This article is part of our DraftKings KBO series.
If you stacked the Eagles or the Giants on Saturday in a game which was supposed to feature two strong pitchers in Ryan Carpenter and Dan Straily, you were in for a good time. Straily wound up getting pushed back to Sunday and Carpenter wasn't particularly good, so the two lineups exploded in a 15-15 tie. There were far too many excellent offensive performances to list here, but Ju Suk Ha was the best of the bunch, going 3-for-7 with a homer and seven RBI. Elsewhere, Jung Hyun Baek was the best pitcher on the night, allowing just three hits over 6.2 scoreless innings in the Lions' 4-0 win over the Wiz, a result which saw the Lions jump into first place with just four games left to play.
We'll have a full, five-game Sunday slate on DraftKings. In an unusual move, the first game of the doubleheader between the Twins and Bears is included on the slate, giving us five games which all begin at 1:00 a.m. ET.
Pitchers
As always, you need a very good reason not to select Ariel Miranda ($9,900). There are certainly plenty of strong alternatives on this slate, but even among this strong group, Miranda leads the pack by 7.1 fantasy points per game. The lefty only needs three strikeouts to set the KBO's single-season record, and it would be a shock if he fails to do so. He's averaged 8.2 strikeouts per start, whiffing fewer than seven batters just five times. Miranda has been incredibly consistent for almost the entire season, as he's riding a streak of 19 consecutive quality starts, a stretch in which he owns a 1.85 ERA and 0.94 WHIP. Toss in the fact that he'll face the eighth-ranked Twins lineup at the league's most pitcher-friendly park and he looks even more of a no-brainer than he usually is.
Eric Jokisch ($7,300) may be coming off one of his worst outings of the season, but he's still a steal at this surprisingly low price. He allowed six runs on 11 hits innings against the Lions his last time out, but that doesn't appear to be part of a larger pattern. Over his previous three starts, he'd allowed a total of just two earned runs on 12 hits. He doesn't have the strikeout prowess of most of the other top pitchers in Korea, with his 17.6 percent strikeout rate capping his upside, but he's consistently been one of the best pitchers in the league since he arrived in Korea in 2019, posting a career 2.72 ERA. That's far too good for a pitcher in his price range, especially as the typically strong Wiz lineup he'll be facing has been slumping lately and now sits fifth in scoring.
Dan Straily ($8,000) is also quite cheap for a pitcher of his talents. He looked like one of the top options on Saturday's slate and looks just as good Sunday even among a strong group of alternatives. He hasn't been close to the pitcher he was last season, when he rode a 26.4 percent strikeout rate to a 2.50 ERA and 1.02 WHIP, though he looked like that guy again in his previous start against the Landers, striking out 10 without allowing a single baserunner over six scoreless innings, all while pitching on short rest. He's as good as anyone in the league when he's on, so getting him with merely the fifth-highest price tag against the ninth-ranked Eagles lineup is quite a deal.
Top Targets
Aaron Altherr ($5,100) has been more good than great for much of the year, but his status as the third most expensive batter on Sunday's slate appears well-deserved. As recently as September 29, he was hitting .261/.343/.486, a perfectly acceptable performance but one which failed to match the .278/.355/.541 line he managed the year prior. In 20 games since then, however, he's been one of the best hitters in the league, slashing .366/.458/.704 with six homers and six steals. He now sits third in the league with 30 homers and is tied for 10th with 19 stolen bases. His excellent run should continue Sunday against Tigers righty Bo Takahashi, who's struggled to a 5.13 ERA through his first five KBO starts.
Jung Hoo Lee ($4,300) ranks fifth in the league in fantasy points per game among hitters, so it's difficult to explain why 31 other hitters have a higher price tag than he does on this slate. You could point to a recent stretch in which he went hitless for five games, but that was never likely to last long, as he snapped his brief slump with a three-hit day in the Heroes' most recent game Thursday against the Twins. No one in the league hits like Lee does. His 7.0 percent strikeout rate is tied for third among qualified hitters, meaning he's never likely to go hitless for long, yet he's far more than a slap hitter, as he's slugged .497 thanks to his 39 doubles, the second-best mark in the league. A matchup against Odrisamer Despaigne and his 3.36 ERA isn't an easy one, but Lee is far too good to pass up at this price regardless of who he's facing.
Bargain Bats
I wouldn't necessarily recommend going heavy on the Landers tonight against David Buchanan, though the righty has been less than dominant down the stretch, allowing eight or more hits in five of his last eight starts. Tae Gon Oh ($3,500) makes for an interesting budget option at first base against him assuming he has a decent lineup position, something he's had in most but not all of the Landers' recent games. The 29-year-old isn't anything special, as his merely good .764 OPS represents a career high, but what earns him a mention here is his excellent recent run. He's riding a streak of three straight multi-hit games and has hit .500 with a pair of homers, eight RBI and 10 runs scored across his last eight contests.
I'm a fan of leadoff hitters in good lineups even if they aren't anything special at the plate. Soo Bin Jung ($3,500) fits firmly into that category. If Jung weren't filling that role for the league's third-ranked offense, he'd rarely earn a mention here, as he's hitting a modest .260/.319/.365 on the season. In 33 games since he was inserted into the top spot in the order in mid-September, however, he's hit .306/.343/.433 while scoring 26 runs. He should be part of whatever rallies the Bears manage against what appears to be a bullpen day for the Twins, as starter Sang Yung Lee hasn't reached three innings since June 16.
Stacks to Consider
Lions vs. Keon Woo Kim: Ja Wook Koo ($4,700), Jose Pirela ($4,600), Min Ho Kang ($4,500)
Kim could have a bright future ahead of him, as the Landers liked the lefty enough to select him with their regional-round pick (a round which precedes the rest of the draft in which teams can select one player from their local area) in the most recent draft. While the 19-year-old owns a solid 4.00 ERA in a tiny sample of nine KBO innings, his 5:6 K:BB over that stretch is far from convincing. His Futures League numbers paint an even bleaker picture, as his unremarkable 4.60 ERA comes with a 13.2 percent strikeout rate and a 16.9 percent walk rate. If he's struggling that much at a lower level, it's hard to see him having success against the best hitters in Korea, even without considering that he'll be pitching at the league's most hitter-friendly park. Most of the Lions' best bats look like good bets here, but we'll go with the most expensive three given how good this matchup looks, as Kim's resume is unimpressive enough that I'm comfortable even with the platoon disadvantage for Koo.
Giants vs. Min Je Jang: Jun Woo Jeon ($4,200), Dae Ho Lee ($3,900), Ah Seop Son ($3,800)
No other pitcher on the slate makes for quite as appealing a stack target as Kim does, but I'll take a Giants lineup fresh off a 15-run outburst for my second choice here. In Jang, they'll face an opponent with a 3.10 ERA, but that comes in a small sample of just 20.1 innings and is backed by a poor set of peripherals. Specifically, he's allowed far too much contact, striking out just 9.9 percent of opposing batters. That's nothing new for the 31-year-old, who owns a lifetime 14.6 percent strikeout rate and posted a 12.0 percent mark last year en route to a 6.75 ERA. Allowing that much contact is sure to be a problem against a deep Giants lineup that ranks second in scoring. There are a lot of ways you can go with this stack, but Son should be included in any configuration, as he's one of the few hitters who will get the platoon advantage against Jang and has gone a remarkable 16-for-25 (.640) with five doubles and two homers over his last six games.
