Hope you had a wonderful Labor Day weekend! Today marks the first day back to school for many families across the country, the weather is turning colder; it feels like fall. And fall means playoff baseball. This is the good stuff. The home stretch. Let’s get to it!
Tonight, Mike Clevinger, P: $9,600, is making his second start for his new team, and we have reason to believe it will be much better than his first, from a DFS perspective. His first start last week he faced an Angels lineup that’s fifth toughest against right handed pitching this season. Today he faces a Rockies lineup that is fourth worst against right handed pitching when hitting away from Coors. The Rockies have a 25% strikeout rate vs the Angels’ 21.2%, and to top it off, this game is being played in PetCo Park, one of the best pitcher parks in the game. Clearly, Clevinger is worth his price, and should be rostered with confidence.
Read on for additional picks for this evening’s FanDuel Main Slate.
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Clevinger is in a good enough spot to be in about one third of my lineups in this contest. Looking through the remaining options we see mixed signals and lots of noise to ignore. We want to find the signal through the noise.
Some sites list Andrew Heaney, P: $9,200, as the probable Angels starter, others list Julio Teheran. If Heaney does go tonight we want to roster him, as the Rangers are a very favorable matchup, having scored a league low 144 runs this season.
Heaney’s opponent in Texas, Lance Lynn, P: $8,800, is the remaining pitcher who seems the safest bet to perform to value. He is pitching at home, where he has a 2.17 ERA and has struck out 11.5 batters per 9 innings this season. Unfortunately, he is facing the aforementioned Angels, who have been among the toughest against right handers this season. Overall this is a good spot for Lynn.
For value pitching plays look to Chicago, where the wind will be blowing in. If it’s not a rainy, sloppy game, which is a negative for rostering pitchers, run scoring should decline dramatically at Wrigley vs neutral conditions.
The stack to attack:
The Dodgers face Luke Weaver in Arizona tonight, and we want every part of it. The already potent Dodgers lineup will get a further boost from the friendly air density and park factors of Chase Field. There are many ways to put a Dodgers stack together in this one, but here is how we prefer to roster them based on predicted value:
Joc Pederson, OF: $2,600
Corey Seager, SS: $3,900
Cody Bellinger, OF: $4,300
Gavin Lux, 2B: $2,400
Max Muncy, 2B: $3,600
Mookie Betts, OF: $4,500
Kike Hernandez, 2B: $2,400
Chris Taylor, SS: $2,800
AJ Pollock, OF: $3,000
Matt Beaty, C/1B: $2,200
Will Smith, C/1B: $2,900
The best of the rest:
Ben Gamel, OF: $2,300 – There was not much to like about his game against Turnbull last week, but tonight is his second time in a week facing him. Gamel is in a great spot to return value in this one. Better for cash than to fill out a GPP lineup, as the upside is fairly capped.
Christian Yelich, OF: $4,200 – No doubt Yelich is struggling this season, likely due to the well-known RBI Baseball cover curse. But he scored 33.6 points facing Turnbull and the Tigers last week. There is little reason to doubt he could repeat such success the second time around.
Yoan Moncada, 3B: $3,100 – Much of rostering the best lineup in DFS is finding the undervalued player in the best position to post a monster game. It’s the struggling player who finds regression to the mean, it’s the favorable splits. Today, we find that in Moncada, who faces Joe Musgrove and his 6.62 ERA and 1.64 WHIP. Moncada has the talent to take advantage of this position and post a monster line at only $3,100.
I’m Only Happy When It Rains
Nothing too troubling, though the Reds and Cubs may need to play through light showers at times.
Doing Lines In Vegas
The run total for the game in Chicago is not posted as of this writing, but this is where our attention should be today because of the dramatic way weather effects scoring at Wrigley Field. The wind should be blowing in from left center at nearly 20 mph and there may be a light rain falling at times throughout the game. We are ideally getting the under at 8 here.