MLB DFS Lineup (8/01/2020)

Happy Saturday everyone! Also, Happy August! Today is my wedding anniversary and I would love nothing better than to win big (and so would my wife). Last Saturday was a very good DFS day for us so let's hope this Saturday is just as successful. There is a decent chance that this could be the last weekend of baseball for 2020 if baseball teams don't do a better job of managing COVID-19. Sadly many of these young baseball players are making some poor choices by still living the typical baseball life which involves partying and womanizing. There is a very good reason why the NBA built the bubble for its restart. MLB should have done the same and MLB Player Union Chief Tony Clark really needs to rein this in or otherwise we lose the season.

For today I am loving Tyler Glasnow and Minnesota and Boston stacks. I made a video showing some data visuals from the Advanced Sports Analytics (ASA) site and other resources. Here is the link for ASA and the link to my video.

www.advancedsportsanalytics.com

youtu.be/Pq4zDNuP0zk

Glasnow is an easy choice. He has owned Baltimore in his short career and the Orioles simply cannot hit. The temperature should be cooler at Camden Yards so the ball should stay in the park. If we can get 5 - 6 IP out of Glasnow with 7 - 8 Ks and no ERs, we will gladly take it. 6 IP would be awesome on FanDuel since it would give us the quality start and hopefully the W.

Minnesota goes up against Carlos Carrasco who is no scrub. However, Carrasco has struggled against the Twins recently, mainly because of Nelson Cruz. Cruz has made a a huge difference to this offense so you will want to stack Cruz with the batters who bat ahead and behind. That means we will go with Jorge Polanco and Eddie Rosario who both have a strong history against Carrasco. You could also throw in Max Kepler or Mitch Garver. Keep an eye on Josh Donaldson who is day-to-day. He is another nice player to throw into a Minnesota stack.

As for Boston we are attacking another solid pitcher in Masahiro Tanaka. Why? Because Tanaka sucks against Boston. Just look at the game logs from 2018 and 2019. Ugly! Rafael Devers is the core of our stack here. Get batters who bat ahead and behind him. Lefties could be a good way to go so I would also consider Andrew Benintendi as well as Mitch Moreland. Xander Bogaerts is another nice option and you will see on the ASA site that the #4 hitter for Boston (usually where Bogaerts bats) correlates very well with the 5, 6, and 7 hitters.

Here are sample lineups for DraftKings and FanDuel. Going against two solid pitchers such as Carrasco and Tanaka will offer some differentiation since I expect the Twins and Red Sox bats to be somewhat low owned today.

DraftKings
P: Glasnow
P: Flaherty
C: Vazquez
1B: Moreland
2B: Chavis
3B: Devers
SS: Polanco
OF: Cruz
OF: Rosario
OF: Benintendi

FanDuel
P: Glasnow
C/1B: Moreland
2B: Chavis
3B: Devers
SS: Polanco
OF: Cruz
OF: Kepler
OF: Rosario
UTIL: Bogaerts

Good luck today and let's get back to winning some tournaments!

UPDATE (8:28 AM PT): Jack Flaherty won't pitch today due to the STL-MIL game being cancelled thanks to COVID-19. Instead, consider the DK line up below.

DraftKings
P: Glasnow
P: Urias
C: Vazquez
1B: Moreland
2B: Chavis
3B: Devers
SS: Polanco
OF: Cruz
OF: Rosario
OF: Pillar

Watch out for more adjustments once batting lineups are set.