With five teams soaring above the 70-win mark, the battle for the second playoff bye in the National League will be a hotly-contested storyline down the homestretch of the season. Four of those teams are in action tonight; the Milwaukee Brewers will seek to avoid dropping a fourth straight game to the 73-win Chicago Cubs, the Los Angeles Dodgers will need to salvage a series split with the woeful Colorado Rockies, and the San Diego Padres will hope to tie the Dodgers with a win over the San Francisco Giants and a Los Angeles loss.
In a small but mighty six-game featured DFS slate with heavy playoff implications, here are my three favorite value options as you fill out your lineup:
Set your DraftKings fantasy baseball lineups here: MLB $125K Bat Flip [$25K to 1st].
SP Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers at Colorado Rockies, $7,500
A few things are guaranteed in life: death, taxes, and Kershaw being a quality starter. The 37-year-old southpaw has no reason to still have a 3.01 ERA: his fastball, which sat in the high 90s in the prime of his career, averages just 89.0 miles per hour. The man who once threw 300 strikeouts in a season now fans batters at a sixth-percentile clip. His signature soap-bubble curve, once thought to be among the most unhittable pitches in the game, has been worth negative-two run value this season. The advanced numbers are down across the board for his even nastier slider.
But in his last three starts, Kershaw has combined to pitch 18 innings, conceding two runs on 14 hits and two walks and averaging 19.6 FPTS per game. Though there’s some amount of luck involved in that — hitters have posted a lower slugging percentage than expected — two of his five best performances of the season by expected wOBA have come in his last three starts. Kershaw has also averaged 1.9 more FPTS per game on the road than at home and torched Colorado for six innings, two hits, and one run (23.7 FPTS) at Coors Field on June 26. He doesn’t give up a lot of fly balls at this stage in his career, which should help him remain effective at high altitude.
OF Dylan Crews, Washington Nationals vs. New York Mets, $3,200
Crews had been heating up prior to going on the IL with an oblique strain near the end of May, posting double-digit fantasy points in five of his final nine games prior to suffering the injury. After a three-month stint away from the big-league club, he made his return last week and has picked up right where he left off, with four double-digit fantasy efforts in seven games. His strong form should be sustainable, given that he slashed a solid .244/.311/.415 in a 13-game rehab stint with Triple-A Rochester.
Plus, the Mets have been frustratingly inconsistent all season, posting just a 21-34 record and a 5.02 staff ERA since June 13, and they’re now in a tight battle for the third Wild Card spot with the Cincinnati Reds. Today’s starter, journeyman Sean Manaea ($8,100), has been part of that problem, having pitched to a 7.98 ERA (7.33 FPTS per game) this month. Manaea likes to rely on his four-seamer, throwing it 61% of the time, and Crews is due for some better luck against the pitch, with an expected wOBA 60 points higher than what he’s actually produced.
SS Brooks Lee, Minnesota Twins vs. Athletics, $2,700
Lee is just about the only Twins player who has taken advantage of the team’s trade-deadline fire sale, as Minnesota’s decision to deal Carlos Correa to the Houston Astros opened opened up more of an opportunity for the 24-year-old. Lee has started to see the ball well in the last four games, posting four consecutive double-digit fantasy efforts, and he’s now on a seven-game hitting streak.
I generally like his matchup against the Athletics; although Jack Perkins ($7,200) has a 2.08 ERA on the road this season, that’s come in just 17.1 innings, so it’s hard to trust. The 25-year-old has been a reliever all season and was only converted into a starter at the start of the month, when the team traded JP Sears to the Padres. He throws four-seamers 41% of the time, and Lee has been among the better hitters in the league against that pitch, posting a .593 slugging percentage and a 54.3% hard-hit percentage.
