We get only six games for the Main Slate tonight, so this article will be a bit abbreviated compared to what it normally is with less pitching options and a smaller offensive pool available for us.
Pitching
SP1: Eduardo Rodriguez/Yu Darvish- There are three acceptable pitcher at the high-end on Saturday night, Eduardo Rodriguez, Yu Darvish and Kenta Maeda. Given the usual Dodger pitching limitations and the amount of lefties I expect to see in the Diamondbacks lineup, I’m going to be well underweight on Maeda tonight and I will focus on the aforementioned two.
Rodriguez matches up with the red hot Mariners who have slugged 12 homeruns off Red Sox pitching in two games. That does concern me seeing that Rodriguez leans more towards fly balls, but he trimmed his walk percentage down in 2018 and the hard-contact is only 27.9%, so there is optimism for him. The other problem is this Mariners lineup doesn’t project to strike out much, but given ERod’s 11.1% swinging strike rate, he could pick up a few extra K’s. Overall, I don’t love this matchup, but this is what we have to work with on this slate and as a -149 favorite Rodriguez is viable in all formats,
Darvish is really interesting, webarely saw him pitch last season, and his control was completely gone but that could of been caused by his health. Career-wise, this is a 30.0% strikeout guy, and the Rangers struck out a 24.4% clip against RHP a season ago. There are a lot more strikeouts in this Texas lineup than there are in the Mariners, but this is also a much worse pitching environment and I don’t know how much we can really trust Darvish yet. Overall, Rodriguez is much safer for cash games but I might be willing to take on the added risk of Darvish tonight in tournaments if it looks like nobody is going to play him.
SP2: Felix Pena- What a dry slate it is when I only write up three pitcher, gross! Pena doesn’t standout as a must roster player, but on this specific slate where there is nothing I like below him and there’s not a must roster ace that is expensive, he will comfortably slot in as my SP2 on multi-pitcher sites. On the surface, he’s a pretty average pitcher after posting a 4.08 SIERA with 22.0% strikeouts in 2018. Those numbers come with some pretty heavy splits, however, as he jumps to 26.0% strikeouts against righties with a 3.42 xFIP. Oakland will send a predominately right-handed lineup to the plate tonight and Pena is good enough at managing hard-contact that their power might not come into play as much as it normally does, especially for the RHH.
Building Blocks
Anthony Rizzo- My first two building blocks might be obvious, but with the amount of money we will be allocating to pitching tonight (not a lot) we should easily be able to fit them both into our optimal lineup. The last time we saw Edinson Volquez (2017) he sported a 5.75 xFIP and 42.0% hard hits allowed to left-handed batters. Rizzo is the premier left-handed bat on the Cubs roster and will be one of the highest owned plays on this slate.
Mike Trout- Trout is even more obvious of a play than Rizzo, as he is an elite play any time he is in the lineup. He draws a date with Brett Anderson who is a mediocre left-handed pitcher that allows a ton of contact — only 7.6% swinging strikes in 2018. Balls will be in play in this game, and Trout is still searching for his first homer of the new campaign, he owns a career .234 ISO against southpaws.
Paul DeJong- I featured DeJong in this section last night, and I’m going right back to the well with him against Brandon Woodruff. He’s simply mis-priced, and he has sp much value batting in the heart of this Cardinals order. Woodruff was good out of the bullpen for the Brewers last season, so I’m hesitant to apply many of his number seeing that he is now staring, but one thing that does stick out is that he allowed over a homerun per nine innings to right-handed batters.
Stacks
1. Milwaukee Brewers- We saw Dakota Hudson late last season for the Cardinals, he posted a solid 55.0% ground ball rate but that also came with a 15.3% walk rate. The problem with Hudson in this specific matchup is he allows a ton of contact and the Brewers lineup is packed full of batters that can get the ball up in the air against him — and if he starts to walk people it could get really ugly in a hurry. I also think that this stack will come in with lower ownership than the Cubs, with similar power upside. Christian Yelich, Jesus Aguilar, Mike Moustakas and Travis Shaw are my starting points with Lorenzo Cain or Yasmani Grandal filling in for a full-on five man stack.
2. Chicago Cubs- This will be your chalk stack of the night as the Cubs take on Edinson Volquez, and you should absolutely be looking for both cash game and GPP exposure here. Volquez didn’t pitch last season, but the last time he did he was not good — especially against lefties. For that reason, I will be targeting a lefty stack with Anthony Rizzo, Kyle Schwarber and Jayson Heyward leading the charge. You can absolutely fill in with some righties like Kris Bryant or Javy Baez, I just want to put an emphasis on beginning with the left-handers.
3. San Diego Padres- Well, we are three slates deep and this is the third time I am writing up the Padres. Their lineup is not what we have been accustomed to the last few seasons and there are going to be a lot of instances where they are a viable stack this season. Tonight is another one of those, as they meet up with Dereck Rodriguez and the Giants. Rodriguez was one of the luckiest pitchers in all of baseball last season pitching to a sub-3.00 ERA despite owning a 4.57 SIERA. He allows above-average hard hits and while I will mainly look to deploy the Padres against lefties this season, Rodriguez is just not good and I don’t believe in his fluke continuing. The top two plays for me are Manny Machado and Franchy Cordero should he be in the lineup, and I’m fine with filling in with players such as Fernando Tatis Jr, Franmil Reyes, Eric Hosmer or Wil Myers.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
