Jose Quintana, Chicago White Sox - Since his nine run implosion on April 19th, Jose Quintana has turned in stat lines of 7.0 innings with two runs or less in four of his five starts. This includes Tuesday where he was outdueled by Trevor Bauer, but still pitched very well with two earned runs and four strikeouts. He managed to pitch around a lot of baserunners allowing eight hits and four walks, with the four walks being the first time he'd walked more than two batters in an outing. His FIP of 3.29 has him as a top 30 pitcher and groups him with Shelby Miller and Chris Sale, not bad company at all and still owned in just 65% of ESPN leagues.
Yordana Ventura, Kansas City Royals - I told myself that this was my last chance for Yordano Ventura if he didn't have a good start today, and he went out and twirled seven shutout innings with six strikeouts. He didn't walk a single batter for the first time this season, and allowed just four hits. Ventura is getting hit harder than he has at any point in his career and that's a large reason why he has struggled to this point. His hard hit rate has jumped 10% and his soft contact rate dropped from 20% last year to a measly 7% this season. Ventura is the only qualified starter with a soft contact rate under 10% ranking dead last in all of baseball. Ventura has the overall skillset to be near the top of that leaderboard and his fastball rates as a below average for the first time in his career. He's earned another week on your roster, but he's still not out of the woods yet.
Jimmy Paredes, Baltimore Orioles - And Jimmy Paredes just keeps on rolling as he hit his sixth homer of the season Tuesday and drove in four runs taking his season total to 22. Paredes' success from a ridiculous jump in his BABIP to .395 and his stat line looks awfully similar to Chris Johnson's 2013 season with the Braves. Neither batter walks a lot and has a BABIP way over their career norm, but Paredes is showing slightly more power at this point in the season. Their two line drive rates are similar as well, so it's interesting forecasting whether Paredes can keep this up all season. Comparing the two again, Johnson I feel was the better pure hitter so that make me want to sell high on Paredes but he could end up with 20 homers at this pace.
Carlos Correa, Houston Astros - With a hot start at AAA, including hitting his first AAA homer Tuesday, we are close to being in "Carlos Correa Watch" season. Baseball's #3 overall prospect is triple slashing .316/.357/.500 with the homer, four doubles, four RBI, and one steal. Houston is having trouble finding someone capable of playing shortstop while Jed Lowrie is on the DL as Jonathan Villar (.227/.306/.295) and Marwin Gonzalez (.228/.238/.392) are both pretty lousy options at the position. Villar has shown very little power this season with no homers and a .068 ISO while Gonazlez has shown a little power but has a 1.2% BB% in 81 plate appearances. Correa can easily post those kind of numbers, so we are awaiting the Astros as they have to make a business decision on when to start his time clock and hand him the position.
Carlos Rodon, Chicago White Sox - Starting pitching tapers off fairly quickly on Wednesday, so I like Carlos Rodon as an option for your second pitcher on DraftKings. Rodon gets a nice matchup with the Indians and isn't facing one of Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, or Trevor Bauer so I think his chances for a win are worth taking him on a lower salary. We know he'll strikeout 6-to-8 batters, but a large bearing on his success will come from cutting down on his walks (10 in 10.0 innings). The Indians have been among the worst in baseball and are hitting just .248 as a team against lefties (21st in baseball) and have the sixth most strikeouts against southpaws in 2015. DraftKings Value: $6,400
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