MLB

KBO Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Wednesday 6/3/20

Casey Kelly was dominant in his most recent KBO outing and is worth a look again on Wednesday. Which other players should we target in KBO DFS?

Wednesday's KBO DFS slate is a certified toughie.

At hitter, it's pretty clear that we'll want to spend up for some of the league's best offenses. They're in favorable matchups, and we've got a large enough sample now to know which teams are standing out.

That pushes us to seek out low-cost pitching. The reason this is tough is that there aren't a ton of great options at pitcher on the slate, and even some of the standouts have their flaws. Trying to find a pitcher who fits our process and comes with a low salary won't be easy.

So let's check out what the data says and try to see how we should play this thing. The starters on Wednesday's slate are below, sorted by the FanDuel salary of their team's starting pitching slot. Numbers -- for those pitchers who have made at least two starts in 2020 -- are listed below. The one exception is Sung-young Choi, whose numbers are from 2019 (across 26 appearances and 15 starts) because he has thrown just 60 pitches in 2020. The pitchers with no stats listed did not have a relevant sample in the KBO last year.

Opposing runs per game totals come from My KBO Stats, and opposing strikeout numbers can be found at Baseball Reference. The park factor numbers are multi-year run factors via STATIZ with 1000 being neutral and a higher number favoring hitters.

PitcherSalaryL/ROpp.ERAWHIPK%BB%HR%Opp. R/GOpp. K%Park Factor
Hyun-jong Yang
(Kia)
$27LLOT4.851.4216.1%7.1%2.7%4.2916.6%1003
Sung-young Choi
(NC)
$27LSK3.941.5516.8%13.3%0.8%4.3319.4%1012
Hyeong-jun So
(KT)
$26RDOO7.061.668.0%4.0%3.0%6.2515.2%973
Yong-chan Lee
(Doosan)
$25R@KT8.721.7511.9%5.9%5.0%6.4617.5%973
Geon-wook Lee
(SK)
$25R@NC----------6.4217.8%1012
Casey Kelly
(LG)
$25RSAM4.051.4022.7%6.8%0.0%5.0417.7%959
Adrian Sampson
(Lotte)
$24R@KIA----------4.8416.9%1003
Yoon-dong Heo
(Samsung)
$24L@LG----------5.9216.9%959
Warwick Saupold
(Hanwha)
$22RKIW2.651.1512.4%4.4%0.7%6.0418.7%978
Young-gun Jo
(Kiwoom)
$21R@HAN----------3.5619.7%978


The data's always helpful, but it doesn't necessarily point us definitively one direction for where to go at pitcher. So let's dig a bit deeper and see who stands out for Wednesday.

Pitchers

When looking at that table, you'll see that Casey Kelly (LG Starting P; $25) has a 4.05 ERA to open the season. That's not going to grab your attention in a positive sense. Still, he likely deserves to sit atop our list.

Kelly's ERA is up there due to a pair of starts this year in which he allowed a combined nine runs. Those two stats, though, came against the KT Wiz and NC Dinos, the two teams leading the KBO in runs per game. When Kelly had a more forgiving matchup last week, he racked up 10 strikeouts across 6 innings.

The matchup for Kelly on Wednesday is more middling as the Samsung Lions are sixth in runs per game and strikeout rate. Kelly is at home in a pitcher-friendly park, coming off a monster outing, and not far removed from a 2.55 ERA last year. For all of that, his $25 salary is easily justifiable.

If not locking in Kelly, you may be forced to climb up to Hyun-jong Yang (Kia Starting P; $27). Yang is another pitcher who excelled last year, holding a 2.29 ERA and 22.3% strikeout rate in 29 starts. He's facing the Lotte Giants, who have cooled after their hot start and are now averaging just 4.29 runs per game.

Yang -- like Kelly -- has a mediocre ERA this year at 4.85, but that's being inflated by a six-run outing last week against KT. Yang could be primed for a bounce-back, making him the top alternative to Kelly.

As long as you're okay with massive risk, then you could consider Warwick Saupold (Hanwha Starting P; $22) as a value option. Saupold is facing the Kiwoom Heroes, who are averaging 6.04 runs per game but also have the third-highest strikeout rate in the league. It's a boom-bust matchup that could easily swing either way.

Saupold, though, has been steady both last year and this year. He finished 2019 with a 3.51 ERA and 16.7% strikeout rate in 31 starts. His upside gets a boost due to the matchup, which puts him on the map. We're just better suited paying up for Kelly if we can dig up the extra $3.

Stacks

The reason we had incentive to save a bit at pitcher was because both the Doosan Bears and KT Wiz are in a spot to post some runs, and those offenses have some costly pieces. You should still be able to get exposure here even while using Kelly, so let's see why both deserve to be priorities.

Let's start with the preferred offense in this matchup -- Doosan -- against Hyeong-jun So. So is an 18-year-old righty who has struggled in his first four starts with a 7.06 ERA and 8.0% strikeout rate. His debut came against Doosan, and he held them to two runs over five innings, but the performance since then indicates we can stack them here.

A little helper in stacking Doosan is the salary on Joo-Hwan Choi ($11). Choi's still a mid-tier play even though he's batting right behind Doosan's "big three" and leads the team with five long balls this year. As such. Choi is the focal point in stacking this offense. Then, depending on what type of hitter you need, you can shoot up to the studs or save additional coin with their leadoff hitter, Soo-Bin Jung ($7).

As for KT, they're facing Yong-chan Lee. Lee was decent last year with a 4.07 ERA, but his 15.7% strikeout rate hinted that he may be due for regression. We've seen that manifest through four starts in 2020 as Lee's ERA is 8.72 thanks to an unfortunate affinity for dingers. KT poked him around for six earned across six innings the first time they faced this year.

Although KT is still without arguably its best hitter -- Baek-Ho Kang -- they just got another slugger back from the injured list last night. Han-Joon Yoo ($14) returned to the lineup for his first game since May 16th. Yoo had 14 homers last year and 2 before sustaining the injury this year, and he figures to bat high in the order if he can play. It's worth noting that Yoo didn't start in his first game back, so he might be best suited for those who will be awake when lineups come out, but his presence should amplify our confidence in this offense as a whole.

For the final stack, we can look at the LG Twins. LG is in a poor park for offense, but they're facing Yoon-dong Heo. Heo is another 18-year-old, and in his lone KBO start, he had four walks to just one strikeout across five innings. That should be enough to help compensate for the bad offensive environment.

It has been a while since LG has faced a lefty (eight days, to be exact), so we do have to do some guesswork with the lineup. If they roll out the same order they did for that game, though, their three- and five-hole hitters -- Eun-Sung Chae ($11) and Min-Sung Kim ($9) -- will inherit a platoon advantage over Heo. Chae, especially, is worth targeting with his .319/.361/.516 through 98 plate appearances. This isn't to say that you should ignore Roberto Ramos ($17) or Hyun Soo Kim ($14) just because they're facing a lefty, but it does mean LG is a good place to turn when looking for some cheaper hitters in a plus spot.