Daily Fantasy Strategy — June 5 — For Draftstreet

There are, naturally, two ways to look at every match-up. A pitcher in a good situation to produce generally means hitters on the other side have a bad match-up, and the same goes for pitchers with a bad match-up. However, the differences in the ways hitters and pitchers are scored is important and can mean the degree to which a match-up is favorable for one side isn’t necessarily proportional to how bad it is to the other side.

On Sunday, I looked at how many daily fantasy points per 38 plate appearances the hitters from each team have produced against right-handed and left-handed pitching. This can be a quick shorthand for “how dangerous is a team against a pitcher handedness,” useful for deciding when to select stacks and when to target or fade certain starters.

The table below re-produces those stats (excluding stolen bases and caught stealing) but now also includes the fantasy points produced by an opposing pitcher per 25 batters faced, the league average for a starter (it excludes points from results, like wins, losses and saves).
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Notes
Quick aside: Has anyone else noticed the fantasy scoring environment heating up? I missed out on a double-up with 62.25 points yesterday, which is definitely the highest non-paying total I can remember.

Useful tool: Brett Talley highlighted the best and worst pitchers against a certain batter handedness yesterday. Bookmark that.

Schedule: Thursday is thin with 11 games but it’s especially thin if you wait for the late start pools, which will limit you to just six. With three of the later games (STL/KC, MIL/MIN, ARZ/COL) all showing 30 percent or greater chance of scattered thunderstorms, playing the early set may be your best call.

The Daily Five
Jacob deGrom – $13,136
deGrom has impressed through four starts, even if the walks are higher than you’d like, striking out nearly a batter an inning and posting a 2.42 ERA (albeit with a 3.63 xFIP). He draws the Cubs on Thursday, one of the friendliest teams for right-handed pitchers – see above for the fantasy output, and also note their league-worst .280 wOBA and ample 22.6 percent strikeout rate against righties.

Jacob Turner – $8,949
The usual notes apply with a pitcher like this: it’s a thin day, the price allows you to spend more on hitters or on your third starting pitcher spot (where a few expensive options have nice setups), and he only really needs to return five or six points to turn a profit. What’s more, the Rays are struggling some and rank 22nd in wOBA against right-handed pitching and dead last in OPS over the past 30 days. Turner’s also been far better than his 5.59 ERA suggests (4.23 FIP, 3.86 xFIP), which is why his price is so low. Bookmakers seem to like the match-up, too, setting the over/under at 7.5 with Jake Odorizzi opposite Turner.

Tigers stack – the righty-heavy Tigers lineup draws lefty J.A. Happ, and while Detroit hasn’t exactly been pounding southpaws (they’re middle of the pack), they have a handful of lefty-mashers. As for Happ, well, I’ve spent three seasons now trying to figure the guy out (I’m a Jays fan), and the up-and-down act is getting long in the tooth. Here’s betting today’s one of his “bad days.”
Ian Kinsler – $6,625
Torii Hunter – $6,188
Austin Jackson – $3,734

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