Pitchers
Matt Boyd- Boyd has been amazing for the Tigers this season, posting a 3.32 SIERA with 29.6% strikeouts and 13.1% swinging strikes thus far. He draws an exceptional matchup with the Baltimore Orioles who strike out the eighth-most in the MLB against southpaws (26.1%) while ranking bottom-ten in wRC+ as a team as well. I’m not as worried about the hitter-friendly park as his fly balls have dropped significantly this season. along with an increase in strikeouts, and he gets another bump with the notoriously pitcher-friendly Phil Cuzzi behind the dish calling balls and strikes. He’s at a weird price point, more expensive than Rich Hill, but he is my favorite pitcher on this slate and I will be anchoring my main team on all sites around him.
Trevor Richards- Richards is such a weird case to me, he’s generated 12,8% swinging strikes this season, but has only a 21.2% strikeout rate to show for it, boding well for positive regression coming his way in that department, but he’s also been held back by his 11.4% walks. This matchup against the Giants is as good as it’s going to get for him, at home in pitcher-friendly Miami, and the Giants walk at a bottom-five rate in the MLB against righties. This is a loaded pitching slate in the mid tier, but Richards sticks out above the rest for me and I’m hoping for his biggest start of the season on Tuesday night.
Marco Gonzales (DK)- I’m a Marco Gonzales fan, but this is more about price and matchup with him coming in at $6,900 on DraftKings, up against the Texas Rangers who rank 24th in the MLB in wRC+ against southpaws, with the second-highest strikeout rate. He should be able to neutralize their power with strong ground balls, and he makes the most sense as a cash game SP2 alongside Boyd for me tonight, and that enables you to still fit in Coors Field (and my favorite pitcher).
Note on Rich Hill: I fully expect Rich Hill to be the most popular pitcher for cash games across the industry tonight, but I am comfortable taking a stand and being underweight on him for Matt Boyd. I never like rostering Hill as chalk, seeing as you are probably expecting only 5 innings out of him, and while the matchup against the Mets is good on paper, he does get an extremely hitter-friendly umpire in Mark Wegner behind the plate, which with the help of one big innings, could easily turn that 5 innings into four. This could bite me, because I really do think he is chalk, but I much prefer Boyd in all formats tonight.
Tournament Pool: Trevor Richards, Dylan Bundy, Max Fried
Building Blocks
Bryce Harper (DK)- I know people are burnt out from me talking about Bryce Harper, and yes there is a reason that he’s only $4.3K on DraftKings (strike outs), but I simply cannot pass him up in this matchup with Adam Wainwright. The only thing that’s held back Bryce in his first season in Philly has been his strike out numbers, and that shouldn’t be something we have to worry about with Wainwright’s 13.0% strikeouts to left-handed batters. In addition to the low K’s, he’s allowing a near .270 ISO to batters from the left-side, and I am comfortable locking in Bryce in all formats tonight.
Curtis Granderson (FD)- Grandy has been someone I have played quite a few times these past few weeks, as he continues to have strong hard-contact/fly ball numbers against right-handed pitching while remaining in the lead-off spot for Miami. He has another strong matchup tonight against Jeff Samardzija who has allowed 54.2% fly balls and 43.1% hard-contact to righties so far in 2019. On FanDuel, he is only $2,2000…while on DK, Shohei Ohtani would be the cheap punt at a bizarre $3,300 price tag!!!
Kike Hernandez/Justin Turner- These guys are both cheap, and facing a lefty, which makes them viable as a mini stack in all formats tonight. To further the matchup, Matz throws his sinker over 50.0% of the time against righties, a pitch that both Kike and Turner own .200+ ISO’s against this season.
GPP One Off: JD Davis- There’s a reason we call him Just Dongs Davis, as he comes into Tuesday night owning a .293 ISO against left-handed pitching this season. This is an amazing tournament play in my opinion, that presents solid leverage too with everyone running to use Rich Hill as their pitcher. Hill’s biggest pitch is his curve ball, which he throws 40.0% of the time against right-handed batters this season. Davis has crushed curve balls this season, with a .525 xwOBA and 91.2 MPH aEV vs them this season. At his cheap price on all sites, he is a great one-off where you are spending on Coors (or other expensive stacks).
Stacks
Given the monster nature of this slate, I will have to abbreviate this section and I will simply list the stacks in order of which I am using them, this is an amazing GPP slate in my opinion!
1. Rockies- Merrill Kelly has not been what the Diamondbacks have envisioned so far, he’s been unable to manage contact, and with sketchy control and low strikeouts he is extremely prone to blow up games. Heading into Coors Field is not ideal for him, and the Rockies are far and away my favorite stack tonight even when they will be the highest-owned. I will 100% be paying up for them in cash games, and will have sprinkles on almost all of my GPP teams.
2. Mariners- Adrian Sampson might be the worst overall pitcher on this slate, and if anything the size of this slate + the Coors Field effect should just bring them in lower-owned than they should be. Dan Vogelbach and Jay Bruce headline this stack for me, and filling in with the outfielders/cheap lower order players could be the move if you still want to get an expensive pitcher in.
3. Phillies- I highlighted above why I’m interested in Bryce Harper, but given the positive hitting weather in Philadelphia mixed with how good their lineup is overall, we don’t have to stop with just the left-handed batters. I would focus on the 1-5 hitters on DK, but I don’t hate including a cheap Scott Kingery who has seen the ball extremely well to start the season.
4. Yankees (FanDuel)- We don’t get this game on DraftKings, but it’s similar to yesterday with Matt Strahm where Eric Lauer is allowing over 40.0% hard hits and fly balls to right-handed batters this season. They will be lower-owned than they should be on this big of a slate, and I would start with Sanchez, Voit, Torres and Clint Frazier.
Chalk Stacks: Rockies, Diamondbacks, Mariners
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
