DFS KBO: Thursday Cheat Sheet

Rain washed away all outdoor baseball in Korea on Wednesday, allowing only the Dinos-Heroes game inside Gocheok Sky Dome to go forward. The Heroes got a surprisingly strong performance from Young Gun Jo, whose five scoreless innings against the league leaders represented by far his best start of the year, as they won 6-4, splitting the two-game set to move back to a game and a half out of first place. The weather appears to have cleared up in advance of Thursday's slate, so we should have a good chance to see all five games go forward. A handful of Wednesday's scheduled starters will remain on the slate Thursday, albeit with an entirely different set of matchups.

Pitchers

Hyeong Jun So ($9,100) showed very little in the first nine starts of his rookie season, posting a 6.65 ERA, a 1.59 WHIP and a 4.3 K/9. He's been an entirely different pitcher since the calendar flipped to July, however. He hasn't allowed more than three earned runs in any of his last seven outings, posting a 1.99 ERA, a 1.11 WHIP and a 6.6 K/9 over that stretch. While that strikeout rate is still far from elite, it shouldn't be too surprising to see an 18-year-old rookie improve as the season goes on. He should be a reliable option against the ninth-ranked Wyverns lineup.

Drew Gagnon ($8,600) has moved in the opposite direction recently. He owns a strong 3.53 ERA and a 1.22 WHIP through his first 13 starts, backed up by a 74:25 K:BB in 74 frames. His five starts in August were far worse, however, as he struggled to a 7.56 ERA and a 2.32 WHIP while posting a very poor 19:18 K:BB in 25 frames. It's hard to be too confident in him given that recent stretch, but he did at least hold a strong Bears lineup to just two runs on five hits in his previous start (albeit with a 4:4 K:BB). He should have a good opportunity to toss his second straight quality start against the seventh-ranked Giants lineup.

Chad Bell ($7,600) was quite terrible for most of the season, posting a 7.94 ERA and a 1.92 WHIP over his first 10 starts. Those struggles were likely linked to the elbow woes that sent him to the injured list twice. He's looked like an entirely different pitcher over his last three outings, however, posting a 0.47 ERA and a 0.79 WHIP while striking out 19 batters in 19 innings. He was a competent (if not dominant) starter in his KBO debut last year, finishing with a 3.50 ERA and a 1.31 WHIP, so stretches like this shouldn't be too big of a surprise if he's truly healthy, which he seems to be. He'll be an interesting cheap option against the Heroes and their fifth-ranked lineup.

Top Targets

Jose Fernandez ($6,100) is nearly always a playable option, and that's as true as ever Thursday as the Bears travel to Daegu to take on the Lions in the league's most hitter-friendly park. Fernandez will get the platoon advantage there against Lions righty Tae In Won, who owns a 6.75 ERA over his last five starts. Fernandez has been one of the best hitters in the league throughout the season but has been as strong as ever over his last eight games, hitting .471/.538/.706 while striking out just twice.

Preston Tucker ($5,700) has slumped at times this season but certainly isn't in the middle of one now. Over his last 10 games, he's homered four times, scoring nine runs and driving in nine more while posting a .341/.426/.659 slash line. On the season as a whole, his 24 homers are good for fourth in the league, while his .971 OPS ranks sixth. He'll get the platoon advantage against Giants righty Kyung Eun Noh, who owns a 4.88 ERA on the season.

Bargain Bats

The league-leading Dinos' lineup won't be one of the stack recommendations today, but they're worth more consideration than you might think despite the fact that they're facing the slate's second most expensive arm in Tyler Wilson, who allowed four runs in five innings in his previous outing against the team. Myung Gi Lee ($3,900) provides a way to grab a piece of the top of the Dinos' order for a relatively inexpensive investment. Anyone who hits second for the league's best lineup while costing less than $4,000 should be worth a look, especially when they're hitting .400 over their last 100 at-bats like Lee is.

Brandon Barnes ($3,700) really hasn't done much in his first 25 KBO games, hitting .221/.327/.347. He missed a bit of time with a hamstring injury, though he hasn't really hit any better since his return, posting a .222/.282/.250 slash line over nine games. While that's a rather discouraging start to this paragraph, he remains an interesting option at his relatively cheap price, as 25 games is probably still far too few to write him off completely given that players deemed worthy of one of a team's precious few foreign player spots deserve the benefit of the doubt until they prove otherwise. He'll get the platoon advantage Thursday against Heroes lefty Jung Hyun Yoon, who's allowed 18 runs in 14.2 innings of work this season, which should give him a great chance to turn his season around.

Stacks to Consider

Wiz vs. Ricardo Pinto: Mel Rojas Jr. ($6,000), Baek Ho Kang ($5,000), Jae Gyun Hwang ($5,000)

Pinto is not just falling far behind the expectations placed on a foriegn starter in the KBO, he's been one of the worst starters in the league, foreign or local. His 6.37 ERA and 1.90 WHIP, both of which ranked last among qualified starters by a comfortable margin, tell the story well enough on their own, and his combination of a 13.0 percent strikeout rate and an 11.4 percent walk rate don't paint him in any better of a light. He hasn't recorded a quality start in any of his last eight outings, posting a miserable 10.24 ERA and a 2.28 WHIP over that stretch.

Rojas is likely still the MVP favorite, as he leads the league in homers (33), RBI (90) and OPS (1.077), yet he's merely the fourth most expensive hitter on the slate. That's perhaps fair, given that he's been on an extended slump, hitting .138/.165/.313 over his last 18 games. He's looked a little better over the second half of that stretch, though, homering four times while posting a .709 OPS. It's certainly not the most recent stretch for a player with his price tag, but it's probably worth looking past his recent slump given that he gets to face one of the worst starters in the KBO in this one.

Kang has really stepped things up to cover for Rojas' struggles, helping the Wiz stay in the playoff race despite their leader's slump. In his last 21 games, the 21-year-old slugger is hitting .375/.451/.650. While his home run total collapsed from 29 as an 18-year-old rookie in 2018 to just 13 last year, that appears to be mostly a product of the de-juiced ball, as he already has 16 this season in 79 games.

Hwang may not be in one of his hottest stretches at the moment, but he's still been quite good over his last nine games, hitting .300/.417/.533. He struggled early in the season and had an OPS as low as .659 as late as June 23, but he's turned things around since then and now owns a .296/.353/.493 slash line, giving him an .846 OPS. Unlike Rojas and Kang, he won't get the platoon advantage here, but Pinto has been so bad lately that he's worthy of inclusion nonetheless.

Lions vs. Seung Jin Lee: Ja Wook Koo ($4,700), Hae Min Park ($2,800), Daniel Palka ($2,500)

I would have recommended stacking against Lee in yesterday's cheat sheet had he been scheduled to face anyone but the Eagles. The Lions' lineup hasn't been good lately and ranks just eighth on the season, but that's still firmly in "anyone but the Eagles" territory. There's seemingly minimal reason to fear Lee, a 25-year-old with just 79.1 career KBO innings under his belt. His 6.63 ERA and 1.68 WHIP in 19 frames this year look quite like his 5.90 ERA and 1.59 WHIP over the course of his career. His 3.55 ERA in 33 Futures League innings looks better on the surface, but it's come with an uninspiring 24:18 K:BB. He doesn't seem to have much of a chance of shutting down even a weak lineup like the Lions', especially in hitter-friendly Daegu Samsung Lions Park.

Koo is riding a four-game hitting streak and appears to be pulling out of a slump that affected him throughout most of August, as he hit just .196/.311/.255 over a 15-game stretch from Aug. 8 through Aug. 26. When things are going right, he's quite a capable hitter, as evidenced by his .312/.391/.453 overall slash line. He has just modest power, hitting just eight homers, but he makes up for it with good speed, stealing 13 bases. He should continue his hitting streak with the platoon advantage against a struggling righty in this one.

Park is one of a very small number of Lions who haven't been struggling lately. While he went hitless Tuesday, that followed an eight-game stretch in which he hit .516. He's actually been quite good for most of the year, as he was demoted after hitting .192/.192/.308 in his first 15 games of the season but has hit a strong .340/.386/.474 in 69 games since his return. He also has good speed, as his 17 steals tie him for third in the league.

Palka has accomplished next to nothing in his first seven KBO games, hitting .154/.241/.269 with just one homer. Still, the opportunity to get a former MLB player for such a cheap price is hard to pass up, especially as he'll have the platoon advantage in the league's most hitter-friendly park against one of the worst starters on the slate. Seven games just isn't nearly a large enough sample to conclude that things won't work out for Palka in Korea. He did post an awful wRC+ of 2 in 30 games for the MLB's White Sox last season, but he posted a 126 wRC+ at the Triple-A level after posting a 110 wRC+ in his big-league debut the season prior, so it's not as if he lacks talent at the plate.