Happy Monday, Razzball DFS ’ers!
Today we’ve got a neat 7-game slate on DraftKings beginning at 7:07 p.m.
We’ll get into a bit of strategy for mid-sized tournaments and work our way into some picks after a brief message from our sponsors:
New to DFS? You can start playing right now on FanDuel and put our picks to the test. If you’re scared of feeling like a small fish in a big pond, be sure to read our content and subscribe to the DFS Bot for your daily baseball plays. Just remember to sign up through us before jumping into the fray, it helps support your Razzball team!
For MLB, I define a slate of 6 to 8 games as being “mid-sized.” On such slates, ownership becomes more important to us than on larger slates, but not so important that we need to get into serious game theory like we might on small slates. Rather, we’re looking to pivot from one or more of the popular plays onto something still good but lower-owned.
Tonight we are likely to see ownership congregate here:
Spencer Strider, P: $10,900 – Strider has struck out 9 batters in each of his four starts this year and gets a bottom-third offense in the Marlins. Nobody on this slate offers his combination of safety and upside. He is likely to exceed 50% ownership in single-entry tournaments.
Jordan Montgomery, P: $9,500 – The Giants have been very good against right-handed pitchers (120 wRC+) but have struggled mightily against southpaws (67 wRC+). Much of the field will pair Strider with Montgomery or Sonny Gray ($9,300 vs. NYY), as pitchers drop off quickly after this point.
Hunter Renfroe, OF: $5,100 – The field is sure to notice that the Angels are facing struggling southpaw Ken Waldichuk. Renfroe is red hot and has a reputation for hitting lefties well. Mike Trout, Taylor Ward, and Anthony Rendon are in similarly great spots. With much of the field using two high-priced pitchers, the full stack is tough to get to, so Angels one-offs and mini-stacks will be extremely popular.
All of these plays are terrific. On a slate this size we can play one or two of the above while mixing in some of the following pivots:
Chris Bassitt, P: $8,000 – Bassitt’s stat line still looks bad largely due to his velocity being down to start the season. It’s back to normal now and he gets a middling White Sox team.
Matthew Boyd, P: $6,600 – The Brewers have actually been worse (65 wRC+) than the Giants against left-handed pitching. There’s risk, but also a decent chance Boyd gives us a solid score at a cheap price.
Zach Neto, SS: $2,700 – If we’re going with Angels, let’s play a full stack, and get different by including hitters from the bottom of the order. Neto’s struggles will keep his ownership down, but let’s remember that he’s a big-time prospect who made quick work of Triple-A (1.374 OPS).
Shohei Ohtani, 1B/OF: $6,200 – The field is always hesitant to play lefty hitters against lefty pitchers, so here’s another way we can play the top-rated stack and still be different. Ohtani is plenty good against southpaws, and there are also several righties in the Athletics’ bullpen for Ohtani to feast on.
Bobby Witt Jr., SS: $5,100 – On a full slate we wouldn’t look to the Royals and their 29th-ranked offense, or to homer-suppressing Chase Field, but bear with me. On a medium-sized slate, it’s a bit less likely that one or more teams will blow the field away with a multitude of home runs, so we can look for situations where a team could simply rack up a bunch of runs and benefit from correlated scoring.
The Royals actually have a lot going for them tonight. Chase Field, while not good for home runs, is in most other aspects a good run-producing environment. It helps that Tommy Henry isn’t very good and that Witt, Sal Perez, Edward Olivares, and Franmil Reyes have ISO’s over .200 versus southpaws the last two seasons. Guys like Matt Duffy ($2,800) and Hunter Renfroe ($2,300) make the full stack affordable enough to pair with the high-priced pitchers, and it will be very low-owned.
Corbin Carroll, OF: $4,400 – Let’s not forget the other side of this game, which also won’t be highly owned. Carroll has so many paths to points and the full stack is in play as well.
Zach McKinstry, 2B: $2,600 – The Tigers are a great place to look for a cheap, low-owned, one-off tonight. Colin Rea doesn’t miss many bats, and the Brewers’ home park plays nicely with left-handed power. Also consider Kerry Carpenter ($3,100), Nick Maton ($3,100) and Akil Baddoo ($2,300).
I’m Only Happy When It Rains
We shouldn’t have any weather issues tonight.
Doing Lines In Vegas
I’ll take the Rays and their MLB-best offense against Jose Urquidy, who has been hittable to start the season. Rays -125 vs. Astros.
I’ve already discussed why I like the offenses in the Royals/Diamondbacks game so I might as well take the over on the 10.0 total.
