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
Zack Godley
Godley will get to pitch in Petco for his final start this year in his 6th total start against the Padres in 2018. He’s coming off a nice start at home against the Rockies, but the swinging-strikes have been regularly in the mid-teens over the 2nd half of the season, and he has successfully missed bats against the Padres (16%, 13%, 17.3%, 8.7%, 11.7%) as well. San Diego leads the MLB In K% against RHP (25.8%) on the season, so this is a spectacular matchup for Godley at a fair price on DraftKings.
Kyle Gibson
Gibson will look to close out his strong 2018 campaign with a great matchup against the White Sox in cool Minneapolis weather at Target Field. He has an above average swinging-strike rate and chase rate on the year, as his slider has become one of the best in all of baseball over the 2nd half of the year. The White Sox have 5 players that strikeout over 27% of time against RHP on the year, so Gibson’s ability to rack up strikeouts plus the sub-50 degree weather at game time makes him a great GPP option on two pitcher sites.
Stacks
Athletics (vs. Tyler Skaggs)
While Skaggs is a solid pitcher, he has struggles with quality contact, specifically from the right side as he allows almost 40% hard-contact on the year with a 23.3% Line Drive rate. Oakland has crushed lefties all year, posting the highest wRC+ (111), a .187 ISO, and .326 OBP, and those numbers all go up when they go on the road. Guys like Davis, Chapman, and Piscotty are some of my favorite plays on the entire slate, but don’t forget about the stolen base upside with Laureano and Semien as Skaggs has always had trouble holding runners.
Nationals (vs. Jon Gray)
This isn’t going to be a super contrarian stack because the Nats are in Coors, but they will likely go underowned because Gray is coming off a 7 inning, 7 strikeout performance against the Phillies. Gray has had an uneven season, getting sent down to the minors at one point, missing a ton of bats at another point, and has had his velocity peak and valley over the 2nd half. Gray has given up a lot of lefty power (17 HR) this year, which bodes well for Bryce Harper and Juan Soto, but the righties (Rendon, Turner, Robles) are also fantastic plays in a stack as well. I don’t know what to make of Gray’s rollercoaster season, but this is a very tough matchup against a deep team in Coors, so I’ll take the Nats at lower ownership.
Hitters
Robinson Cano (vs. Adrian Sampson)
Trey Mancini (vs. Dallas Keuchel)
Eduardo Escobar (vs. Jacob Nix)
