MLB DFS Lineup (8/16/2020)
Well, it has been a while since I have written an article about MLB or NBA DFS. Even though I have not had to get in my car to get to work, all of these Zoom meetings early in the morning definitely take up a good chunk of my time. With two little kids crawling/running around the house and no summer camp for my toddler until he starts preschool next week, life has been busy at home. Somehow the entire house is asleep at this present moment and I was able to get my research done late last night without passing out on the couch. It also helps that I can just focus on baseball today with the NBA taking a day break before the playoffs begin tomorrow.
So who do we like for today? There is a stud pitcher in Max Scherzer but the stud pitchers have been somewhat of a crapshoot. No doubt I expect Scherzer to put up a solid game but is he really worth the salary on either DK or FD if he barely gets 20 points on DK or 40 points on FD? There could be better value as you scroll down the list of pitchers. Two jump at me as better value than Scherzer: Lance McCullers and Jon Lester. Both are at home and pitching against weak offenses who tend to strikeout quite often. Also, both offenses have been playing well lately so they should provide nice run support. We will definitely want the salary savings with either pitcher so that we can incorporate a couple of high end offensive stacks to our lineups.
So where do we go for offense? This has been tricky since we are seeing quite a bit of variance right now. For example, I really don't believe the Cleveland Indians offense is as bad as their rankings make them out to be. They have had some days where they pop off for 10+ runs. However, they have had some low scoring days as well. What about Colorado? They are playing great baseball right now and should be a force to be reckoned with come October. We all know how dangerous they can be at home and last week they had some high scoring games. However, this weekend, the offense has been flat. Maybe the Texas Rangers pitching is vastly improved or we are just experiencing the randomness of baseball that can eat away at our wallet.
The best we can is to simply stick with the strong bats. Just like the stock market, the blue chip companies will have their down days but ultimately they are strong on most days. The two offenses that I would like to roll with today are Houston and Minnesota. Again, they have had their off days but with both teams facing soft pitchers who have been rattled early on this season, we are banking on these offenses to get us a few HRs to carry our lineups to the top. The Astros welcomed back Yordan Alvarez who was a stud last season in both AAA and the big leagues. He could be the catalyst to get this offense humming again so perhaps the Astros 11 run outburst yesterday was no fluke. You should throw in Alex Bregman who is also a rising star arguably the best bat on this team. Jose Altuve has struggled but he is too good to be bad for this long. He is now batting 7th which is interesting since opposing pitcher Justus Sheffield has given up a good deal of production to batters hitting at the spot. I also like Carlos Correa who is cheap and one of those players where you definitely want to play the handedness splits.
As for Minnesota, you need Nelson Cruz. He somehow has the fountain of youth somewhere in his home because I don't see this 40 year old MLB player slowing down anytime soon. Combine him with Eddie Rosario who bats after Cruz and winds up seeing good pitches when opposing pitchers try to avoid getting blasted by Cruz. There are some nice cheap bats on this squad so that we can stay under the cap. Both Miguel Sano and Mitch Garver have been inconsistent this season but, like Altuve, both are too good to struggle for much longer.
If you are looking for more data to build your lineups, I strongly suggest you check out Advanced Sports Analytics or ASA. The link is below and you will find daily projections for each batter, run totals for each team, and plenty of other helpful apps as you put together a winning entry.
www.advancedsportsanalytics.com (ASA)
Here are sample lineups for both DraftKings and FanDuel.
