MLB Pitching Pulse: 5-7-18

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.

Hendricks had a rather unconventional start the last time he took the mound, allowing four hits but three solo home runs in 7.2 innings against the Rockies, but he is in a great bounce-back spot today as the Marlins roll into town. Hendricks has posted excellent numbers at home this season, with a 2.18 ERA and a .176 batting average allowed, and has generally excelled at Wrigley Field in his career. Dating back to 2014, Hendricks has posted a stellar .246 wOBA allowed and a 2.46 ERA at home, compared to a .285 wOBA allowed an a 3.47 ERA on the road. Outside of the home/road splits, there are plenty of other reasons that Hendricks is appealing tonight. While the Marlins are a team that has several low strikeout bats in their lineup, they are still striking out 24.3% of the time against RHP this season. They have very little power against them, with a .097 ISO and 29.9% hard contact to the handedness, and have posted a putrid 68 wRC+. Hendricks has done a great job limiting opponents on both sides of the plate, dating back to last season, allowing minimal hard contact and limited power, while striking out a league-average 21% of batters faced. He has a good mix of groundballs in there, as well, as a great way to generate outs. Hendricks relies rather heavily on his sinker, a pitch he is using 53% of the time this season, along with a changeup that he is throwing about 33% of the time to left-handed hitters and 20% of the time to right-handed hitters, and an 87 MPH four-seam fastball that his is throwing about 15% of the time. Digging through the Marlins lineup, Justin Bour is the only hitter with any sort of power against sinkers, boasting a .364 ISO against the pitch last season, while everyone else generally struggled against the pitch. As far as the changeup goes, there are six hitters in the lineup with double-digit swinging strike rates against the pitch, so Hendricks could generate some strikeouts using it. Overall, Hendricks may not have the strikeout upside we would generally prefer on a slate but he does come with a decent amount of safety here, making him a good cash game option, and someone you can feel comfortable with in GPPs.