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MLB Daily Fantasy Lineups Analysis for Sunday August 5

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My approach to identifying lineups worthy of stacking evolved from fantasy football where I’d look at the opposing defenses fantasy points allowed to help identify positive matchups. For DFS baseball I look at a team’s DFS points per plate appearance (ppa) and compare to the opposing pitcher’s DFS ppa. A “bad” pitcher could lead to an increase in production from the hitters and conversely, a “good” pitcher could lead to a decrease in production.

How to Read the Charts
The Chicago Cubs are facing a LHP at home (Clayton Richard SDP who has faced 586 batters). On FanDuel the Cubs are currently putting up 2.54 points per plate appearance (PPA) vs. LHP at home and Clayton Richard is currently allowing 107% more PPA than the MLB average (2.119 PPA). Their modified PPA is 2.70 (2.54 x 107%) and the difference is simply their modified PPA minus their situational PPA. Rinse & repeat for DraftKings.

It is important to note that due to the volatility of stolen bases, I do not include them when calculating ppa.

Lineup Situation Opposing Pitcher Batters Faced FanDuel DraftKings
FanDuel MLB Avg is 2.119 DraftKings MLB Avg is 1.616
PPA x % Mod PPA Dif PPA x % Mod PPA Dif
Cubs LHP at home Clayton Richard SDP 586 2.54 x 107% 2.70 +0.17 1.91 x 105% 2.00 +0.10
Royals RHP on road Ervin Santana MIN 47 1.96 x 134% 2.63 +0.67 1.51 x 134% 2.03 +0.52
Phillies LHP at home Wei-Yin Chen MIA 367 2.20 x 121% 2.67 +0.46 1.65 x 119% 1.96 +0.32
Nationals RHP at home Luis Castillo CIN 492 2.31 x 111% 2.57 +0.25 1.75 x 110% 1.93 +0.18
Angels RHP on road Shane Bieber CLE 222 2.23 x 111% 2.47 +0.24 1.70 x 113% 1.91 +0.21
Red Sox RHP at home Masahiro Tanaka NYY 393 2.55 x 97% 2.48 -0.07 1.93 x 97% 1.88 -0.06
Yankees LHP on road David Price BOS 507 2.39 x 101% 2.41 +0.01 1.82 x 101% 1.84 +0.02
Braves TBD on road TBD/Bullpen NYM – 2.38 x 100% 2.38 +0.00 1.82 x 100% 1.82 +0.00
Brewers RHP at home Jon Gray COL 491 2.21 x 107% 2.35 +0.15 1.68 x 106% 1.78 +0.10
Orioles LHP on road Martin Perez TEX 220 1.63 x 139% 2.25 +0.63 1.28 x 139% 1.78 +0.50
Rangers RHP at home Yefry Ramirez BAL 143 2.27 x 102% 2.32 +0.05 1.70 x 101% 1.72 +0.01
Mariners RHP at home Sam Gaviglio TOR 320 2.01 x 111% 2.24 +0.23 1.56 x 111% 1.73 +0.17
Blue Jays RHP on road Mike Leake SEA 563 2.14 x 104% 2.23 +0.09 1.62 x 106% 1.72 +0.09
Indians LHP at home Tyler Skaggs LAA 472 2.44 x 90% 2.19 -0.25 1.85 x 91% 1.68 -0.16
Diamondbacks LHP at home Derek Holland SFG 475 2.14 x 101% 2.17 +0.03 1.64 x 101% 1.65 +0.01
Rays RHP at home James Shields CHW 615 2.04 x 106% 2.17 +0.13 1.57 x 104% 1.63 +0.07
Athletics RHP at home Francisco Liriano DET 365 2.00 x 106% 2.13 +0.13 1.52 x 105% 1.59 +0.07
Reds RHP on road Tanner Roark WSN 551 2.10 x 100% 2.10 +0.00 1.60 x 100% 1.61 +0.00
Astros RHP on road Walker Buehler LAD 278 2.40 x 87% 2.09 -0.31 1.81 x 88% 1.59 -0.22
Giants LHP on road Robbie Ray ARI 285 1.84 x 113% 2.09 +0.24 1.42 x 111% 1.58 +0.15
Cardinals RHP on road Trevor Williams PIT 465 2.12 x 97% 2.05 -0.07 1.61 x 96% 1.55 -0.06
White Sox TBD on road TBD/Bullpen TBR – 2.00 x 100% 2.00 +0.00 1.54 x 100% 1.54 +0.00
Twins LHP at home Danny Duffy KCR 586 1.88 x 104% 1.95 +0.07 1.45 x 104% 1.51 +0.06
Pirates RHP at home Jack Flaherty STL 373 2.15 x 91% 1.95 -0.20 1.64 x 90% 1.48 -0.16
Mets RHP at home Julio Teheran ATL 484 1.79 x 107% 1.92 +0.13 1.37 x 105% 1.44 +0.06
Dodgers RHP at home Gerrit Cole HOU 554 2.35 x 76% 1.79 -0.56 1.78 x 76% 1.35 -0.43
Padres LHP on road Jon Lester CHC 526 1.86 x 94% 1.74 -0.12 1.44 x 94% 1.35 -0.08
Tigers RHP on road Trevor Cahill OAK 274 1.72 x 89% 1.52 -0.20 1.33 x 89% 1.18 -0.15
Marlins RHP on road Aaron Nola PHI 552 1.93 x 68% 1.31 -0.63 1.50 x 69% 1.04 -0.46
Rockies LHP on road Wade Miley MIL 119 2.08 x 61% 1.27 -0.81 1.59 x 62% 0.99 -0.60

Straight Cheese – Week 4 Streaming Starting Pitchers Richard, Garcia, Wheeler

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Clayton Richard

Clayton Richard of the San Diego Padres – when pitching at home against a non-threatening offense like this Friday versus the New York Mets – makes Chris’ fantasy baseball streaming pitchers picks this week.

Straight Cheese, the fantasy baseball pitcher streaming resource providing the scoop on less than desirable, questionably talented, hardly owned starting pitchers that you can use for a spot start to get those all-important counting stats without drop-kicking your ratio stats into submission.

Before we dive into the dumpster looking for junk pitchers we can use this weekend, lets take a look back at my picks from last week.

Week 3 Review

Name Date GS IP ER H BB K Dec ERA WHIP
Brandon McCarthy 4/18 vs. PHI 1.0 5 1 5 2 6 W 1.69 1.31
Jordan Zimmermann 4/19 vs. BAL 1.0 5 4 7 2 7 W 6.75 1.69
Sean Newcomb 4/20 vs. NYM 1.0 6 2 6 3 5 - 3.00 1.50
Andrew Heaney 4/20 vs. SF 1.0 4 7 6 2 6 L 14.54 1.85
Jhoulys Chacin 4/20 vs. MIA 1.0 6 0 4 3 5 W 0.00 1.17
Brent Suter 4/21 vs. MIA 1.0 5 5 8 1 4 - 9.00 1.80
Jose Urena 4/21 @ MIL 1.0 5 4 4 2 3 - 7.20 1.20
Week 3 Total   7.0 37 23 40 15 36 3-1 5.60 1.49
Running Total   11.0 60 29 63 23 61 5-1 4.35 1.43

Lessons Learned

Well, that is going to leave a mark. Here are lessons learned from last week:

  • Don’t force the issue – I wasn’t 100% sold on Suter or Urena but I felt that I needed to suggest some pitchers for Saturday. I should have trusted my gut and backed away.
     
  • Don’t trust my hunches this early in the season – looking at you Andrew Heaney. I had a hunch he would prevail after just one mediocre start. Boy, was I wrong.
     

With that out of the way, let’s open up some Wonka bars looking for a Golden Ticket!

Golden Ticket

Streaming Starting Pitchers – Week 4 Picks

Ownership info from Yahoo! (Y) and ESPN (E) and all 2018 stats are through Monday, April 23. We’ve officially left the, “too early in the season because sample sizes are too small” portion of the season because Mike Trout has reclaimed his rightful position atop the WAR leaderboard.

LHP Clayton Richard, SD
Owned Y3%/E5% · vs. New York Mets – Friday, April 27

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Richard and said, “He’s someone to keep on your radar as a streaming option when pitching at home and against a non-threatening offense.” This Friday he is pitching at home and the New York Metropolitans are no threat to southpaws away from Citi Field. Currently on the road vs. LHP their .263 wOBA is 26th and their 27.4 K% is 25th in Major League Baseball.

In his first five starts, Richard has a 5.67 ERA, 1.63 WHIP and 22 strikeouts in 27 innings. You don’t need me to tell you that those numbers are not good. However, I would like to tell you about his 50.6 GB%, 7.33 K/9 and having a 4.24 xFIP that’s a full run lower than his ERA. His HR/FB sits at an unsightly 22.7% with most of the damage coming in his two road starts (13.3% at home in 17 innings). He’s a groundball pitcher in a pitcher’s park in a good matchup – take advantage.

LHP Jaime Garcia, TOR
Owned Y9%/E10% · vs. Texas Rangers – Saturday, April 28

First, the Rangers and their .195 wOBA and 26.8 K% vs. LHP on the road is 30th and 23rd in MLB respectively. This is in only 71 plate appearances but when looking at their overall numbers vs. LHP you’ll see a .296 wOBA (22nd) and 23.4 K% (15th). Cross-reference that with their overall road numbers – .293 wOBA (22nd) and 24.7 K% (22nd) and you still see that they are in a good spot to pick on.

Second, Garcia. He has a 4.57 ERA, 3.92 xFIP, 1.43 WHIP and 23 strikeouts in 21 2/3 innings pitched. That is good but not great. What makes me eyebrow go up like The Rock is that at home he has a 3.27 ERA, 3.61 xFIP, 1.36 WHIP and 12 strikeouts in 11 innings. We’ve got a good situation to take advantage of here. Act accordingly.

RHP Zack Wheeler, NYM
Owned Y24%/E21% · @ San Diego Padres – Saturday, April 28

Mark my words, Wheeler is going to come crashing back down to Earth at some point this season. His 4.36 xFIP and .216 BABIP are waiting around the corner to ambush his 2.77 ERA and 1.00 WHIP. I just don’t think it is going to happen this Saturday in beautiful San Diego.

Padres currently have a .290 wOBA (24th) and 26.3 K% (26th) at home vs. RHP. Compound that with Wheeler’s propensity to pitch better on the road (3.75 xFIP road vs. 4.10 xFIP at home over his career) and you have the makings of an opportunity you can exploit.

RHP Daniel Mengden, OAK
Owned Y5%/E5% · @ Houston Astros – Saturday, April 28

I know, picking a relatively inexperienced hurler in the defending champ’s ballpark can’t be smart. Hear me out. The Astros aren’t so great at home vs. RHP. Their .280 wOBA is 28th and their 26.1 K% is 25th. Take a look at the lines from the last six visiting RHP to start a game in Houston.

Name Date GS IP ER H BB K Dec ERA WHIP
Bartolo Colon 4/15 vs. TEX 1.0 7 1 1 1 7 - 1.23 0.27
Tyson Ross 4/8 vs. SD 1.0 6 4 6 0 7 L 6.00 1.00
Bryan Mitchell 4/7 vs. SD 1.0 6 0 3 6 1 - 0.00 1.59
Dylan Bundy 4/4 vs. BAL 1.0 6 1 5 2 8 - 1.50 1.17
Mike Wright Jr. 4/3 vs. BAL 1.0 5 3 4 1 6 - 5.40 1.00
Chris Tillman 4/2 vs. BAL 1.0 4 4 7 4 0 L 9.00 2.75
Total   6.0 34 13 26 14 29 0-2 3.44 1.18

There are some clunkers in there but there are also some gems. Enter Mengden and his 3.86 ERA, 3.57 xFIP, 1.12 WHIP and 23 strikeouts in 30 1/3 innings. The 25 year-old doesn’t strike a lot of guys out but he also doesn’t walk many (0.89 BB/9) or give up the long ball (6.3% HR/FB).

This is a ballsy call but I’m going to stick by it.

Straight Cheese! Streaming Starting Pitchers Versus the Rays, Phillies and Giants

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Mike Minor

Texas Rangers LHP Mike Minor is 10% owned in fantasy baseball leagues, and faces the struggling Tampa Rays next. Chris gives us Straight Cheese identifying streaming pitcher options for the upcoming week.

Mike (@DraftBuddy) told me that I needed to come up with a title for my weekly fantasy baseball column. Since I’ll be focusing on pitching (mainly starters), and the article will undoubtedly be amazing (mostly the opposite), there was only one choice. Welcome to the inaugural edition of…

Straight Cheese

Last week, I mentioned rolling the dice with some pitchers of questionable talent. After reading it you might be asking yourself why you even have to pick up the dice. Well, your drafted guys aren’t going to be enough. In fact, they’re only going to get you about 70% of your counting stats. The other 30% will come from these undesirable undrafted chumps out on the wire. The price? Damage to your ratio stats.

In an attempt to minimize this damage you’ll need to pick your spots when you stream a pitcher from the wire. That is what I hope to help you with here at Straight Cheese.

The mindset you adopt when figuring out when to pick these spots is very similar to choosing a pitcher in Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS). In DFS you select pitchers that will return value based on their price. In other words, more bang for the buck.

The big name, high priced guys are probably already owned in your season-long roto fantasy leagues, so more often than not the low price guys in DFS are also the guys out on the wire. You are bargain shopping but you are trying to squeeze the most value out of your purchase. How do you do that?

Choosing a pitcher to stream isn’t just about the pitcher, it is also about the lineup he is facing. Unlike the elementary school playground it is okay to pick on the weaklings.

Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA)

I like to use Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA) to identify weak hitting teams. It is a nice catch-all stat that attempts to capture overall offensive quality at the plate by combining all the aspects of hitting into one metric.

You can read more about wOBA at FanGraphs. The wOBA general rule of thumb is .400 is excellent, .370 is great, .340 is above average, .320 is average, .310 is below average, .300 is poor and .290 is awful.

All 2018 stats are through Monday, April 9. This is important because we’re dealing with such small sample sizes that by the time you’re reading this the 2018 numbers may have changed. Ownership info from Yahoo! (Y) and ESPN (E) is as of Monday as well, but I don’t expect those to change even if all five of our readers pick up all of these chumps.

Here are the bottom 10 wOBA’s from 2017 and so far in 2018:

MLB Rank 2017 wOBA 2018 wOBA
30 Giants (.296) Indians (.244)
29 Padres (.298) Dodgers (.261)
28 Pirates (.304) Marlins (.274)
27 Angels (.307) Rays (.276)
26 Phillies (.310) Royals (.279)
25 Blue Jays (.312) Tigers (.282)
24 Royals (.312) Giants (.285)
23 White Sox (.313) Orioles (.287)
22 Rays (.316) Brewers (.294)
21 Braves (.316) Cardinals (.302)

Look at those 2018 numbers! Everyone sucks, right? Well, the MLB wOBA sits at .311 compared to 2017’s .321 wOBA. So, it is down across the league. There are some repeat offenders on both lists, the Royals, Rays, and Giants.

Strikeout % (K%)

The other stat I like to use is Strikeout % (K%) which is simply the number of strikeouts divided by plate appearances. It tells you who strikes out a lot and most roto leagues count strikeouts, so…. Here are the highest K% teams:

MLB Rank 2017 K% 2018 K%
30 Brewers (25.6%) Orioles (28.2%)
29 Padres (25.2%) Astros (26.4%)
28 Rays (25.0%) Cardinals ((26.1%)
27 Rangers (24.4%) Blue Jays (25.6%)
26 Athletics (24.3%) White Sox (25.4%)
25 Diamondbacks (23.4%) Rays (25.1%)
24 Phillies (23.1%) Phillies (25.0%)
23 White Sox (23.1%) Padres (24.9%)
22 Orioles (23.0% Twins (24.7%)
21 Rockies (22.7%) Rockies (24.3%)

League average K% is 22.7% so far in 2018 up from 21.6% in 2017. Repeat offenders are the Rays, Phillies, White Sox, Orioles and Rockies.

Splits

wOBA and K% provide an overall picture of offenses. The low hanging fruit, if you will. Another strategy is to dig deeper and find any splits stats you can exploit.

The righty/lefty split and the home/road split are the most well-known and for good reason. Historically, right handed batters hit left handed pitchers better and vice versa. Some teams perform better at home versus on the road and vice versa.

There are many theories as to why the splits are the way they are, but do you really care? No, you want me to cut to the chase and serve up some of that straight cheese! So, here we go. I’m not going to list the stats here for you but you can take a look for yourself:

vs. LHP vs. RHP Home Teams Visiting Teams
2017 wOBA vs. L
2018 wOBA vs. L
2017 K% vs. L
2018 K% vs. L		 2017 wOBA vs. R
2018 wOBA vs. R
2017 K% vs. R
2018 K% vs. R		 2017 wOBA Home
2018 wOBA Home
2017 K% Home
2018 K% Home		 2017 wOBA Road
2018 wOBA Road
2017 K% Road
2018 K% Road

I stared at this data for hours until the numbers started speaking to me ala John Nash. Here are the MLB averages before we dive into three teams with poor offenses to “pick on” to identify our pitcher streaming options.

Stat Overall vs. LHP vs. RHP Home Road
2018 wOBA .311 .314 .310 .315 .308
2017 wOBA .321 .319 .321 .328 .314
2018 K% 22.7% 23.4% 22.4% 22.5% 22.8%
2017 K% 21.6% 21.5% 21.7% 21.3% 22.0%

Pitcher Streaming Options

Versus Tampa Rays
Stat Overall vs. LHP vs. RHP Home Road
2018 wOBA .276 (27th) .253 (29th) .290 (24th) .249 (25th) .292 (21st)
2017 wOBA .316 (22nd) .303 (26th) .320 (18th) .315 (22nd) .316 (12th)
2018 K% 25.1% (25th) 29.1% (26th) 22.7% (13th) 25.7% (23rd) 24.8% (20th)
2017 K% 25.0% (28th) 25.9% (29th) 24.7% (28th) 25.8% (29th) 24.2% (25th)

The Rays are bad all around but even worse against LHP at home. Good news! They start a nine game home stand on Friday. Bad news is that it looks like they will only be facing southpaws in three of the games.

Solid streaming options

LHP Mike Minor, TEX (owned Y10%/E8%) on Wednesday, April 18th – 12 strikeouts in 10 2/3 innings.

Intriguing options

LHP Matt Moore, TEX (owned Y1%/E1%) on Tuesday, April 17th – he’s been awful so far (9 earned runs in 7 1/3 innings) but those were against stronger lineups (Toronto and Houston).

RHP Vince Velasquez, PHI (owned Y11%/E6%) on Friday, April 13th – 10 strikeouts in 8 2/3 innings.

RHP Ben Lively, PHI (owned Y4%/E4%) on Sunday, April 15th – 12 strikeouts in 11 1/3 innings.

To Be Decided, MIN on Friday, April 20th – if a lefty makes the start for the Twins consider streaming him.

Less than desirable option

LHP Martin Perez, TEX (owned Y1%/E1%) on Monday, April 16th – although he is a lefty, he was lit up on Tuesday night (8 earned runs in 3 innings) and only has three strikeouts over his two starts.

Versus Philadelphia Phillies
Stat Overall vs. LHP vs. RHP Home Road
2018 wOBA .325 (11th) .398 (1st) .300 (19th) .402 (1st) .260 (26th)
2017 wOBA .310 (26th) .298 (27th) .315 (20th) .323 (18th) .298 (28th)
2018 K% 25.0% (24th) 18.7% (6th) 27.2% (27th) 19.5% (6th) 29.6% (29th)
2017 K% 23.1% (24th) 21.6% (15th) 23.7% (24th) 23.2% (25th) 23.0% (21st)

At first glance, Philadelphia looks like a good hitting team (high wOBA) that strikes out a lot (high K%). But looking at the splits you can see that their numbers are inflated from their home games and against lefties. They are not as good when facing righties away from Citizens Bank Park, which is where they are for their next six games!

Solid streaming options

RHP Mike Foltynewicz, ATL (owned Y38%/E30%) on Monday, April 16th – hasn’t given up more than 2 ER in any of his 3 starts in 2018, but also hasn’t gone deeper than 5 1/3 innings.

RHP Brandon McCarthy, ATL (owned Y11%/E6%) on Tuesday, April 17th – nine strikeouts in 11 1/3 innings.

RHP Anibal Sanchez, ATL (owned Y0%/E0%) on Wednesday, April 18th – six strikeouts and two earned runs in five innings in his only start in Colorado.

Versus San Francisco Giants
Stat Overall vs. LHP vs. RHP Home Road
2018 wOBA .285 (24th) .275 (24th) .296 (22nd) .322 (12th) .231 (28th)
2017 wOBA .296 (30th) .293 (28th) .298 (30th) .292 (30th) .301 (25th)
2018 K% 23.8% (19th) 21.7% (12th) 26.3% (26th) 23.5% (17th) 24.3% (18th)
2017 K% 19.6% (6th) 19.5% (7th) 19.7% (6th) 19.5% (8th) 19.7% (4th)

The Giants don’t strike out enough to get me excited, but they look like a team you can pick on when they are on the road. That is where they will be for the next ten games!

Solid stream options

RHP Tyson Ross, SD (owned Y3%/E2%) on Friday, April 13th – nine strikeouts in 12 innings.

LHP Clayton Richard, SD (owned Y5%/E9%) on Saturday, April 14th – Hey, I mentioned him last week!

LHP Joey Lucchesi, SD (owned Y11%/E3%) on Sunday, April 15th – yet to give up an earned run in 2018.

Less than desirable option

RHP Bryan Mitchell, SD (owned Y0%/E0%) on Thursday, April 12th – only one strikeout in 10 2/3 innings.