DraftKings and FanDuel MLB Picks for Tuesday 4/9/19

Tuesday's MLB action brings us a bunch of aces hitting the mound throughout the day plus another game in Coors. There's a lot to like for FanDuel and DraftKings value though we may need to decide if it's worth paying up for arms or bats.

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Pitchers

Gerrit Cole FD 11200 DK 10500
Opponent - NYY (Jonathan Loaisiga) Park - HOU
FD - 40.81 DK - 22.7
Cole has opened this season much like he performed in 2018: striking everyone out. He has 19 K’s in his first 12 innings pitched this season against the Rays and Rangers respectively. He’ll get a *tougher* matchup against the Yankees on Tuesday, but it’s worth noting that this version of the Bronx *Bombers* is playing without Giancarlo Stanton, Miguel Andujar and Aaron Hicks at the top of the lineup. While still a somewhat imposing team, they’ve taken injury hits that have greatly compromised how imposing they look as a lineup. Cole’s been as good as any pitching in the league to start the year, posting a 6.3:1 K:BB ratio in dominating fashion. He’s a -170 home favorite against the Yankees on Tuesday, among the best win odds on the main slate.

Jacob deGrom FD 12000 DK 11600
Opponent - MIN (Kyle Gibson) Park - NYM
FD - 40.46 DK - 22.68
Speaking of win odds, deGrom actually has the best at -215 against the Twins at home. He, like Cole, is striking out just every thing in sight with 24 strikeouts in 13 innings against the Marlins and Nationals respectively. The Twins aren’t especially prone to strikeouts with their current order, but deGrom cares not for your batter profiles. This dude is just mowing people down. It helps getting Minnesota at home where he’ll get the pitcher slot and the only real question is if it’s worth paying the 7% (or so) more for deGrom over Cole. It’s very close considering what they bring to the table.

Joey Lucchesi FD 7900 DK 9200
Opponent - SF (Derek Holland) Park - SF
FD - 34.69 DK - 18.33 Joey “Lucky” Lucchesi has had a strong start to the season, striking out more than 11 batters per nine and keeping the walks under three per nine. He hasn’t allowed an earned run yet though the xFIP sits at 2.19. You love to see the control in check and he’s gifted another plus matchup against the Giants in San Francisco. He struck out seven Giants in 5.1 innings on Opening Day. The only concern with Lucchesi at these price points is the Padres handling him with kid gloves to start the season. He has only managed 87 and 83 pitches in each of the first two games. That’s somewhat problematic because it limits his ability to go longer into games. Considering everything has gone right for him so far, we are playing with very thin margins at his price point if five innings is somewhere around the max expectation.

Team Cash Stacks

Colorado Rockies

Park - COL
Opposing Pitcher - ATL (Max Fried)
Vegas Implied Run Total - 5.61
All right, let’s start with the easy one first. The Rockies will get Coors with the highest implied run line of the slate. While Fried has started the year without allowing an earned run in his first seven innings, this is a guy with a low K rate who’s living off a minuscule BABIP (.053). Small sample size and all, but you need to strike out batters in order to survive in Coors. Dude could be in real trouble.

Potential Players to Stack

Nolan Arenado (FD $4300 DK $5300)
Trevor Story (FD $4300 DK $5100)
Mark Reynolds (FD $3000 DK $4200)
Ian Desmond (FD $3000 DK $4300)

Arena do and Story are the two obvious bats to stack here and honestly, neither completely break the bank for you on FanDuel. Both absolutely crush lefties and should hit 2-3 in the order against the southpaw.

Arena do had the second-best lefty platoon in all of baseball last season (behind only Mookie Betts) with a 1.199 OPS and .488 wOBA. That was over 206 plate appearances and are just banana splits. If there’s a hitter to pay up for on this Tuesday main slate, it’s him.

Meanwhile, Story wasn’t too far behind him. He had a .442 OPS and 1.069 OPS against lefties along with a 166 wRC+. The only issue with stacking these two bats is that you are in a cost prohibitive situation with some of the pitching payoffs at the top of the salary tier.

Desmond and Reynolds round out the Rockies lineup against the lefty and do make for ways to get exposure to this game without paying through the nose on Story and Arenado. Both were well above average against lefty arms last season and are coming at $3K each on FanDuel.

Arizona Diamondbacks

Park - ARI
Opposing Pitcher - TEX (Mike Minor)
Vegas Implied Run Total - 4.59
The Diamondbacks get one of the weaker arms on the slate in Mike Minor. The latter finished 2018 with a mid-4’s xFIP in 157 innings with a strikeout rate of only 7.5 per nine. He’s been much the same pitcher so far this season and is one of the main reasons Arizona has one of the higher implied run lines on the slate.

Potential Players to Stack

Wilmer Flores (FD $2200 DK $4300)
Adam Jones (FD $3700 DK $4000)
Eduardo Escobar (FD $2800 DK $4200)

There are some spots of great savings (especially on FanDuel) that could help us pay up for some of the stud pitchers on this slate. Flores is an obvious one, coming near the minimum on FanDuel and slated to hit third in the order against the lefty. He was terrible in this split last season but for his career has a .773 OPS, .203 ISO and 108 wRC+ against southpaws. Those numbers won’t make your eyes pop out, but are well above average for a guy coming so cheap and hitting in the middle of the lineup.

Escobar could hit second here (though they’ve swapped him and Marte depending on the matchup and would make for another cheap option on FanDuel. Between the Twins and D-Backs last season he had a .775 OPS, 10% walk rate and .336 wOBA against lefties. I’d like the idea of stacking he and Flores on the cheap if they were hitting 2-3.

Jones projects to hit leadoff and is coming a little more expensive because of his blistering start to the season with Arizona. He already has four home runs thanks to a rather unsustainable 25% Hr/FB rate. He’s been a reverse splits guy for his career, so you aren’t getting him on the right side of his platoon. But this is still a good spot against a weaker arm.

New York Mets

Park - NYM
Opposing Pitcher - MIN (Kyle Gibson)
Vegas Implied Run Total - 3.93

With deGrom as a major -210 favorite in this game, Vegas has the over/under at 6.5 runs giving the Mets an expectation under four runs. That still strikes me as low against Kyle Gibson who rate as one of the worst arms going on the slate. He showed some modest strikeout gains in 2018, but reverted back to some terrible form in his first start of the season. I’m usually not one to make much out of less than five innings of work, but before last year Gibson had a long track record of sub 7 K’s per nine. He has a career 4.16 xFIP and 6.64 K/9 rate. We can definitely stack against this guy.

Potential Players to Stack

Brandon Nimmo (FD $2800 DK $3900)
Peter Alonso (FD $2900 DK $4100)
Robinson Cano (FD $3300 DK $3900)
Michael Conforto (FD $2900 DK $4300)

As a team, one of the Mets’ biggest issues to start this season has been the strikeout. They are striking out 28% of the time as a team with many of their guys K-ing way more than reasonable expectation. Nimmo is one of those culprits, going down on strikes a whopping 47% of the time this season. He’s still taking walks 14% of the time but it’s been real bad in the swing-and-miss department. He’s a definite buy-low candidate because I just can’t believe he’ll continue to run this way in the strikeout department and he’s been nearly a 40% on-base guy in his short career.

Meanwhile, Alonso is making the most of his rookie campaign with three quick home runs but he’s also striking out more than 32% of the time. Dude is coming sub $3K on FanDuel and has the prospect pedigree (and slot in the order) to easily exceed that price.

And finally, Cano and Conforto should round out the top of the lineup and are overwhelming favorites to either draw a walk (more Conforto than Cano) or put the ball in play against Gibson. Conforto has raked to start the season while Cano is struggling. It’s way to early to make determinations on either but their career track records suggest they are in great spots against a pitcher like Gibson.

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