FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Monday 5/22/23
Monday's slate gets going slightly later than usual at 7:20 pm ET, giving us seven games in total. Perhaps the toughest decision will be figuring out whether a great matchup at Coors Field is enough to stack an otherwise poor offense at what could be high roster percentages.
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Let's check out the top options on today's main slate.
Pitching Breakdown
The results haven't quite been there for Luis Castillo ($10,500) lately -- he's failed to earn a quality start in five straight outings -- but he's still sporting a 3.40 SIERA, 27.8% strikeout rate, and 5.3% walk rate, and all five of those starts came against tough opponents. The Athletics continue to be a team we want to attack with right-handed pitchers, and they're the easiest team Castillo's faced since mid-April.
Even by the A's standards, their 2.79 implied team total is comically bad. Their active roster has just a 93 wRC+ versus righties, and they have the fifth-highest strikeout rate (24.8%) in the split. Between Oakland's struggles at the plate, Castillo's talents, and pitcher-friendly T-Mobile Park, it quickly becomes clear why that implied team total is so low.
Put it all together, and there's a clear case for Castillo being the slate's first choice at pitcher.
Cristian Javier ($10,800) makes for a close second, though. The 26-year-old enters the day with a 3.54 SIERA, 28.5% strikeout rate, and 5.8% walk rate, numbers that are quite similar to Castillo's. The difference is that Javier's play has been on the upswing, as he's snagged the quality start bonus in four of the last five and has logged double-digit strikeouts twice.
However, Javier doesn't have quite as juicy a matchup against the Brewers, a team that's average in wRC+ (100) and strikeout rate (22.8%) versus right-handers this year. But there's no reason to think he can't excel in this spot, too, and Milwaukee's implied team total remains one of the night's lowest marks (3.69).
Corbin Burnes ($9,700) has been a tough one to figure out all year, and even after nine starts, his 21.6% strikeout rate and 8.9% walk rate are still a ways off his career averages. On the bright side, his 12.3% swinging-strike rate actually sits just outside the top 20 among qualified starters, and he's logged seven strikeouts in back-to-back starts (27.5% strikeout rate), so maybe those punchouts are coming around. It's not like Burnes is getting hit hard, either, so he's still managed some respectable results, including four quality starts in a row.
Burnes is up against a middling Houston offense (3.81 implied team total) that should improve with Jose Altuve back, but there's only so much Altuve will be able to do to improve this team's .124 ISO against righties. While rostering Burnes continues to be a leap of faith from a DFS perspective, there are enough positives to keep taking shots in tournaments.
Bailey Ober ($10,300) deserves a cursory look in GPPs, as well, though this isn't an ideal spot against San Francisco. Ober has stark splits against lefties (5.42 xFIP; 20.0% strikeout rate) compares to righties (3.62; 29.4%) this year, and that's been the case dating back to his debut in 2021. That could be troublesome when facing the platoon-happy Giants, who figure to load up their lineup with left-handed batters. But if the lineup isn't too heavy on lefty sticks, Ober is a viable pivot.
Despite generally poor results all season -- he has a 7.09 ERA after all -- Brady Singer ($7,400) could be a go-to value option against the Tigers. Detroit's active roster has the third-worst wRC+ (81) and ISO (.113) versus right-handers, and it says a ton about them when we see just a 4.21 implied team total against someone like Singer.
Singer's 4.58 SIERA suggests he hasn't been nearly as bad as that bloated ERA -- but he's allowed copious amounts of hard contact, so it's not like this has all been bad luck. The good news is he might be able to get away with that against a team sorely lacking in power, and he could be turning things around following back-to-back quality starts, the last of which included a season-high 101 pitches.
It's fair to question Singer's upside regardless of matchup, though, so he's still more of a fringe play on a night where we might not need this much in savings.
Hitting Breakdown
It's possible the Miami Marlins haven't been listed as a potential stack here all season, and yet, here they are with a slate-high 5.89 implied team total. That's what the combination of Coors Field and Chase Anderson will do.
Anderson hasn't allowed an earned run through 10 innings, including a start at Coors last week, but his 4.78 SIERA and 14.3% strikeout rate aren't far off from what we're expecting as that sample size grows. The 35-year-old has posted an ERA well over 6.00 in each of the past three seasons, and that was without making home starts in Denver. As a reminder, the Colorado Rockies are already Anderson's third organization in this season alone.
Of course, with this being the Marlins, there are few standouts in this offense, as Jorge Soler ($3,700) is the lone hitter with any notable power (.271 ISO). Bryan De La Cruz ($3,400), Garrett Cooper ($3,200), and Peyton Burdick ($2,900) are probably the best of the rest for the long ball. Other than that, leadoff man Jon Berti ($3,100) has a team-high seven stolen bases, and Luis Arraez ($3,300) is an on-base machine who shouldn't have any problem putting the ball in play.
On the other side, the Rockies also have an intriguing matchup versus right-hander Edward Cabrera. While Cabrera has a scary 30.1% strikeout rate and 53.6% ground-ball rate, that comes with an ugly 16.4% walk rate, which is why his ERA sits at 5.13.
Cabrera has a lower ground-ball rate in same-sided matchups and has allowed a higher rate of home runs to right-handed batters over his young career. That theoretically bumps up Kris Bryant ($3,300), though Bryant's power has been lacking versus righties since joining the Rockies last year. Really, though, we're just hoping Cabrera is all over the place tonight, so Charlie Blackmon ($3,300), Jurickson Profar ($3,400), and Ryan McMahon ($3,300) probably fit the mold best as guys with decent power, low ground-ball rates, and high walk rates.
The Atlanta Braves are the non-Coors team with the best implied team total (5.13), and they're the only other one coming in above five runs. They're up against prospect Gavin Stone, who was knocked around in his MLB debut earlier this month and has been a mixed bag in Triple-A with a 4.77 xFIP, 27.5% strikeout rate, and 12.8% walk rate. Overall, it doesn't look like Stone is quite ready for the bright lights, and Atlanta isn't exactly an easy draw for his second opportunity.
Unlike those Coors teams, we don't have to grasp at straws to figure out who to play, but Ronald Acuna ($4,700), Matt Olson ($4,100), and Sean Murphy ($4,000) come in at some of the highest hitter salaries on the board. We can still buy low on Austin Riley ($2,900), though, who hasn't put up the numbers we've expected but remains a top-tier talent. Most other Braves bats are at value salaries, with Marcell Ozuna ($2,800) and his .230 ISO being of particular note.
The Seattle Mariners are another team we should have exposure to. That's because they're facing left-hander Kyle Muller and the A's, a team we continue to attack on a near-daily basis. Muller is getting lit up in practically every start, and a 14.6% strikeout rate and 10.2% walk rate suggest that there's no end in sight. Oakland's active bullpen continues to struggle and now sits on a league-worst 5.16 xFIP. Julio Rodriguez ($3,500) is a top play, and then there's great value to be found in Teoscar Hernandez ($2,800) and Eugenio Suarez ($2,900).
The Minnesota Twins, Los Angeles Angels, and Boston Red Sox also have their merits. The Twins get a bullpen game versus the Giants, and it's possible homer-prone Sean Manaea gets some of those innings tonight. L.A. faces Tanner Houck, who does a good job of getting grounders versus righties (57.4%) but otherwise has pretty pedestrian metrics. In that same game, the Red Sox will see Jaime Barria, but this figures to be another bullpen game.
