What’s up guys! We have a short Saturday slate with some lackluster pitching options and Coors Field, so I’m going to roll with a different format for this article and breakdown a few of the plays I’m targeting tonight…let’s get it!
Pitchers
Dylan Bundy- We are thinking about using Dylan Bundy against the Yankees? Hear me out. I’m not a Bundy fan whatsoever, but on this slate, with no legitimate ace up top, and Coors bats to spend on, I want to save as much as possible at pitcher. That leads me to Bundy, who is extremely cheap and gets a semi-watered down Yankees lineup. Bundy was really good against right-handed batters in 2018, striking them out 31.0% of the time. His issues came against lefties, and the Yankees will only send Brett Gardner, Greg Bird, Mike Tauchman and Tyler Wade to the plate from the left side. Of those four, Bird is the only one with glaring power and he has a massive strikeout rate to neutralize it a bit. This is not a safe play, but on a slate like this I’m willing to take on some risk and the strikeout upside is there combined with a mega-cheap price.
Kyle Wright- A similarly cheap pitcher is the Braves youngster Kyle Wright, who draws an exceptional matchup with the Miami Marlins. Wright had a mediocre first start against a much tougher Phillies team, walking five batters and striking out four. The walks shouldn’t be as much of an issue tonight against an impatient Marlins team, and Wright has a much more comfortable matchup on paper than the closely priced Corbin Burnes. Wright honestly seems a bit safer than Bundy given the opposition, but he falls behind Bundy in K upside. Both are playable in all formats for me tonight in an attempt to get in ALLLLL the bats — and using them together on multi-pitcher sites is viable as well.
Stacks
I’m going to skip the building blocks section tonight because it’s obvious we will want to build around Coors in cash games, and I will highlight my favorite tournament stacks.
1. Oakland Athletics- I expect a lot of people to be on the Houston side of this game, and rightfully so, but that gives us massive leverage in GPPs with the Oakland Athletics against Wade Miley. Miley is an average pitcher with strong ground ball ability, which means that we need guys that can get the ball up in the air against him…which the A’s lineup happens to be full of. Khris Davis. Stephen Piscotty, Kendrys Morales and Marcus Semien all have .300+ expected ISO’s against Miley’s pitch types, and that’s not even including obvious threats against lefties in Mark Canha, Chad Pinder, and our boy Matt Chapman. I will be focusing heavily on the Astros in tournaments and hoping for some offensive fireworks in this game.
2. Milwaukee Brewers- I was all over the Brewers against Jose Quintana last night, and they get another subpar southpaw whose best days are in the past. Hamels have up over 42.0% hard-contact to right-handed batters last season, so we we will be going right back to the trio of Ryan Braun, Jesus Aguilar and Lorenzo Cain — filling in with Christian Yelich and Yasmani Grandal for a full five-man stack.
3. Yankees (obvious hedge spot)- If we are rolling out any lineups with Dylan Bundy, it is crucial to hedge in tournaments and simply make a Yankees stack in case the bad Bundy shows up, which is very possible.
Mini-Stack: Freddie Freeman + Ronald Acuna
Cash (chalk) Stacks: Dodgers, Astros, Rockies (in that order)
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
