the other, due to some significant pricing shifts on DK. So Cargo isn't the most popular player on either site, but he's one of the few guys making an appearance on both, so he's getting the nod from us here. We all know what we're getting from Gonzalez; the .373 wOBA and .229 ISO he's putting up this year are nearly perfectly aligned with his career numbers, and when he's at home and facing a righty, he's always in play.
One other note: There are big differences between DraftKings and FanDuel pricing so the optimal lineups are looking quite different.
These are players that show up in each of the top 10 lineups as produced by our lineup optimizer. This doesn't necessarily mean that they're "safe," it just means that their projected weighted-mean point total is a solid building block for a great lineup foundation today.
Good luck out there today! If you want access to all of our numbers, get started with a free trial below of our lineup optimizer, on us!
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The second half of the Dodgers/Rockies doubleheader IS part of the FanDuel late night slate, but the game is not in the Lineup Tool. Can you get it in there? Thanks.