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MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: July 15 – A first round Plut-KO

By Brian Tulloch

BOSTON, MA - AUGUST 23: Adam Plutko #45 of the Cleveland Indians throws against the Boston Red Sox in the first inning at Fenway Park on August 23, 2018 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images)
BOSTON, MA - AUGUST 23: Adam Plutko #45 of the Cleveland Indians throws against the Boston Red Sox in the first inning at Fenway Park on August 23, 2018 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images) /
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MLB DFS
BOSTON, MA – AUGUST 23: Adam Plutko #45 of the Cleveland Indians throws against the Boston Red Sox in the first inning at Fenway Park on August 23, 2018 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images) /

MLB DFS – Monday Pitching Breakdown:

We have a handful of ace quality arms on this slate tonight Luis Castillo, Lucas Giolito, Clayton Kershaw, Blake Snell, and James Paxton all on the mound but with some lofty offensive totals and a game in Coors Field, my eyes went right to the mid-range and value tiers for pitching tonight.

Adam Plutko ($15.3K) is not a high strikeout arm so in DFS he is normally not someone I would go out of my way to use, but the match-up against the Tigers is one that I think we can and should exploit. The Tigers rank 2nd in all of baseball with a 26% K rate against RHP and over the last 30 days, have a 25.4% K rate, which ranks 5th in the league during that span.

Plutko, who has been used mostly out of the bullpen this year, should be stretched out after throwing 93 pitches in his last long relief outing against the Orioles. Earlier this season Plutko made a spot start against this same Tigers team, throwing 6 innings of 2 run ball, racking up 6 K’s and over 21 fantasy points in the process.

While Plutko does not have a heavy strikeout arsenal, we have seen this season his ability to rely on his slider can generate high swinging strike rates as he put up double-digit swinging strike rates against the Tigers and Yankees in two early-season starts where he put up 20 fantasy PPG averages.

Joe Musgrove jumps out to me as a value however with both Dan Palyo and Joe Metz breaking him down in their Pitching Primer and FanDuel breakdowns, I will go another route at SP2 considering there is also significant rain risk in St. Louis.

Rick Porcello ($13K) will face-off with a Toronto team he has gone against twice this season with mixed results – his most recent in Fenway where he gave up 5 ER and failed to reach 1 fantasy point. In fact, Porcello is in the midst of his worst stretch of the season, giving up 5, 6 and 6 ER in his three starts before a much-needed All-Star break.

Porcello prior to this most recent rough patch was coming off two dominant outings against the Twins and Rangers, striking out 7 batters/game with 33 and 20 fantasy points, so we know the upside is there relative to his price point.

Porcello faced Toronto earlier in the season on the road, where he struck out 4, giving up 1 ER and notching 17 fantasy points but what really stood out to me in that game was is pitch type. Porcello threw nearly 25% curveballs in that game, by far his high water mark for that pitch in 2019 and relied far less on is slider at only 12%.

The curve is Porcell’s best swing and miss pitch, generating a near 30% whiff rate and 7 of the 9 hitters in this Toronto line-up have 30% or higher whiff rates against right-handed curveballs. Toronto’s projected line-up has a 24% K rate against RHP this season and they rank in the top 10 for strikeouts against RHP on the season across all of MLB, so there is some potential K upside for Porcello here.

In the three slates since the break, we have seen only four pitches go for 30+ fantasy points and not a single one of them has been a high-priced ace, with Adam Wainwright, Brad Keller, Eduardo Rodriguez and Felix Pena putting up the top pitching performances. With a ton of bats we want to play tonight, could this be another slate we opt to pay down at pitching and let our bats do the talking?