5 Important MLB DFS Takeaways From the Trade Deadline

You Can Target Lefty Arms Against the Padres and Rays

As of right now, the San Diego Padres and Tampa Bay Rays are first and eighth, respectively, in wRC+ against left-handed pitching. With those ranks, it'd be hard to target left-handed pitchers who are facing them for DFS.

That could change in a hurry.

Both teams traded multiple pieces who helped elevate that mark in the first half of the season (Melvin Upton and Matt Kemp for the Padres and Steve Pearce and Brandon Guyer for the Rays). They do still have some guys who can crush left-handed pitching on the roster, but the depth of said destruction is not nearly as robust as it had been.

This becomes especially true when you look at each team's strikeout rate against lefties. Even though they were posting quality numbers, the Padres struck out 24.2% of the time, and the Rays were at 24.8%. That's going to allow high-strikeout pitchers to hang big totals on these teams, just as Danny Duffy did to the Rays last night. Don't let the season-long marks scare you off of pitchers facing these teams in the right matchup.