Joey Ricotta | June 30th, 2019
Welcome in. We have a nice main slate of nine games to go ahead and dive into. All of the games beginning at 1:05 E.T are available to select players from, leaving off the games starting at 4:05 E.T. and later. Please make sure to check the “Other Targets” sections of the article. I provide those as key points but don’t go into detail about the players because sometimes they are obvious. If you have any questions about any of the players mentioned, please feel free to reach out to me on twitter. With that said, let’s get into the Core Plays, BvP, and Stacks for today.
Core Plays
Pitching
Blake Snell ($8,000 on DK and $8,500 on FD)
This is the lowest price for Snell we’ve seen all year and for good reason. Snell has failed to pitch four innings in each of his last three starts and now has seen his ERA eclipse five for the season (4-7 record 5.01 ERA). But this could very well be a get right spot for Snell, especially if there is truly nothing wrong with him medically. Out of pitchers with a minimum of 40 innings thrown, Snell is still within the top-ten with a 31.7% strikeout rate. Snell’s opponent Sunday, the Texas Rangers strikeout at the highest clip in the Majors vs left-handed pitching (27.8%). They also have the fourth lowest batting average vs lefties (.234) and sixth lowest wRC+ (83).
Snell’s 12.9% walk rate in June is not good, but I still think he’s getting a little unlucky this season. His 67.4% F-Strike% (first pitch strike) is actually up 10.3% from 57.1% a year ago. His 18% SwStr% (swinging strike rate) is up nearly 3% from last year’s 15.1% SwStr rate and is currently the best in baseball. Snell is in the 89th percentile for hard hit% allowed, allowing only 30.1% hard hit. His 3.47 FIP and 66.6% LOB% (left-on-base) suggests he will have positive regression going forward. I’ll take a stab at today being the day, given the good match-up on paper.
Other Targets: Max Scherzer, Gerrit Cole, Shane Bieber, and Zach Davies.
Bats
1B Cheslor Cuthbert ($3,800 on DK and $3,000 on FD)
Cuthbert has a 12-game on-base streak and seven-game hit streak. He’s hitting .310 with 4 HR and 15 RBI, in only 25 games this season. I’m just going to ride the hot hand and use his solid production as a nice floor in cash games vs Aaron Sanchez who has a .375 wOBA allowed to righties.
2B Jose Altuve ($3,900 on DK and $3,600 on FD)
Plain and simple, Altuve is underpriced and we need to exploit it. We are used to seeing him in the upper $4,000 range and nothing less than that. He’ll be getting a good match-up vs Marco Gonzales of the Seattle Mariners. The lefty has a high 5.12 SIERA and 5.28 xFIP. In 43 ABs this season, Altuve is hitting .349 with an insanely good 202 wRC+ against lefties.
OF Jorge Soler ($4,000 on DK and $3,200 on FD)
Soler is only one for his last 27 at-bats. This should somewhat negate his ownership in an otherwise juicy match-up. Sanchez has struggled against righties this year, allowing a .375 wOBA against. He throws 58.6% four-seam fastballs and sinkers combined and has allowed a .341 avg against and .597 SLG% on those pitches. And 11 of his 13 homers allowed have been either fastballs or sinkers. Soler handles both of those pitches well. Despite hitting only .330 for the season, he’s hit .280 vs fastballs and .263 vs sinkers with 12 of his 21 total homers coming off of those two pitches.
Other Targets: Jesus Aguilar, Alex Bregman, Jose Ramirez, Jason Heyward, Kyle Schwarber and Eloy Jimenez.
BvP
OF Curtis Granderson vs Jake Arrieta
13-37 (.351) 3 HR, 10 RBI, and 7 XBH.
3B Eugenio Suarez vs Jon Lester
10-34 (.294) 3 HR, 7 RBI, and 6 XBH.
Stacks
Kansas City Royals vs Aaron Sanchez
I like a lot of solo plays for this Kansas City Royals offense today, but I don’t mind stacking them up either. They are relatively cheap to plug in and Sanchez has had a terrible month of June. In 24 IP, he has an 11.25 ERA, .349 AVG, and .423 wOBA against. He has a 7.76 FIP and has given up seven bombs. He had only six homers allowed total before this month.
Cleveland Indians vs Gabriel Ynoa
In 45.1 IP, Ynoa is 0-5 with a 6.75 ERA, 6.44 FIP, and 2.38 HR/9 rate. He’s only striking out 15.1% of batters and allowing a 44.2% hard-hit rate which is seventh worst among pitchers with at least 150 batted ball events.
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