This article is part of our DraftKings MLB series.
Prospect season is clearly upon us, as new young talent continues to surface in the player pool on what feels like a daily basis.
On a night where the top-end pitching will garner the bulk of the DFS attention, prospect junkies will turn their attention to the Braves-Mets matchup at Citi Field, where Mike Soroka will makes his big-league debut against Noah Syndergaard.
He's available on DraftKings for a cool $4,000 for his debut, and it might be fun to simply throw an extra low-$, big-field GPP dart lineup out there with Soroka occupying one of the two pitching spots, since that will afford you a ton of flexibility everywhere else in the lineup.
Soroka is an extremely polished pitching prospect, which is rare for a prep pitcher who hasn't turned 21 years old yet (he's just over three months away from that), with excellent command of a good three-pitch arsenal.
Warmer weather, and plenty of starting pitchers with poor splits offer up stacking opportunities, including:
- Brewers vs. Homer Bailey (at GABP)
- Cardinals vs. James Shields (at Busch Stadium)
- Twins vs. Marco Estrada (at Target Field)
- Angels vs. Alex Cobb (at Angels Stadium)
- Dodgers vs. Matt Koch (at Chase Field)
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Pitcher
Cash: Chris Sale, BOS vs. KC ($12,400) -- The Red Sox are a huge favorite Tuesday night, sitting at -315 on the moneyline. The win probability is extremely high, as the Royals are throwing right-hander Jake Junis against a Boston lineup with 131 wRC+ against righties this season, and the Kansas City offense has a few shortcomings, including a 25.6% K% against southpaws. There's not much of an argument against using Max Scherzer ($12,700) at home against the Pirates as the first pitcher in your lineup either, and you can actually piece together a solid lineup around a Sale-Scherzer combo if you're comfortable fading a lot of the higher-priced bats on the board. Other aces are available, including Clayton Kershaw on the road against Arizona, but the interest in Noah Syndergaard and Justin Verlander here is limited to tournaments for their home starts against the Braves and Yankees, respectively.
Also in play among the pricey starters: Clayton Kershaw, LAD at ARI ($11,900)
Cheap GPP Consideration: Mike Soroka, ATL at NYM ($4,000) - It's not for everybody, and the matchup against Thor is rough from a win probability standpoint, but it's the rare opportunity to roster a very talented young arm for considerably less than he should cost.
Fade: Because he's priced at $10,800 and the other elite arms cost $11,700 and up, Noah Syndergaard's ownership rate in tournaments *may* be elevated enough to justify a fade, but I don't think I'm playing enough unique lineups to actually say I'm actually fading him, as much as I'm simply leaning on the short list of more expensive arms I prefer over him.
Catcher
Wilson Ramos, TB at DET ($3,600) -- Ramos was held out of the lineup Monday due to tightness in both of his legs that first surfaced over the weekend, if he sits again Tuesday night against Tigers lefty Matt Boyd, pivot to the slightly more expensive Yasmani Grandal ($4,000 at ARI) if your budget allows you to do so, or consider a cheap punt to Manny Pina ($2,500) against Homer Bailey and the Reds' league-worst bullpen. Boyd's early success has led plenty of season-long owners to take interest in him for two-start weeks, and as a streaming option for more favorable matchups. A major velocity drop with his fastball -- from 92.0 mph last season to 88.7 mph in 2018 -- and huge drops with his slider (from 86.1 to 79.5), curveball (74.6 to 72.0) and changeup (81.0 to 77.3) are a major concern. Ramos' long track record of success against lefties includes a career .299/.343/.473 line (119 wRC+).
First Base
Justin Smoak, TOR at MIN ($3,400) -- Kyle Gibson's dominant start against the Yankees last time out was impressive, and while Gibson might be a better pitcher than many of us were giving him credit for following a nice second half in 2017, avoiding him with value bats seems completely unnecessary. In addition to the matchup against Gibson, Smoak should get a couple plate appearances against the underperforming Minnesota bullpen as well. With a .243/.335/.504 line against righties since the start of last season, the switch-hitting Smoak is a nice option on a night when many of the top-priced first basemen are matched up frontline starters.
Logan Morrison ($3,100) has been waking up at the plate over the last 10 games, going 8-for-32 with a pair of homers during that stretch. If he remains in the bottom third of the Twins' lineup, his appeal is limited to tournaments Tuesday night, However, the low price, in increasingly favorable hitting conditions at Target Field, where winter turned into summer in a span of two weeks, against Jays fly-ball machine Marco Estrada, checks enough boxes to use Morrison in order to free up cash for two top-end arms.
Second Base
Robinson Cano, SEA vs OAK ($3,900) -- Cano enters May with a .313/.422/.479 line this season, which above everything else, means that he's healthy. Asdrubal Cabrera's excellent numbers against lefties at a similar price ($4,000) should steer a good amount of chalk that way, while Cano's splits against righties (.315/.378/.515) since the start of last season leave him with an OPS (.893) just 45 points behind A-Cab's mark anyway. Matching up with Oakland righty Andrew Triggs, I'm not looking at Cano as a stack option, but instead a high-end option with a good enough matchup at a somewhat thin position to build around.
Third Base
Travis Shaw, MIL at CIN ($4,300) -- Reds starter Homer Bailey has posted passable ratios early on -- 4.19 ERA, 1.22 WHIP -- despite underlying numbers that point to significant issues (5.5 K/9, 1.57 HR/9). The over/under for Tuesday's matchup between the Brewers and Reds at Great American Ballpark sits at 9.5, second only to the Rockies-Cubs matchup at Wrigley with warm departures at 15+ mph winds blowing out. Bailey's .361 wOBA allowed to lefties since the start of 2016 ranks sixth-worst among the 30 starters pitching Tuesday, while Shaw's .282/.364/.537 line against righties since the start of last season, and getting a chance to hit cleanup in a park that boosts left-handed homers more than any other in play Tuesday makes him a strong play in cash and GPP formats, though he'll likely be among the top-owned players at the hot corner.
Shortstop
Addison Russell, CHC vs. COL ($3,200) -- As noted above, the Cubs-Rockies matchup has an over/under total of 11 runs. The Cubs' implied run total is just north of six, and while hitters on both sides of the matchup will be highly coveted, Russell offers the cheapest access to Cubs' lineup unless Tommy La Stella ($2,200) gets a spot start against Rockies starter Jon Gray. Lost in what has been a slow start for Russell to this point, is that he's walking at a rate similar to his 2016 levels (9.5% in 2018), and he's cut his strikeout rate to 13.7% (career 24.2%). To date, there isn't a notable change in his hard-hit rate or fly ball rate to report, but the improved approach is a huge step in the right direction, and his hard-hit rate was nearly identical to his 2018 mark when he swatted 21 homers in 2016.
Outfield
David Dahl, COL at CHC ($4,000) -- The Rockies have been giving Dahl opportunities to hit cleanup against righties, but it remains to be seen if he'll continue in that spot now that Carlos Gonzalez is back from the disabled list. Even if manager Bud Black sees to it that Dahl drops a spot or two in the order, the conditions in Chicago on Tuesday are extremely conductive to a huge night of offense at Wrigley Field, and Dahl should be in the thick of things for the Colorado offense as they face a right-handed starter for the first time since Friday. Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks is missing bats at the lowest full-season rate of his career (7.4% swinging-strike rate, 19.5% K%), and picking on him with a lefty is the slightly better way to go anyway.
Max Kepler, MIN vs. TOR ($3,400) -- If you spent up at first base, or prefer Justin Smoak ahead of Logan Morrison, Kepler offers up another discounted option from the Minnesota offense against Marco Estrada and the Blue Jays. While the batted ball profile hasn't changed a lot (only a slight uptick in fly balls to this point), Kepler has cut his strikeout rate from 20.1% last season, to 9.5% in 2018. Straight up, I prefer Kepler to Morrison for Tuesday night anyway, since the Twins have been using him as their No. 5 hitter for most of the past week. For his career, Kepler has a .264/.337/.481 line against righties (114 wRC+), and there is still some untapped raw power upside if he can continue to loft the ball more frequently.
Domingo Santana, MIL at CIN ($3,300) -- Maybe, just maybe, the wind-a-palooza at Wrigley will make Santana fall to a reasonable ownership rate. While the bulk of the attention is focused on Travis Shaw, and the other Brewers outfielders (including Ryan Braun, who will play more at first base with Eric Thames down), Santana is still trying to work his way back from an early-season power outage. In Monday's game, he smashed a two-run double over the head of Billy Hamilton in center field, enabling him to finish with two extra-base hits in April. A Brewers 4-5 mini-stack with Shaw and Santana is in order Tuesday, unless of course, Santana gets squeezed from the lineup at the expense of Jesus Aguilar, but the hope here is that it shouldn't happen with righty Homer Bailey starting for the Reds.
