MLB Pitching Pulse: 4-11-18

Pitching is the lifeblood of a DFS lineup, and an important part of keeping those tabs open deep into the night. For those new with us, the Pitching Pulse is focused on providing information on four to five pitchers that are viable in various formats. This is a premium article that will give away one free preview pitcher, while the rest will be for premium members. We take a deep dive into pitchers across all salaries, looking for exploitable matchups, game theory plays, and identify the nightly chalk. Our information comes from our optimizer, FanGraphs, and other various MLB sites listed below. Feel free to comment below, or find us on Twitter at @BrentHeiden1, @JGuilbault11, and @dfcafe. We focus on Main Slates across all content, but will feature blurbs about other slates at times, and can be reached via Twitter or comments.

There are some notable names pitching tonight, but the safety level of them feels a bit weak. Alex Wood had his start pushed back due to illness, but should be ready tonight. Wood has two decent starts under his belt, throwing six or more innings in each start, with ten total strikeouts. The groundball rate is already in fine form at 59% to start the season, and was at 53% last season. Wood was solid last season, even though he fizzled out in the second half. He held both sides of the plate to under a .270 wOBA, and had a 24.6% strikeout rate. Last season Oakland ranked 25th in wOBA, 22nd in ISO, and had the 6th highest strikeout rate against southpaws (24.2%). The A's haven't been much better to start the season against lefties, and outside of a few bats, there isn't a lot to worry about here for Wood. Oakland will also lose the DH moving to L.A. The projected lineup for tonight, has just a .310 wOBA and .151 ISO off southpaws, with a 22.4% strikeout rate. Wood is a huge home favorite tonight, and is the one I feel safest about in comparison to the other big names on the slate.