MLB FanDuel: Daily Pitching Focus July 14
By Matt Rogers
After a long, painful, break from baseball, welcome you back the MLB FanDuel Daily Pitching Focus column. We’ll review the top pitching options, fade picks, and value for your lineups tonight, July 14th, along with stacking targets.
Major League Baseball jumps back into the ‘swing of things’ (pun intended) with 15 games scheduled this evening, all starting after the 7pm EDT time slot, presenting 30 pitching options to pick through for tonight’s Main slate.
Along with the Yankees/Red Sox match-up, there are some great pitching duels on the mound tonight. While there are many great options, as we review the sabermetrics and match ups, there seem to be some trap-plays to avoid, and several of our picks are going to appear to be contrarian plays. So, most of our picks will set you up better for GPP versus cash games, but should work in cash games as well.
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Here is the list of games we’ve narrowed our search down to:
COL Jon Gray at NYM Jacob deGrom (7:10pm EDT)
TOR Aaron Sanchez at DET Justin Verlander (7:10pm EDT)
ARZ Taijuan Walker at ATL R.A. Dickey (7:35pm EDT)
SEA James Paxton at CHW James Shields (8:10pm EDT)
CLE Carlos Carrasco at OAK Sonny Gray (10:05pm EDT)
TB Jacob Faria at LAA Ricky Nolasco (10:07pm EDT)
We’ll start with the top pitching play of the Main slate…
Top MLB FanDuel Pitching Play
I expected, and respect, most MLB FanDuel players will choose Jacob deGrom ($10,900), with his juicy match up against the Rockies in New York. Away from Coors Field, Colorado’s offense has struggled, with pitching saving most of their games. And we’ll look at Gray a little later.
Against right-handed pitchers away from Coors Field, the Rockies have a 78 wRC+, tied with the Giants for the worst in baseball. And among all starting pitchers, deGrom has the second best SIERA, 3.60, and a great 28.4% strikeout rate. However, Jake’s 8.3% walk rate is concerning. Still, deGrom is worth a strong consideration as a top play today, just expect Jake to be chalky.
While deGrom has a great match up, we think Carlos Carrasco ($9,500) provides just as much upside and at a better value. Among all starting pitchers tonight, Carlos has the best SIERA, 3.49, and a high 27.5% strikeout rate. Carrasco also has a low 6.5% walk rate. Along with a low 1.08 WHIP, third lowest tonight, and only 1.03 home runs per nine innings, Carrasco is the best pitcher on the mound tonight.
But one of the reasons you may see Carlos lower owned, or avoided, is the 111 wRC+ from the A’s in Oakland against RHP’s. I think that’s a mistake. Yes, the A’s have been productive against RHP’s at home, and have a high 10% walk rate, but they also have a 25% strikeout rate against a pitcher fanning batters at nearly the same rate.
Even with an eight run, and seven MLB FanDuel point, disaster against the Rangers in late June, Carlos has pitched well lately, striking out seven to eleven batters per game over the last month. Carrasco will likely have ten-plus strikeouts again tonight, and if he can maintain his low SIERA in Oakland, he’s going to have 50-60 MLB FanDuel points on a more affordable salary than deGrom.
MLB FanDuel Top Carrasco Fade
We continue to look at Jacob Faria ($8,500) every time he’s on the mound, and will continue to do so until he disappoints us. In Jake’s last outing, against the Red Sox in Tampa Bay, he only had two strikeouts in six innings. That was disappointing considering his 24.3% strikeout rate and average of nearly eight per game over the last month. But, Faria still had a quality start and win, totaling 31 MLB FanDuel points.
Like the A’s, the Angels have performed better against RHP’s at home, in Los Angeles. The Angels have a better strikeout rate in this scenario than the A’s, only 18.3%, but a lower 7.2% walk rate. The Halos have a solid .261 batting average against RHP’s at home, but a disappointing .323 OBP and .425 slugging percentage.
Against your league-average right-handed pitcher, the Angels will likely be productive at home. But Faria isn’t your average RHP pitcher. Since his first start in the beginning of June, Jake is averaging over 40 MLB FanDuel points-per-game, and has a quality start in all six of his starts this season. Faria is a high-quality pitcher pitching to a mediocre Angels lineup, and should land around 50 MLB FanDuel points on a reasonable $8.5K salary.
MLB FanDuel: Top Value Play
Given deGrom’s likely popularity today, picking Jon Gray ($6,600) will seem like a contrarian play. But while Jon has only has five starts so far this season, like last year he has been impressive. Gray has a decent 4.02 SIERA, top ten among the 30 pitchers tonight. Jon also has a decent 22.6% strikeout rate along with an 8.5% walk rate. Both solid numbers.
The alarming number from Gray is the 1.46 WHIP, but with a 0.75 home runs per nine inning rate, we know he’s not giving up a lot of long-balls. That’s impressive considering he mostly pitches in Coors Field, and already pitched in hitter-friendly Chase Field as well.
The outing in Arizona is interesting, and started a decent two-game trend as Gray closed out the first-half of the MLB season. Over the last two games, against the Diamondbacks and Reds, Gray has only given up two earned runs per game, in 11.2 total innings. While Jon walked seven batters in his first three starts, he lowered the total down to one per game in the last two starts.
Jon has a 26 MLB FanDuel point-per-game average, but that’s misleading. in his last two starts, Gray landed 52 and 32 points. Tonight, Jon is facing deGrom, so the win is certainly at risk. But the Mets have a mediocre 100 wRC+ against RHP’s at home, league average. And while the Mets only have a 19% strikeout rate, the rest of the metrics are unimpressive. $6.6K is an absolute bargain for Gray tonight, too cheap to avoid.
Pitching Targets / MLB FanDuel Offensive Stacks
Detroit Tigers vs. Aaron Sanchez
While Sanchez has only pitched in five games this season, he’s having a very bad year. Aaron returned from the DL on July 7th, giving up seven hits, four walks, and five earned runs, then getting yanked from the mound after only 1.2 innings.
Sanchez is facing a Detroit Tigers lineup who’s seventh in baseball with a 115 wRC+, and a solid .465 slugging percentage. Sanchez is giving up over two home runs per nine innings, so we should expect to see several balls fly over the fence from the Tigers bats, in a hot one in Detroit.
Seattle Mariners vs. James Shields
Shields continues to be fantasy gold for offenses this season. James has a 5.45 SIERA, continuing to hover around the bottom all season, and second worst among all starters tonight. Shield’s has a real problem keeping batters off the base-path, walking hitters at a 11.7% rate. Along with a nearly three home run per nine innings, expect Cano and the Mariners to ‘go off’ tonight.
Arizona Diamondbacks vs. R.A. Dickey
When Dickey is pitching in hitter-friendly SunTrust park on a hot night in Atlanta, against a team whose hitting a lot of home runs this year, you know you need to stack against him. The Diamondbacks are never cheap this season, but with so much value at pitcher tonight, you should stack D-Backs in at least one lineup, and this is a great cash play tonight.
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