The following Spotlight Pitchers, Hitters & Stacks were selected by Awesemo.com writer Jake Hari. For more analysis on the slate, check out Awesemo’s Rankings and Ownership Projections.
Pitchers
German Marquez
Marquez has earned every penny of his $12K price tag on DraftKings tonight getting the best park shift you can imagine, going from Coors Field to AT&T Park tonight to face the Giants. Since August 1 against right-handed pitching, the Giants have a 25% K-rate with a minuscule .112 ISO and 61 wRC+. Marquez has been going the opposite direction, striking out 13, 11, and 11 his last 3 starts while cementing himself as a 2018 breakout stud. Many may once again be scared away from this price, but I’ll gladly take the ownership discount on him if that’s what we’re going to get.
Vince Velasquez
Velasquez should be able to rack up a handful of strikeouts at home against the Marlins. He, like the rest of the Phillies pitching staff, pitches much better at home, so going up against a team that has a 77 wRC+ and .114 ISO against righties over the last 30 days is a recipe for success. Against RHH this year, Velasquez has an xFIP south of 4, a 28.5% K-rate, and just a 1.11 WHIP with very little hard-contact. At $8,200, Velasquez is a high-upside GPP SP2.
Stacks
Brewers (vs. Ivan Nova)
Nova is someone we’re more than willing to stack against, especially when he’s going up against some power lefties, and that’s exactly what he gets here. Christian Yelich is one of my favorite plays on the night, with Shaw and Moustakas not far behind. It isn’t tough to imagine a scenario where the Brewers get to Nova very early, so feel free to fire up guys like Lorenzo Cain, Jesus Aguilar, and Ryan Braun to complete the full stack as well.
Angels (vs. Erasmo Ramirez)
Despite recent good results, it’s hard not to stack up against Erasmo Ramirez tonight as he goes on the road to face the Angels. Erasmo allows over 38% hard-contact to both righties and lefties this year with lots of line drives and very few strikeouts to either hand. For the season, LAA has the 4th-highest wRC+ against righties with a respectable .324 OBP and .178 ISO. While expensive, guys like Trout, Ohtani, and Upton all are great places to start when filling out your GPP lineups, but they won’t be too difficult when you add in Jose Miguel Fernandez and Kole Calhoun, who are both much too cheap on DraftKings.
Hitters
Nelson Cruz (vs. Andrew Heaney)
Trevor Story (vs. Madison Bumgarner)
Chris Davis (vs. Reynaldo Lopez)
Rhys Hoskins (vs. Brett Graves)
