MLB

Fantasy Baseball Mailbag: Friday 6/10/16

Jim Sannes  —  @JimSannes Jun 10th, 2016
The over/under for tonight's contest between Clayton Kershaw and Johnny Cueto is 5.5. How rare is a total that low?

We're here to try and help you navigate the ever-changing landscape that is fantasy baseball. It's not easy to keep up with all of the day-to-day fluctuations, so it can help to have someone to bounce ideas off of. That's what our daily mailbag will look to do.

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Now, enough of that. Let's dig into today's mailbag and see what's popping in the world of fantasy baseball.

For me, I'd be inclined to side with Dae Ho Lee. That's partially because "Pig Tiger" is the dopest nickname in all of baseball, but it's also because he has a superb matchup against Texas Rangers lefty Derek Holland.

Over the past two seasons, Holland has posted strikeout rates of 14.4% and 12.6%, respectively, against right-handed batters, and those numbers fall to 12.1% and 9.4% against righties on the road. He also gives up boatloads of hard contact, helping to nullify concerns about a less-than-ideal park.

Lee's batted-ball stats overall aren't great, but they are most certainly trending up as his playing time increases. He's got a 34.2% hard-hit rate over the past three weeks (48 plate appearances) with a 16.7% strikeout rate. Putting a guy who's improving up against Holland and his road struggles is hard to pass up, especially with Lee's reduced price.

Obviously, I'm not trying to rag on by dude, Byung-Ho Park here. I'd just worry a bit about Steven Wright's 24.6% strikeout rate this year against right-handed batters, and for me, that's enough to give Lee the edge.

This is referring to tonight's matchup between Clayton Kershaw and Johnny Cueto, so an over/under of 5.5 may not even be low enough. But you are correct, Daniel, that is extremely rare.

I didn't know where to find this archived data, so shoutout to numberFire's Amar Rao, who led me to SportsDatabase.com. They have archived lines there, both for this year and previous seasons, and it showed that nights like this aren't overly plentiful.

As you probably could have guessed, this is the first time this season in which an over/under has been 5.5. To find the last regular-season game that low, we have to go back to September 29th of last year. Not shockingly, that game featured these same two teams in a duel between Kershaw and Madison Bumgarner. Kershaw got all silly on 'em and struck out 13 batters in a complete-game shutout. He's good.

That was the only instance with a 5.5 over/under in 2015. There was also only one in 2014 and one in 2013, and guess who started both? I'll give you a hint: it wasn't Alfredo Simon.

The other absurd part about this game is that the Dodgers' moneyline is -158, putting the Giants' implied team total at 2.46 runs. When that's on the table, it's really hard to ignore for DFS purposes. Kershaw's price is hefty, hefty, hefty at $13,100 on FanDuel, but you don't see lines like this floating out there often, and it makes it difficult to avoid paying for the greatest.

Want to have your questions answered in our mailbox? Submit your questions by tweeting @numberFire, or send an email to Jim.Sannes@FanDuel.com.