KBO DFS: Spotlight Hitters DraftKings, FanDuel

Before we get into anything else, the weather for basically all South Korea looks like a rainy mess today, so KBO DFS owners would do well to set some alarms to make sure they’re up for lock tonight. Unless something changes, it might be a good day to consider taking the slate off entirely. Oh, but, uh, read the rest of this column first …

Last night we had a big outburst from the Samsung Lions, as Awesemo’s projections and stack rankings were all over. The ownership was there on the Lions as well as the other two important stacks of the night, the Heroes and Bears. All three teams were in the mix at the top of GPP standings on both sites, with positional deployment and stack combinations drawing the lines between cashing and a big win.

With all four of the expected high-end pitchers turning in quality performances there wasn’t a lot of mystery to what made things work well on the slate last night. Tonight, we have a few spots that look more interesting, and maybe a bit of room to take a less chalky approach.

The high-end of totals is up a bit with some bad pitchers taking the mound today. We’re going to have to find the right angle on what to connect with some very popular bats in our favorite stacks. Finding the right pitcher or combination of pitchers is going to be more critical tonight, with the overall points likely to be further spread out than what KBO DFS owners saw from the four highest-owned starters last night.

KBO DFS Picks: DraftKings + FanDuel Hitters

Tonight’s action gets a fresh slate of games to start the week. We have some quality pitching matchups and middling game totals, with no game going over the 10.0 run mark. It will be interesting to see which bats stick out and where we might find some overlooked angles into this slate.

The bulk of this analysis comes directly from reviewing Awesemo’s KBO DFS projections and the top stacks tool. Check out the rest of our KBO content, Awesemo’s projections, rankings, and ownership on the site for all your KBO DFS needs.

As usual, I’m going to look game by game, calling out a hitter or two from each team, and giving some top stacking options as we go. Pricing and popularity will be considered, more so as KBO DFS trends begin to emerge over the coming weeks. The numbers included with Suggested Stack are the projected lineup positions I would target for stacking that team, but do not restrict yourself exclusively to those spots. For example, if it says Wyverns 3-6 it means 3,4,5,6 in the projected lineup. If it says 1-2-3-5 it means those guys. If it means a two-man it will say so. I’m also going to start trying to include positions more, hopefully it helps speed up the process of finding guys as you build lineups.

With lock still hours away (5:30 A.M. EST), official lineups have not been released, so be sure to double-check status before you plug players into your lineup.

Hanwha Eagles @ Samsung Lions – 10.5 run total (4.67/6.06) – Suggested Stack(s): Eagles 1-3-4-5-6 / Lions 8-9-1-2-3

Chalk one up for the boss. The Lions smashed last night exactly as Awesemo said they would. Hopefully you found a creative way to get the right bats into lineups with their stack, an 11-run total is going to be an important part of any slate. Tonight, the Lions might be in an even better spot and their implied total has increased to reflect it. The Eagles will also be playing in this baseball game.

The Eagles dropped another one last night 11-4, and they have my favorite ongoing joke in KBO DFS on the hill in Shi-hwan Jang, meaning they’re about to drop their third straight game. There’s a chance that their bats could provide us with a bit of sneaky value here though. The Lions are starting their fifth overall pick in 2020 for the fourth time in his young career. So far, the rookie has posted five inning starts each time out, throwing in the neighborhood of 90 pitches. He’s been effective on the surface over his 15 innings, but his 6.59 FIP exposes the 3.60 earned run average over the tiny sample. The Eagles have stealthily made their way to fourth in tonight’s stack rankings and I don’t hate it with a touch more probability of success than ownership distribution. Most of the key Eagles bats will be under-owned, Sung-yeol Lee ($9/$3,800) and Tae-kyun Kim ($7/$3,700) deserve attention in the middle of any Eagles stack. Soo-kwang Noh ($6/$3,200) leading off and Kwang-min Song ($9/$4,200) will be similarly unpopular, meaning you can roll out five of the top six here. Jin-haeng Choi ($5/$3,700) is drawing some popularity but not so much that it can’t be offset easily with constructions.

I get it, there’s a (incredibly distant far off) point at which price and strikeout ability outweigh the (massive) downside in a pitcher like Shi-hwan Jang. That’s why he’s pulling more than a 60% share on DraftKings tonight and a 25% share on FanDuel. Jang is striking out 22.3% of KBO hitters so far this season. He’s also walking 13.9% and has averaged just under 11% over the last five years. His FIP has bounced between 4.50 and 5.00 each year of his career and he’s allowing a career-high 1.38 HR/9 so far in 2020. This just isn’t a spot I want to be with the field on, and I’d love some bats against if he’s that popular. Of course, everyone else appears to be getting to this stack as well. You guys have to leave some room somewhere, you can’t have both sides of this one! Tyler Saladino ($9/$4,700) and Ja-wook Koo ($9/$5,000) simply remain mispriced on FanDuel at this point. Getting different with the rest of the guys in your lineup is the issue. I might look to the bottom of the order and play the wraparound with Heon-gon Kim ($7/$3,900) if he’s down there again. Catcher Eung-min Kim ($5/$2,800) does not project well, but that’s likely as much a product of a near total lack of career history and his spot in the lineup as it is anything else. For differentiation purposes, he’s exactly the relief your lineup needs. On DraftKings everyone else will be playing the catcher from whatever stack they combine with the Lions. Play the Lions catcher to get different. Don’t expect much, but when it comes through it could be GPP-winning at less than 1% ownership on both sites in the night’s most popular and third most likely to succeed stack.

Kia Tigers @ Lotte Giants – 9.0 run total (4.10/5.10) – Suggested Stack: Giants 1-5

The Tigers and Giants played a game that had a few semi-relevant performances, including a home run from Hyung-woo Choi, but ultimately nothing critical in a 4-3 Tigers victory. The real story was Tigers pitcher Aaron Brooks, who allowed only one hit over his seven innings.

The Tigers draw a tough spot here with Dan Straily taking the mound for the Giants. Straily will be looking to extract some revenge (don’t believe in narratives) tonight, like last night’s pitcher his only poor performance so far this season came against these Tigers. The tough matchup has the Tigers at the bottom of stack rankings for both sites and this is mostly a pass for me. No one is going to be near them, so if you roll the dice just look to our usual favorites in the middle. Preston Tucker ($17/$5,700), Ji-Wan Na ($9/$3,800), and Hyung-woo Choi ($10/$5,000) as a three-man should be more than enough Tigers. Feel free to add hitters like Min-sang Yoo ($7/$3,500) or Ho-ryeong Kim ($10/$3,700) if you like compounding risk.

The Giants land in the middle of tonight’s stack rankings which makes sense with their matchup against one of KBO DFS’ more confounding pitchers. Min-woo Lee seems to be focusing on control sacrificing some strikeout upside and not sweating pitching to contact since his conversion from a reliever to a full-time starter. His strikeout rate has come down but so has his walk-rate. His earned run average has been consistently more than 1.5 runs higher than his FIP since the start of 2019, and he doesn’t yield home runs. This isn’t a spot to jump on for a pitcher necessarily, but he seems like a guy who will be able to handle this Giants lineup on the right day. Dixon Machado ($10/$4,300) continues to hit in the middle of this lineup and he looks decent in both projections and my home run model. At under 10% ownership on both sites he’s a playable part of the Giants stack, and you can go a spot further in the lineup and connect him to Chi-hong An ($9/$3,000) before looking back to the top of the lineup for the bigger bats. Hoon Jung ($9/$3,500) continues to go under-owned in the leadoff spot, if I’m playing this lineup I love getting to that opportunity as a point of differentiation if it’s there.

NC Dinos @ KT Wiz –10.5 run total (5.99/4.75) – Suggested Stack: Dinos pick ‘em

One of these days we’re going to catch that Dinos lineup on the right night where they’re not drawing enough ownership and they really go off. Last night wasn’t it. Eui-ji Yang got into one for a home run, but otherwise the 4-3 victory was a relatively quiet one for the Dinos. Drew Rucinski came away the better of the two import starters, but Odrisamer Despaigne wasn’t a disaster on the other side.

KBO DFS players get a bump in the game total tonight, with most of that implied run share landing on the Dinos again here. The favored first place team is getting Min-soo Kim in his fourth start of the year. Kim began the season in the awful Wiz bullpen before joining the rotation. If there’s an opening at the snack stand, we might see him there next. Kim is simply a guy who at every turn has put far too many runners on base and allows the big home run ball far too often. Add this fuse to the explosion in waiting that is the Wiz bullpen and we’ve got a great spot for the Dinos bats again here. This time around they’re at the top of the stack rankings, but it looks as though the public isn’t quite with it. Maybe the trust in “Swole Daddy’ and his team is slowly fading? In a much better spot at the same advantageous ownership, I’ll be right back on these bats tonight. Eui-ji Yang ($14/$5,900) and Sung-bum Na ($17/$6,000) will both be popular, but they are key bats for this offense. I can see leaving one out of a stack to get different in some builds, leaving both out is a stretch. Everyone else in this lineup will be under what their exposure should be, so fire away. The KBO DFS community in general seems to have not quite caught up on the year that Jin-sung Kang ($15/$4,600) has been having. With his dual first base and outfield eligibility and reasonable pricing he makes a lot of things work with this team and combinations as well. If you’re looking at a stack that does leave out both Na and Yang, I would consider a three-man with Kang and two of Hee-dong Kwon ($7/$2,600), Suk-min Park ($10/$4,900), or Aaron Altherr ($16/$5,200).

The Wiz once again have an implied total under 5 runs, facing import Dinos starter Mike Wright and they rank near the bottom of stacks. Wright has been getting slightly lucky so far, with a FIP about a run higher than his earned run average, but he’s among the class of the KBO. It’s just not a good spot again for the Wiz. If you’re going to these bats, it’s Groundhog Day, because Mel Rojas Jr. ($17/$5,100) is the only popular guy on this team. If you look this way add any two of the top five bats to Mel in a three-man or stretch it out to a five-man with those guys plus projected sixth hitter and my Wiz home run pick Jae-gyun Hwang ($8/$4,800). Hwang is a veteran who is yet to get it going in 2020, but he’s hit over 20 home runs each of the last four seasons. Prior to hitting 20 in 2019 – in nearly 90 fewer plate appearances – Hwang had hit 25 home runs for three straight seasons. This is a guy who knows how to drive the ball out of the park, and he’ll be owned at less than 1% on both sites. He’s your man if you’re playing Wiz stacks, don’t forget him.

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Doosan Bears @ SK Wyverns – 10.5 run total (5.86/4.87) – Suggested Stack: Bears 2-3-5-6-7

The Bears got on the board early and often last night in a 9-2 victory. The Wyverns starter was simply overmatched by this offense, and most of the key hitters at the top of the lineup produced fantasy points for anyone who included them with their KBO DFS picks. Bears starter Chris Flexen stood strong for six innings, producing eight strikeouts while yielding only two runs in another of the night’s four strong pitching performances.

The Bears look strong again here tonight. On FanDuel they are going under-owned by a few points from second in the stack rankings. That puts the top two teams in terms of probability of success on the blue site as great ownership plays, based on that alone I would start mashing them together over a broad share of entries. Standing in their way will be sub-mariner Jong-hoon Park. Park is a respectable KBO pitcher with MLB aspirations. His incredible delivery is one of the better submariner approaches I’ve seen watching baseball at any level. He makes it work primarily in the strikeout column, where he ranks fifth among qualified starters in total strikeouts this year and fourth in the KBO in whiffing hitters at a 25.3% rate. Park has a demonstrable ability to keep the ball in the yard as well, with a HR/9 of 0.79 over his eight-year career. This might be a deceptive spot after all. Joo-hwan Choi ($11/$2,400) is a high-quality bat on any slate, but at over 40% ownership on DraftKings in a questionable matchup he’s tough for me to get to. I’d probably be more likely to pay up to be different with Jose Miguel Fernandez ($17/$5,900) again here, and look to put him together with a couple similarly under-valued bats like Kyoung-min Hur ($8/$2,200), Jae-ho Kim ($9/$2,800), and Se-hyuk Park ($7/$3,100), before swinging around for the more popular guys, all of whom are carrying better numbers in Awesemo’s projections. By now you should know this approach has the usual warnings about opportunity cost from the bottom of a lineup. Most of your production is coming up top, you just need a bat or two among the other guys to shake loose of the field and win a big tournament.

Solid KBO veteran starter Hui-kwan Yu should have little issues getting through the Wyverns lineup here. The implied total well under five looks like Vegas agrees, and the Wyverns are drawing a bit too much popularity on both sites for their near-bottom ranking in the stack tool. Ji-hoon Choi ($5/$2,500) is not particularly good, but if he’s hitting second at that price you could do worse as a strange point of differentiation. Assuming you’re already playing Wyverns that is, not as a reason to do so. He’s the lowest projected hitter among the top seven in this order, but he’ll see plate appearances batting second. If he’s at the bottom of the order just cross him off. Any of the bats in the middle make sense to fill this stack out. None of them are popular, Jamie Romak ($13/$4,600) and Jeong Choi ($15/$5,100) are both fine and both draw average ratings in my home run model, as is Kang-min Kim ($7/$3,000).

Kiwoom Heroes @ LG Twins 9.5 run total (4.53/5.18) – Suggested Stack: Twins 2-3-5

The Heroes put up the other critical game of the night for KBO DFS owners last night, pounding the Twins first round rookie starter for five runs and picking up another three off the bullpen in an 8-3 victory. Byung-ho Park showed that he’s back in a big way with a two-home run night, and Dong-won Park and Ha-seong Kim added homers of their own.

Tonight’s totals are reduced with the game coming in under 10 runs. The Heroes have to figure out impressive import starter Tyler Wilson, so this is a dramatically different spot for bats than it was yesterday. With an implied total of just 4.53, the night’s second lowest and more than 1.5 off the highest, the Heroes just don’t look like a sharp play for anything other than ownership on FanDuel. There’s a low chance of them going off as the highest scoring stack, but it is about double their projected ownership. We’re still talking about a six percent mark there, so temper expectations accordingly. Dong-won Park ($10/$5,300) has a big price discrepancy from site to site, probably due more to DraftKings catcher requirement than his performance, but there’s opportunity there on either site if you’re paying the Heroes. Keon-chang Seo ($11/$4,100) and Hye-sung Kim ($9/$2,700) are bats on either end of the more obvious popular names that make reasonable bolt-ons to a bigger stack, Seo being better than Kim in Awesemo’s projections.

The Twins are officially struggling over their last week or so. After the weekend sweep at the hands of the Bears they dropped the opener last night in ugly fashion. They hope to get things in gear tonight but don’t look strong in the stack tool and are a bit too popular. We all know Roberto Ramos can hit the long ball, and he’s pulling a much better number in my home run model today, but he’s still just way too popular. This ownership made sense when he was under-priced by 40%, but now that we’re dealing with him at an appropriate number it just makes sense to get away from that much exposure. Kang-nam Yoo ($10/$4,000) is a valuable guy to stick in at catcher on a lot of nights. Keep an eye on the status of Y.T. Park ($8/$2,000) going into this one, he took a bump last night and is day-to-day. Hyun-soo Kim ($15/$5,300) is a good look again here, drawing fewer shares than he should be from KBO DFS owners.

Now let’s hope it doesn’t rain at every ballpark and any of this matters.