Daily Fantasy MLB picks for Monday, June 19

I hope y’all played my boy Jimmy yesterday. Homeboy was en fuego. Justin Turner wasn’t too shabby, either. My best effort topped out at 193.1 FDP and could have been more interesting had Chris Hermann not posted a bagel. Oh well, 336th out of 11,764 ain’t bad.

Today’s slate features three aces, a couple of interesting middle-tier guys, and a few pitchers we’ve all barely heard of at the bottom. Let’s make some sense out of this madness.

Target: Brad Peacock ($7,200) @ Oakland Athletics

Peacock has 58 strikeouts in only 39 innings this season, good for a 13.38 K/9. The major blemish is his 5.08 BB/9. The walks are certainly concerning, but the good news is Peacock has only allowed a single home run this season. He isn’t allowing many hits, either—RHH are batting .173 with a .233 wOBA and LHH are batting .188 with a .287 wOBA.

Peacock also has a healthy ground ball rate to righty bats, at 53.5% for the season. Right-handers make hard contact only 27.9% of the time and make a lot of soft contact (32.6%). The Athletics are pretty RHH-heavy, with Chad Pinder, Khris Davis, and Ryon Healy all batting from that side.

Left-handed hitters hit far less ground balls (39.5%) and a lot more line drives (28.9%). Despite the hard contact (39.5%) they aren’t hitting more fly balls (31.6% compared to a 37.2% rate to RHH). In the spacious confines of the Oakland Coliseum, I suppose the line drives are mildly concerning if one finds a gap. The biggest lefty threats are Matt Joyce, Jed Lowrie (switch), Yonder Alonso, and Stephen Vogt. Of those, it is really only Alonso that scares me. It would need to be a collective team effort for the Athletics to bust up Peacock today. Generally, Peacock has shown an ability to avoid that sort of outing.

In summation: I love the healthy strikeout rates to both handedness of hitter (33.3% to LHH and 37.7% to RHH) as well as the spacious confines of Oakland’s park that should limit Peacock’s blowup potential. Finally, the Houston offense behind Peacock is a major encouragement, as they take on untested rookie Daniel Gossett, who got smoked in his last turn against the Marlins (6H, 1 BB, 1 SO, 6 ER). FINALLY, Peacock is only $7,200 in salary...you can get nearly any bat you want at that price point.

Stack Against: R.A. Dickey ($6,700) with San Francisco Giants

You know Brandon Belt is going to LOVE the park boost at SunTrust. Belt was hitless over his previous 17 at-bats prior to hitting a single in four at-bats on Sunday. What better tonic for a dude in a slump than a washed-up knuckleballer?

That said, the knuckleball is a fickle mistress. When it’s on, it presents a major challenge to big-league hitters. However, it should be warm (80s) and humid (65% to 82%) in Atlanta. Also, I don’t know what a “dewpoint” is but I know anything over 70 is great for hitting. The dewpoint in Atlanta at gametime is (you guessed it) 70. Basically, not prime conditions for the knuckler.

I love the San Francisco stack because it is CHEAP and you can load up on necessary items like Kris Bryant ($3,800) at home against a southpaw. Corey Dickerson ($3,800) and Mookie Betts ($3,800) look like great plays as well.

That’s all I have for now...feel free to chime in with comments! If I unearth anything interesting I’ll update the post and/or comment. We still have a long time until this thing locks.

PSA: Clayton Kershaw ($12,500) starts today. Do your due diligence. If paying up, though, give me Jon Lester ($9,900) at home against the Padres for a fraction of the cost. That’s just me...