Week 11 NFL Moneyline Underdogs
Mike Randle
Welcome to Diamond Data. This MLB DFS article will be here to help you gain leverage on the rest of the field, identifying outliers to assist you in making decisions when building your MLB DFS lineups.
I will provide five stats that stand out to me when diving into Friday’s early MLB slate, whether it be about an individual player, park factor, team context, Vegas totals or something that pops in our FTN MLB tools, models or projections.
Make sure to check out our MLB Player Projections, MLB Strikeout Model and MLB Player and Ownership Projections.
1. Three pitchers project for seven or more strikeouts Friday — however, the first two are the highest-priced pitchers while the other has the third-lowest salary
Brandon Woodruff (8.00) and Gerrit Cole (7.09) are projected to have high strikeouts along with a high price tag. Cole ($9,800) has the highest salary on the early slate with Woodruff ($9,500) having the second highest. None of this is a surprise. What stood out to me when looking at FTN’s MLB Strikeout Model was the fact that Shane McClanahan projects to have the second-most strikeouts (7.74) while having the third-lowest salary. McClanahan is set to face the Orioles at home in a pitcher-friendly environment. The Orioles had a 24.3% strikeout rate in 2021 with that rate increasing to 25.3% on the road, fifth highest. Last season, McClanahan was one of less than 20 starting pitchers to have a strikeout-minus-walk rate of 20% or more. I’ll likely ignore McClanahan’s rostership and differentiate elsewhere.
2. Only one pitcher on the early slate is projected to pitch six or more innings
Our FTN MLB Strikeout Model only has one pitcher projected to toe the rubber in the seventh inning or later. This comes as a big surprise as the pitcher isn’t Gerrit Cole or Aaron Nola, who are both known to be workhorses, going deep into games. Early in the season we see starting pitchers with a shorter rope due to not being stretched out. Combine that with a difficult matchup for someone like Cole who is facing the Red Sox and you potentially end up with a four or five inning performance at the end of the day. McClanahan pops yet again, as our Strikeout Model has him projected for 6.1 innings pitched, which is a lot this early in the season. Only three starting pitchers pitched six or more innings Thursday — Adam Wainwright, Yu Darvish and Framber Valdez.
3. Friday featured some tight MLB totals
Even though this is only a five-game slate, it’s a bit shocking the totals are so tight with the lowest total being 7.00 and the highest being 8.00. Usually you’ll see an outlier or two when it comes to Vegas totals. That commonality tends to push DFS players and rostership toward offenses in high totals or pitchers in low totals. We can use this to our advantage today by pivoting off the offenses that come in with high rostership projections and gravitate toward an offense coming in with a much lower roster percentage. You can find that data by using our MLB Player and Ownership Projections.
4. Only two teams have a projected run total of 4.50 or more runs
Friday’s early slate has a tight range of totals as mentioned above. With that comes a smaller range of projected run totals. The New York Yankees (4.54) and Philadelphia Phillies (4.57) are the only teams with a projected run total of 4.50 or more runs. Out of the 10 teams on the slate, 70% of them have a projected run total of less than four runs. It wouldn’t shock me if those two offenses garner the most roster usage. Both parks are favorable for hitters with Citizen Bank Park ranking seventh in home run factor (115) and Yankee Stadium 12th (104), according to Baseball Savant’s Statcast Park Factors. While all of this sounds nice, the Yankees and Phillies won’t have it easy in the box today. The Yankees are set to face Nathan Eovaldi and the Phillies draw Frankie Montas. Tread with caution if the roster percentages get out of control on the Yankees and/or Phillies. Shoot, you might even want to use this as potential leverage by rostering Nathan Eovaldi or Frankie Montas if rostership is heavily weighted toward NYY or PHI. Make sure to check out projected roster percentages with our MLB Player and Ownership Projections.
5. Low total and potential weather issues in Chicago
MLB continues to have teams in colder climates host games in early April. With that comes games that get postponed like we saw Thursday in New York and Minnesota. Friday we’re presented with the chance of snow in Chicago. The temps will be in the 30s with the wind blowing in 10-15 MPH during gametime. There is a possibility this game gets postponed if the snow and precipitation are too heavy. Games with questionable weather tend to turn DFS players away from the game as the risk increases. If this game does go, it bodes really well for Brandon Woodruff, pitching in a cold climate and facing the Cubs, who had the highest strikeout rate (26.7%) in all of baseball last season. Woodruff had the sixth-highest strikeout rate (29.8%) last season, making this a perfect concoction if weather permits. Thursday, Brewers’ manager Craig Counsell let Corbin Burnes go five innings and 83 pitches. It wasn’t Burnes’ most efficient or effective outing, so you could certainly see Woodruff get to six innings if he’s efficient on the mound. The Cubs have the second-lowest projected run total (3.16) on Friday’s early slate.
