The Daily Grind: 6-27-14 – Presented by FanDuel

Agenda

  1. Platoon Man Downside
  2. Daily DFS
  3. Saturday Picks
  4. Table

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1. Platoon Man Downside

Today features one of our regular platoon bats – Jonny Gomes – against lefty Vidal Nuno. Gomes has continued to mash left-handed pitching this season, with a .385 wOBA. Against righties, he’s managed a mere .237 wOBA. In both cases the sample size is similar and small (about 100 plate appearances). Obviously, today is a good day to snag Gomes.

Here’s the problem some owners overlook. Gomes’ start against Nuno is worth roughly 2.25 favorable plate appearances. He’ll either be subbed once a reliever comes in or his expected outcomes will be below fantasy replacement level. Either event isn’t great. When you forecast four plate appearances for Gomes, you should be splitting his time between lefties and righties. Instead of a .380 wOBA, you might be wise to expect something closer to a .310 wOBA. That’s keeping the math very simple, what you actually end up with are two high value at bats and two low value at bats.

2. Daily DFS

Early: Two games are early, including the first game of the Rays-Orioles doubleheader. The Nationals and Cubs also play in the mid-afternoon.

Late: That leaves 14 games for the evening crowd. Close enough to a full slate.

Yankees southpaw Nuno is eminently targetable. Yankees Stadium is friendlier to left-handed hitters, but it’s nice enough to righties too. The Sox have a few righties worth a look, including the aforementioned Gomes.

Jacob deGrom has decent surface stats, but I’m not sure how long they’ll last given his low ground ball rate and high-ish walk rate. PNC Park is a good place to pitch, but I think the Pirates lineup has just enough weapons to be dangerous. On the other side of the matchup is Brandon Cumpton with his ball-in-play oriented skill set.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, John Danks is fine. He turns in some very strong outings but sometimes he really blows up. The Toronto offense is not a bad place to bet on one of those blow ups.

A game between Kevin Correia and Nick Tepesch has the potential for a lot of runs scored. Both pitchers allow plenty of contact.

Tyler Matzek has a tough matchup today against the Brewers. Surprisingly, the Brew Crew is middle of the pack against left-handed hurlers. It’s particularly surprising because they own three of the 20 best hitters against southpaws.

3. Saturday Picks

We have two doubleheaders tomorrow. The Phillies and Braves square off twice in Philadelphia, while the Cubs and Nationals will take two turns in Chicago.

Pitchers to Start: Marcus Stroman has more than enough stuff to get by in the majors. He keeps running into bad pitching matchups. The White Sox lineup isn’t the problem, it’s picher Chris Sale. Last time around he ran into Masahiro Tanaka.

Jon Niese isn’t as good as his 2.78 ERA, but he is better than his 40 percent ownership rate. PNC Park is a good place to use him.

Blake Treinen is back for another spot start with the Nationals. His repertoire is not very advanced – he basically just throws hard fastballs. If he can coax a little more usefulness out of his slider and changeup, maybe his strikeout rate would tick up. He rolls a lot of ground balls, just don’t expect many punch outs.

Pitchers to Exploit: As if one Dallas wasn’t enough, the Cubs will add a second one to major league baseball – Dallas Beeler. He’s not much of anything if his stats are to be believed. He’ll cut an imposing figure on the hill – he’s about six and a half feet tall. He supposedly works in the low 90’s and features good control. Conspicuously absent are strikeouts. My guess is he throws a lot of early count strikes and hitters jump on them.

It seems Hector Santiago is needed back in the rotation. He’s a fly ball pitcher with unimpressive peripherals. Maybe the Royals will actually hit a home run or two.

Sean O’Sullivan will spot start the second game for the Phillies. He’s never had much success getting pitches past major league hitters.

Hitters (power): Cody Ross hasn’t done a thing to distinguish himself since returning from the disabled list. Maybe a start against Eric Stults is what he needs to get back on track.

Ryan Raburn and Yan Gomes will have the platoon advantage against Roenis Elias.

Luis Valbuena sprays line drives, so he might be useful due to the doubleheader.

J.D. Martinez could be a nice play against Dallas Keuchel, assuming he starts.

Sean Rodriguez’s middle infield eligibility could come in handy tomorrow.

Steve Pearce is growing in popularity. He’s getting reps near the top of the Orioles lineup some nights. His .418 wOBA is helped by a .391 BABIP. Expect a wOBA closer to .350.

Hitters (speed): Tommy La Stella isn’t a true speed pick, but he will play twice tomorrow. Actually, Dan Uggla is liable to start one game just to get him work.

Rajai Davis has a decent matchup if he plays.

4. Table

The table below indicates which stadiums have the best conditions for hitters today. The color coding is a classic stoplight where green equals go for hitters. The weather conditions are from SI Weather’s home run app. A 10/10 means great atmospheric conditions for home runs. A 1/10 means lousy atmospheric conditions.

Looks like we’re all clear on the weather, although Philadelphia could see an isolated shower.

The Link. The weather ratings are pretty strong around the league, but you still have a nice wide range of choices available.

This post, covering one of the leading sites for daily fantasy, is sponsored and made possible by the generous support of FanDuel. FanGraphs maintains complete editorial control of the postings, and brings you these posts in a continued desire to provide the best analytical information on the latest in baseball.





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David
9 years ago

Surprisingly, the Brew Crew is middle of the pack against left-handed hurlers. It’s particularly surprising because they own three of the 20 best hitters against southpaws.

—so I was trying to see if this made sense on a team basis using the Old School Stat called “runs,” which is a counting stat and therefore BAD except of course it is the thing that tells us who, like, won the game and stuff. Anyway when I clicked the vs L filter on the board, the R totals suddenly were identical to the HR totals. This suggests something may be wrong in the state of Fangraphs. Either that or I am in some way not looking at the right thing (see reference to counting stats) or am blind.

ldavidjm
9 years ago
Reply to  David

You get a R when you hit a HR. Otherwise the runner doesn’t care what arm the person is throwing with when he crosses the plate. How would you account for a runner who got on vs a lefty but scored when a righty was pitching?
You might be looking for the other “old school stat” called RBI since, ya know, its all about knockin’ ’em in.

David
9 years ago
Reply to  ldavidjm

But this glitch happens on the Team stat page where you might like to know, say, how many runs the Brewers score against Lefty pitchers.
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=0&season=2014&month=13&season1=&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=&age=0&filter=&players=0

David
9 years ago
Reply to  ldavidjm

I’d assume the R follows according to the pitcher who put the baserunner on base, since that’s how Runs are charged, and all. I also noticed that Reynolds has a surprisingly low BABABIP vs. L pitchers and Jean Segura has been not good at all in his 74 plate appearances vs. L.

David
9 years ago
Reply to  ldavidjm

I also misspelled Babip. To the extent that can be done.

David
9 years ago
Reply to  ldavidjm

I certainly take your point that R is a mushy stat, but it is not really supposed to be the same stat as HR.

ldavidjm
9 years ago
Reply to  ldavidjm

Yeah I suppose it could be a bug, or it could be fangraphs doesn’t assign runs with splits because its unclear who the run “should” be charged to.

I was curious about other sites, ESPN has team runs assigned by splits
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/batting/split/31

Brewers are 11th