Monday brings a mixed main slate that has a good handful of talented pitchers among the 12 options. There are a few spots for obvious power at the plate, most of which come against the obvious lower-end pitching options in what should be fairly high concentrations of public ownership. The opportunity to differentiate lineups seems to come more on the mound tonight, several of the pitchers should have ceilings in line with the most highly-owned starters for far better prices and far less popularity. If we catch the correct night that can provide massive value. This has been a season that has seen off-brand pitching win slates again and again, with a few extremely popular (and hyper-talented) pitchers taking the mound tonight this could easily be another of those slates. Or Spencer Strider could set a strikeout record against the Twins.
Don’t miss our new Stack Suggestions feature and our Power Index for more on the top opportunities at the plate tonight.
Join us at 3:00 pm ET on Gundacker’s YouTube Channel for a joint* show today.
*not that kind of joint.
Note: All analysis is written utilizing available projected lineups as of the early morning, pay close attention to confirmed lineups and adjust accordingly. This article is posted and updated as it is written, so if a game has not been filled in, check back in a few minutes. Update notes are provided as lineups are confirmed to the best of our ability. Still, lineup changes are not typically updated as lock approaches, so stay tuned to official news for any late changes.
MLB DFS: Game by Game Main Slate Strategy Snapshot – 6/26/23
Cincinnati Reds (+117/4.78) @ Baltimore Orioles (-127/5.33)
Everyone’s favorite new team is in Baltimore taking on the hometown Orioles in a matchup that strongly favors bats on both sides for MLB DFS purposes. The Orioles have lefty Cole Irvin on the bump, he has a 7.71 ERA and 4.80 xFIP over 23.1 innings in five starts this season. Irvin is not that bad, but he is by no means a premium starter. In 181 innings over 30 starts last year, Irvin posted a 3.98 ERA and 4.35 xFIP with a 17.3% strikeout rate while allowing a fair amount of premium contact and a 3.37% home run rate. Irvin was a similar pitcher the year before as well, he has a long track record of somewhat below-average performance. Irvin’s strikeout rate is actually slightly up in this year’s tiny sample at 21.6% but he also has a nine percent walk rate and has been hit very hard with a 14.5% barrel rate, 90.6 mph of exit velocity and a 42.1% hard-hit rate amounting to 4.50% home runs. This is a target of a pitcher, even at what are essentially hitter prices, Irvin does not have much of a path to success against the frisky Reds lineup. Kevin Newman takes the top spot in the projected lineup for Cincinnati, the infielder costs just $2,800/$2,700 in an enviable spot in a productive batting order. Newman has an 86 WRC+ over 206 plate appearances with a 93 in 55 plate appearances as a leadoff hitter. Newman puts the ball in play with regularity and has gotten on base at a .327 clip in the role, for the price he is an effective mix-in option in Reds stacks, he can provide moderate power and has three home runs to go with six stolen bases this year while also offering multi-position eligibility at first and third base on DraftKings. Newman is a shortstop on FanDuel where his price is a positional bargain but an odd fit with Matt McLain filling the same position with far better talent and Elly De La Cruz also carrying shortstop eligibility in the lineup. McLain is an emerging star who was promoted earlier in the year after raking in the minors. The shortstop has five home runs and four stolen bases while slashing .325/.380/.541 with a .217 ISO and a 143 WRC+ in his 171 opportunities. Jonathan India costs $5,000/$3,400 at second base, which is a bit of a bargain for a hitter with 10 home runs and 12 stolen bases on the season. India has been a good player for a long time, he has a 105 WRC+ for the season and fits in well with the options up and down the lineup. De La Cruz hits cleanup, he has a 159 WRC+ in his 76 plate appearances, and is already the most expensive player on the FanDuel slate at $4,700, $100 more than Ronald Acuna Jr. today. At $5,800 with the same positional eligibility at shortstop and third base on DraftKings, De La Cruz is an obvious go-to on both sites, he has three home runs, eight stolen bases, and is slashing .333/.395/.594. Spencer Steer and Joey Votto are strong options fifth and sixth in the lineup for $4,800/$3,300 and $5,100/$3,100. Steer has 11 home runs in 319 plate appearances and Votto has already hit three in his 23 opportunities since returning to the lineup and has been very productive in the tiny sample. Nick Senzel, TJ Friedl, and Luke Maile are good mix-in options late in the lineup. Senzel has an 84 WRC+ but can produce counting stats on rare occasions for cheap prices and no ownership in what will be a popular stack and offers multi-position eligibility at third base and in the outfield on DraftKings with second base added to that mix on FanDuel. Friedl has four home runs and a dozen stolen bases in 218 chances while slashing .311/.380/.468 and creating runs 25% better than average. Maile is a cheap catcher at $2,300 on both sites, he has three home runs in 86 plate appearances, a .190 ISO, and a 13% barrel rate and is not off the table for a long ball in this matchup.
The Orioles got Cedric Mullins back over the weekend and called up top infield prospect Jordan Westburg, who lands at $2,000 on DraftKings and $2,600 on FanDuel as a shortstop on both sites. The Orioles lineup will be an option against Brandon Williamson, a limited lefty who has not been good in seven starts and 36.2 innings this year, but it will be interesting to see how the batting order falls around these options, Mullins hits left-handed and handles same-handed pitching well, but there are several options from the right side, including Austin Hays, who is in the leadoff spot instead of Mullins in one version of the projected Orioles lineup. We would expect Mullins and Hays to both land in the batting order but the Orioles have Aaron Hicks and platoon-focused options like James McCann to consider as well. Both of those players are in the version of the projected lineup that excludes Mullins, Hicks seems like a candidate to sit with Hays hitting fifth and Mullins in the leadoff spot. Any configuration will be viable against the southpaw who has a 5.40 ERA and 5.28 xFIP with a 17% strikeout rate this season. Williamson has allowed a 13.6% barrel rate and a monster 47.5% hard-hit rate while yielding home runs at a 5.03% clip and compiling a limited 25.9% CSW%. Williamson is not a good option at $5,300/$6,800, the Orioles bats are the focus and they have a strong 5.33-run implied total in Vegas. Mullins is cheap for his talent at $5,000/$3,600, he has eight home runs and 13 stolen bases with a 128 WRC+ over 233 plate appearances. Adley Rutschman is a star catcher who strikes out just 14.4% of the time while walking at a 15.3% clip and creating runs 22% better than average. Rutschman has not made strong contact this season, his barrels sit at just seven percent with a 37.4% hard-hit rate, but he has been terrific nonetheless with 10 home runs and a .265/.376/.415 triple-slash. Anthony Santander costs just $4,400/$3,200 with 14 home runs and a .231 ISO in 308 plate appearances, the outfielder is a strong option for power, he has an 11.1% barrel rate and 45.4% hard hits. Ramon Urias and Hays are a potentially powerful right-handed pair of bats in the heart of the lineup. Urias has three home runs and a 102 WRC+ over 190 plate appearances this year and blasted 16 long balls in 445 opportunities last season. Hays is slashing .318/.356/.508 with a .190 ISO and 138 WRC+, his 11.3% barrel rate, and 43.1% hard-hit rate are top-notch for a hitter who somehow costs just $3,800/$3,000 tonight. McCann and Westburg slot in ahead of Jorge Mateo and Ryan McKenna in one version of the lineup, Gunnar Henderson is hitting higher in the batting order in a different version. Whatever the confirmed version, the Orioles are a good option for stacks tonight, they rank fifth overall by fantasy point projections and land in the top three for value on both sites.
Play: Orioles bats/stacks, Reds bats/stacks
Update Notes:
Milwaukee Brewers (+154/3.75) @ New York Mets (-168/4.85)
Note: This game has a fair amount of impending weather that is a concern in the early afternoon. Pay close attention to reporting as lock closes in, it has been raining all morning in the New York area and there are storms forecast through game time and into late night.
The Brewers are in Queens to face Justin Verlander who is yet to find himself on the mound in 2023. Verlander has not been terrible, but he has a 4.50 ERA and 4.28 xFIP with just a 20.5% strikeout rate and a 44.3% hard-hit rate that are decidedly not the Verlander we have relied on for years in MLB DFS. The 40-year-old righty made a miracle comeback from late-career Tommy John Surgery last season but we might be at the end of the line. Verlander is inducing just a 9.7% swinging-strike rate with a 23.8% CSW% and has allowed a 3.72% home run rate on 91.2 mph of exit velocity in his 52 innings and nine starts. If there is a pitcher we would never bet against making a massive turn, it’s Verlander, but he is becoming difficult to trust for DFS purposes and clean innings. The righty’s struggles are more than baked into his pricing, Verlander is arguably cheap even for the numbers he is producing, $8,300/$8,100 is a very inexpensive pitcher, even at one-in-five strikeouts for the season there is upside for Verlander at these prices, if he finds his true form he is a massive bargain on both sites. Despite his struggles, Verlander has had a couple of valuable DFS starts already this year, he is not dead. On June 2nd, the former ace faced the Blue Jays loaded lineup and struck out eight while allowing just one run on five hits and three walks in six innings. He struck out six Yankees while allowing a run on three hits just two starts ago on the 14th, he went eight innings and struck out five Guardians at the end of May, and he had a seven-strikeout start with one run on two hits over seven against a worse version of the Reds earlier in May. There is a significant ceiling on this pitcher at these prices, he should be popular but the limited faith around the community, exaggerated rumors of his demise, and the presence of a few choice cuts at pitcher will probably winnow his ownership to easily leveraged numbers. Verlander is a good SP2 option on DraftKings and looks like a cheap FanDuel pitcher who can be rostered ahead of the field. Of course, the Brewers bats will have something to say about it before Verlander makes value. The projected Milwaukee lineup has a 25.3% collective strikeout rate this season but there are a few dangerous power bats and a former MVP for Verlander to face a few times. Christian Yelich is having a good year at the plate, he has nine home runs, 17 stolen bases, and a 117 WRC+ while barreling 10.4% of his batted-ball events with a 55.2% hard-hit rate. Yelich costs just $4,600/$3,300, the outfielder is a strong buy when rostering stacks of Brewers. William Contreras is slashing .246/.338/.427 with a .180 ISO and 110 WRC+ in an up-and-down year at the plate. The catcher is not expensive at $4,300/$2,900 and he has a good spot in the lineup with a fair amount of power in his bat. Contreras has a 47.2% hard-hit rate with a 10.4% barrel rate and eight home runs on the season, he strikes out at a 20% rate but walks 11.3% of the time, which is similar output to Yelich in the leadoff spot. Rowdy Tellez is very cheap for his home run upside. The first baseman costs $3,700/$2,700 and has a team-leading 7.30 in our home run model. Tellez has 12 long balls with a .188 ISO on the season but his strikeouts have gone up a bit from 20.2% to 23.8%, which is still good for someone with all his power, but the dip in his contact profile is more concerning. Tellez has gone from a 12.9% barrel rate and 45.7% hard hits to just 9.2% barrels and a 38.5% hard-hit rate over 261 plate appearances this year. The sample is still growing and Tellez seems like a good candidate to finish the year with better contact numbers, but the 35 home runs that he hit last season might be out of reach at this point. Willy Adames has 12 home runs in 283 plate appearances and a .177 ISO but just an 83 WRC+, he is a good DFS option given his power at the shortstop position and just a $4,100/$3,000 price tag. Adames has a 13.4% barrel rate but strikes out 26.5% of the time, this team has a chance to push fantasy points toward Verlander with strikeouts or tattoo his stuff if we get the weak version, there does not seem to be much in between in the matchup. The Brewers’ pricing puts them firmly on the board for value, particularly on the DraftKings slate, and they have good upside through the bottom half of the lineup that adds positional flexibility. Jesse Winker is cheap in the outfield at $2,500/$2,300, he has one home run and has been mostly lost at the plate when healthy this season. Winker hit 24 home runs with a .305/.394/.556 triple-slash and a .256 ISO over 485 plate appearances with the Reds two years ago. The replacement version that the Body Snatchers left behind has been a shell of that hitter, but at these prices, the lefty slugger is playable in a good spot in the lineup. Brian Anderson was productive early in the season but has normalized to just .219/.320/.375 with nine home runs and a 92 WRC+, Raimel Tapia has low-end power and a bit of speed in the outfield for $2,300 on both sites, and both Luis Urias and Joey Wiemer have an upside for counting stats at cheap prices. Urias hit 39 home runs over the past two seasons combined and costs just $2,900/$2,300 with eligibility at two spots on DraftKings and three on the blue site. Wiemer has 10 home runs and 10 steals in 254 plate appearances this year, striking out at a 29.5% clip and slashing .213/.280/.400.
The Mets are drawing slate-leading power marks against righty Colin Rea who has allowed a 41.6% hard-hit rate and 3.77% home run rate with 90 mph of exit velocity over 62.2 innings in 12 starts this season. Rea has been targetable for power and has a 4.88 ERA and 4.56 xFIP with a 20.4% strikeout rate and 8.7% walk rate this season, he has had one or two serviceable DFS starts, but ultimately Rea does not look like a quality option against the Mets in this spot, even at $5,600/$7,000 he does not project like much of an option, while the Mets are a strong consideration for stacks. Brandon Nimmo is slashing .283/.374/.433 with a 129 WRC+ over 341 plate appearances as one of the most productive options in the New York lineup. Nimmo is a premium leadoff hitter who makes reliable contact, knows how to draw a walk, and hits the ball very hard. The lefty outfielder is a tough bat for Rea to face coming out of the gate, he sets the table well for the team’s core of stars that follow. Starling Marte has four home runs and is up to .258/.313/.338 with 20 stolen bases and his WRC+ is steadily climbing after a frigid start to the season. Marte has a value at $3,900/$2,800. Francisco Lindor costs $4,700/$3,400 at shortstop, the switch-hitter is slashing .221/.306/.443 with a .221 ISO and 15 home runs while creating runs eight percent better than average this year. Pete Alonso is our overall home run pick for the day, the slugger has 24 long balls this season with a .311 ISO. Alonso has created runs 35% better than average this season, he has a 16.2% barrel rate and 41.6% hard-hit rate while striking out just 20.5% of the time. Alonso leads the entire slate with a 19.16 in our home run model today. Daniel Vogelbach, Tommy Pham, and Jeff McNeil are mix-and-match veterans through the bottom half of the lineup. Vogelbach has good platoon-based power on the left side, Pham has been mashing in limited opportunities this year and has seasons of double-digit power and stolen bases in his ledger, and McNeil is a moderately effective slap-hitter who has not had luck on his side this season. The premium rookies in the final two spots are highly playable at cheap prices. Francisco Alvarez has 12 home runs but has slid back to reality after his outrageous May. Alvarez is a star in the making behind the plate but he is also a rookie with a .224/.279/.476 triple-slash and a 25.1% strikeout rate. Baty costs $3,000/$2,400 at third base, he has four home runs but just a .107 ISO and 90 WRC+ after 197 plate appearances but has made sturdy contact with a 48.1% hard-hit rate when he connects.
Play: Justin Verlander, Mets bats/stacks, Brewers value stacks
Update Notes:
Minnesota Twins (+181/3.35) @ Atlanta Braves (-199/4.75)
The game in Atlanta has the makings of a good pitching duel, though the hometown Braves are still pulling in a 4.75-run implied total given their ridiculous output this year. Atlanta has ace Spencer Strider on the mound tonight for $12,600/$11,300 which is by far the highest price on the mound on both sites. Strider has been the best pitcher in baseball since his debut last season. The righty has a 39% strikeout rate and 19.6% swinging-strike rate with a 34.7% CSW% for the season, all of which are multiple percentage points ahead of the next-best pitcher in each category. The righty has a plus-plus(can we add a third plus?) fastball-slider combination that the league simply cannot catch up to with regularity, though he did have three or four more human outings in late May and early June. Overall, the pitcher’s ERA stands at 3.93 and his xFIP is 2.89, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but the strikeouts are very real. Strider has allowed a bit of premium contact this year, his 3.44% home run rate is way up over last season’s 1.33% mark, as is the 10.6% barrel rate and 89.9 mph of exit velocity, but the sample is still small enough that those numbers are comprised of a few loud mistakes. Strider remains elite on the mound, he is entirely playable in this spot despite the high prices, the Twins are the best strikeout matchup in baseball and the projected lineup has a 29.6% strikeout rate for the season. Assuming he avoids the team’s lurking power, Strider has a ceiling beyond a dozen strikeouts on this slate, he is easily the highest-projected pitcher on the board. The Twins lineup is a tough spot, there is potential for power and Strider has been more vulnerable this season, but the potential for adding three to five zeroes to a lineup in a stack is daunting, and the Twins simply have not been good enough to warrant much faith. The prices are cheap on both sites and options like Edouard Julien, Carlos Correa, Alex Kirilloff, and Byron Buxton have moderate appeal, but overall that group has combined for just 32 home runs, or eight more than Pete Alonso by himself. Correa and Buxton are slumping stars, assuming Buxton is in the lineup after getting banged up over the weekend. Julien has a 34.1% strikeout rate and seems like a Strider victim at the plate, not a threat. Kirilloff has lefty power but just a 6.35 barrel rate and 38.5% hard-hit rate while striking out 25.6% of the time against normal starters. Buxton has superstar upside and massive power but strikes out one in three times. Max Kepler is another lefty power bat, he costs just $3,100/$2,700 in the outfield with 10 home runs but a .207/.279/.421 triple-slash in 183 opportunities. Kepler is actually one of the more difficult hitters in this lineup to strike out, not that his 22.4% would qualify as a good strikeout rate. Royce Lewis, Joey Gallo, Ryan Jeffers, and Michael A. Taylor are meat for the grinder at the bottom of the lineup, the four hitters have an average strikeout rate of 32.4% and we will remind one last time that Spencer Strider is on the mound on the other side. The Twins are a super-contrarian option against the best pitcher in baseball, they are priced for value but the path to success is thin.
The Braves elite lineup is drawing a fair run total in Vegas, they have seven hitters in the lineup who have 13 or more home runs this season, with the last two hitters each at six long balls and very cheap prices. The team is facing righty Sonny Gray, who has been very good this season. Gray has struck out 24.6% while walking too many at 9.4% and pitching to a 2.56 ERA and 3.73 xFIP over 81 innings in 15 starts. The righty has been able to pitch his way out of jams, but the xFIP is probably the more honest number in the long term. Gray is a good-not-great starter with a ceiling but he is in a terrible matchup, the interesting component comes in his current-year ability to limit home runs. So far this season, Gray has a 0.58% home run rate, he has given up just two home runs in 15 starts, and his second just came his last time out against the Red Sox. The righty allowed three runs on six hits while striking out five and walking two and throwing just five innings in that last start. Gray has been working under a pitch count, he came out of the previous start after just four innings, despite allowing only two runs on three hits, he had struck out three but walked four in that start. The righty went five in the start prior to that, facing 22 Toronto hitters and striking out five while allowing a lone run on five hits, he had worked into the sixth or beyond in two straight starts going into that one and has been vocal about wanting more innings. The Braves will be looking to add to Gray’s home run total and limit his innings with their bats, regardless of what the Twins’ plans might be tonight. Gray has a bit of a cap on his upside given the questionable innings and the opponent – for all their power the Braves lineup has just a 20.7% collective strikeout rate – but he is playable at $9,600/$10,100. The focus in the matchup still has to be on Atlanta’s bats, the team has been far too good to ignore and their ownership should be back to Earth tonight after they had the world’s attention in Cincinnati over the weekend. Ronald Acuna Jr. should be more expensive than Elly De La Cruz, we don’t care how outrageously talented the fun rookie is or how productive he has been, Acuna is the best player in baseball. The outfielder has 16 home runs and a massive 35 stolen bases, he is chasing the league lead in steals and has a .328 batting average that sits second behind Luis Arraez. Acuna has a .232 ISO, a 15.1% barrel rate, and a 55.4% hard-hit rate this season and has created runs 58% better than average while striking out just 12.6% of the time, he is an amazing talent for $6,500/$4,600. Ozzie Albies is a star second baseman for $5,200/$3,500, it is nice to see him getting a bit more respect from the pricing algorithm in a better spot in the lineup. The second baseman has 18 home runs with a .236 ISO and a .266/.319/.502 triple-slash on the season. Albies is another terrific contact option at the plate, he has a 15% strikeout rate and puts the ball in play regularly when he is not mashing it over the fence. Austin Riley has slumped somewhat over the past four-to-six weeks, but his totals are still strong and he has a big ceiling at his pricing as a third baseman. Riley has 13 home runs and a .175 ISO with a 45.9% hard-hit rate this season, he hit 71 home runs in 2021 and 2022 combined he is a good buy when rostering Braves bats. Matt Olson has 25 home runs and a .304 ISO, the lefty first baseman has an 8.69 in our home run model to sit second behind Acuna’s 9.10 for the team lead tonight. Olson has a 19.1% barrel rate and 54.3% hard-hit rate and wields a mighty club at the plate for $6,000/$4,300. Sean Murphy is back in the lineup, the backstop missed a few games and was ably replaced by Travis d’Arnaud, who is in play if he finds his way into tonight’s lineup. Murphy has 12 home runs and a .242 ISO with a 148 WRC+ while slashing .290/.388/.531 in a terrific season. The catcher has a 17.1% barrel rate and 47.4% hard-hit rate this year. Marcell Ozuna has a 15.1% barrel rate and 45.8% hard-hit rate, he and Eddie Rosario have been excellent late in the lineup and neither is a surprise. Ozuna has 15 home runs and a .241 ISO while slashing .245/.331/.486 and Rosario has 13 home runs while slashing .275/.325/.515 in a strong bounce-back season. Orlando Arcia and Michael Harris II are the best eighth and ninth hitters in baseball, they are outstanding options to wrap a stack around to the top of the lineup, they are effective on their own and they come cheap and low-owned on both sites. Arcia adds eligibility at three positions on the FanDuel slate as a significant source of value for $2,800. No one who is slashing .318/.374/.458 with a 127 WRC+ over 219 plate appearances in this lineup while fitting into three important positions should be that low-priced, Arcia has been the best value buy on FanDuel for much of the season. Harris-watch has the outfielder at six home runs and eight steals with a .249/.304/.402 and 89 WRC+ after a quiet weekend. The outfielder came to life in recent weeks and has made a big surge but he remains inexpensive at $4,400/$2,900.
Play: Spencer Strider, Braves bats/stacks, Sonny Gray as a mid-board option
Update Notes:
Detroit Tigers (+178/3,79) @ Texas Rangers (-196/5.33)
The low-end Tigers are facing the elite Rangers in Texas in what is looking like a lopsided game on the board in Vegas. Detroit will be facing roller coaster lefty Andrew Heaney who is pulling in a strong projection against the lousy lineup. Heaney has a 24.6% strikeout rate and has walked 10% while pitching to a 3.98 ERA and 4.46 xFIP this season. The lefty was far better for strikeouts in his half-season last year when he posted a 35.5% mark, his 26.9% from 129.2 innings two seasons ago seems like the more realistic comparison. Heaney induced a 12.5% swinging-strike rate and had a 28.5% CSW% that season, this year he is at 11.1% and 25.7% but this seems like a good spot for the veteran southpaw. Detroit’s active roster has a 98 WRC+ against left-handed pitching with a collective .173 ISO and 21.2% strikeout rate that ranks in the middle of the league. The team has an entirely right-handed projected lineup to throw at Heaney, though several of their best hitters are lefties. The projected version has Zack Short in the leadoff spot, he has made 102 plate appearances this season and is slashing .253/.324/.418 with four home runs and one stolen base with a 162 WRC+ in 32 opportunities against a lefty. Spencer Torkelson has been featured in this space a few times recently for signs of a minor pulse in his contact profile, but he continues to underperform on the whole. Torkelson is slashing .221/.299/.365 with a .144 ISO and 85 WRC+ over 321 plate appearances this season. He has the weak ISO mark and just eight home runs despite a strong 47.9% hard-hit rate and a good 10.9% barrel rate on the season that are at least pushing the first baseman to an 8.77 in our home run model. Torkelson has a 118 WRC+ and .170 ISO against lefties this season, there is a bit of potential for $3,300/$2,600. Andy Ibanez drops in third for $2,500/$2,100, he has four home runs in 150 plate appearances, two of those home runs and a 110 WRC+ come in his 34 plate appearances against lefties. Javier Baez has two home runs while slashing .236/.311/.400 with a 99 WRC+ against lefties. If you think those numbers are bad, his .229/.268/.338 with a 67 WRC+ over 303 total plate appearances are probably going to shock you. Baez costs $3,900/$2,700 and has an 8.48 in our home run model, he should be reluctantly included in most Tigers stacks. Eric Haase has a 4.5% barrel rate and 38.3% hard hits in his 202 plate appearances, with three home runs. The catcher hit 14 home runs in 351 tries last year and had 22 in 381 the season before, he has not been good this year and has a 22 WRC+ in 47 plate appearances against lefties while striking out at a 31.9% pace in the split. Matt Vierling has a decent bat, he has a 45.3% hard-hit rate and seven home runs in 211 plate appearances on the right side this year. Vierling has not been great against lefties however, he has just a .080 ISO and a 69 WRC+ in the split while slashing .200/.298/.280 in 57 plate appearances in the split and only one of his home runs was hit against a lefty. Miguel Cabrera has 508 home runs in his storied career, he could have retired at the end of last season with 507 of them. Jonathan Schoop and Jake Marisnick round out the projected lineup with WRC+ marks of 54 and 55 on the season and a 100 and -44 against lefties. This is still a very bad baseball team.
The Rangers have a 5.33-run implied team total against lefty Matthew Boyd, who has worked 70.1 innings in 14 starts this season. Boyd has a 5.37 ERA and 4.34 xFIP with a 23.7% strikeout rate and 8.3% walk rate and he has wrangled power at roughly average rates this season after struggling with it in years past. The southpaw has allowed a 7.9% barrel rate with 35.1% hard hits and a 3.33% home run rate that are all non-tragic but also seem likely to look worse when he wakes up tomorrow after facing the deadly Rangers. Boyd is a low-end option, he has a bit of potential for strikeouts and his $6,200/$7,700 price is not incorrect, but the path to success is very thin, covered in snakes, and has those pitfall letters in the floor like in Last Crusade. The Rangers lineup opens in usual form with the spectacular duo of Marcus Semien and Corey Seager who have very high prices that are entirely warranted. Semien has created runs 18% better than average and has 10 home runs on the season, Seager is at a 180 WRC+ mark with 10 home runs of his own in 154 fewer plate appearances than his teammate. Josh Jung have been elevated to third in the batting order when the team faces lefties, with Nathaniel Lowe dropping to fifth against same-handed starters. Jung has a .212 ISO and 15 home runs while creating runs 24% better than average this season, his ISO against lefties is an outrageous .319 and his WRC+ sits at 180. Cleanup hitter Adolis Garcia has a .203 ISO with a 134 WRC+ against lefties with a team-leading season total of 17 home runs and a 123 WRC+ overall. Lowe has scuffled for power against fellow lefties, he has a .103 ISO in the split with a run creation mark that sits three percent behind the curve. For his career, Lowe is a .288/.362/.444 hitter who has a 128 WRC+ against same-handed pitching, this is not a problematic spot, and the hitter is likely to be under-owned in Rangers stacks despite a cheap $4,200/$3,100 price tag. Jonah Heim has 11 home runs this season, and Ezequiel Duran has nine, Heim’s ISO against lefties is just .158 abut his WRC+ sits at a robust 153 in the split. Duran has a big .250 ISO and has created runs 58% better than average against southpaws this season. Mitch Garver has three homers in 74 plate appearances and adds another stout right-handed power bat to the bottom of the batting order. The second catcher in the lineup costs just $4,000/$3,100 and might be a better hitter than Heim. Leody Taveras has been a stick of dynamite in the ninth spot in the batting order all season. The outfielder has eight home runs and eight steals with a 129 WRC+ while slashing .298/.351/.476 in 246 opportunities and he is easy to include at just $3,300/$3,100.
Play: Rangers bats/stacks, Andrew Heaney, Tigers bats/stacks seem likely to be over-owned as a value play targeting Heaney’s power mistakes, they do not truly have that upside in splits, if the public gets to the spot aggressively it ceases to be contrarian and just becomes a list of lousy cheap hitters. The play could work out, but it is not sharp.
Update Notes:
Chicago White Sox (+127/3.74) @ Los Angeles Angels (-138/4,35)
The White Sox draw Reid Detmers a lefty who has been pitching well this season but costs just $7,300/$8,500 tonight. Detmers has made three straight starts in which he struck out exactly eight hitters, allowing a total of two runs on 10 hits in the three games. Five of the hits and one of the runs came in a 5.2-inning start against the Cubs. That outing was followed by a six-inning start in which he allowed one run on three hits but also walked three, his most recent start was the best of the recent run. In a matchup against the elite low-strikeout Dodgers, Detmers went seven innings of shutout ball, allowing just two hits and walking only one. The pitcher has been in excellent form for most of the season, he has been pitching deeper into games after a number of short starts and he is in a good spot at home against the scuffling White Sox. Detmers has a 28.2% strikeout rate with a 4.02 ERA and 3.79 xFIP overall this season, his 13.3% swinging-strike rate lands among the top pitchers in the league, and he has been good at keeping home runs in check despite a lot of flyballs. Detmers has allowed just a 4.3% barrel rate and a 2.01% home run rate this season despite 40.2% hard hits and a 17.2-degree launch angle with 90.6 mph of exit velocity on average. For the money, Detmers should be crushingly popular on this slate, but Strider seems likely to soak up a huge amount of popularity, particularly on the single-starter site. On DraftKings, Detmers seems likely to land as a bit of an also-ran, we can easily see the public rostering both Heaney and Detmers’ opponent in this game at similar rates which gives a bit of additional upside to the talented Angels starter in tournaments. The underperforming White Sox have a 22.8% strikeout rate against lefties as a group with a 103 WRC+ in the split. The lineup is projected to open with lefty Andrew Benintendi who has a 101 WRC+ for the season. Benintendi is here for correlated scoring and his on-base skills, he is slashing .286/.349/.377 and strikes out at just a 14.2% pace but has not been enough atop the lineup. Tim Anderson has missed time but he has also been bad over his 229 plate appearances, the star shortstop has a .049 ISO and 56 WRC+ with zero home runs and eight stolen bases this year. Luis Robert Jr. hit his 19th, 20th, and 21st home runs over the weekend, the star outfielder has a 9.26 in our home run model and costs just $4,900/$3,200 in what seems like a misprice. Eloy Jimenez is cheap at $4,000/$3,000, he is a star when he is healthy and there is big power potential on the right side of the plate, Jimenez is a bargain when rostering stacks of White Sox. Andrew Vaughn costs $3,200/$2,900 at first base, he is another extremely affordable option in the heart of the Chicago lineup, just on a value basis the White Sox are a far better option against Detmers than the Tigers are against Heaney, there is much more talent in this lineup. Yasmani Grandal has six home runs while slashing .262/.316/.400 with a 98 WRC+ in 228 tries. Grandal does not get on base at his formerly elite clip, but he is a productive bat with a bit of power behind the plate. Jake Burger, Clint Frazier, and Elvis Andrus round out the projected lineup. Burger has been stuck at 17 home runs after rushing to that total out of the gate, he has major power but everything has come back to Earth in a hurry. Frazier is a post-post-hype player who has never fully arrived in the Show, he has not been good in limited chances this year. Andrus has a 54 WRC+ and .063 ISO with two home runs and six steals, he can find counting stats from time to time but has rarely been a good option offensively in his long career.
The Angels are unlikely to score 25 runs tonight. After posting that massive total on Saturday night in a game that played like it was on the Moon at Coors Field, they managed a lowly three runs in a loss to the Rockies on Sunday and now will be back in the confines of Earth’s gravity in a matchup with talented righty Dylan Cease. The former strikeout artist is down from 30.4% strikeouts with a 15% swinging-strike rate last year and 31.9% with a 14.8% the year before to just 26.9% strikeouts and 13.1% swinging-strike rate this year. Both of those are still very good, but the gap between those numbers and his previous production is critical for a starter who has typically been a bit vulnerable for a few runs and mistakes in most of his outings. Cease can typically pitch his way past a few runs for DFS scoring, but if he is not finding those few bonus strikeouts it becomes more of a challenge, which is why he lands at value pricing on DraftKings at $7,700. For $9,600 on FanDuel, Cease is a different sort of play. He will likely land as a lower-owned mix-in option with a good ceiling on the blue site tonight, but he should be a very popular SP2 option on DraftKings despite a tough matchup against the Angels. The Los Angeles lineup includes two all-world stars and a list of solid professional hitters with power and run-creation potential. Taylor Ward is slashing .249/.316/.388 with a .139 ISO and 94 WRC+ and nine home runs, he has been in and out of the lineup and may not hit in this spot after a few changes to the lineup. Ward is playable for $3,900/$2,800 in the leadoff spot, he has correlation potential if nothing else, he is more of a mix-in from later in the batting order. Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout are the aforementioned superstars, Ohtani has 25 home runs and has stolen 10 bases while posting a monster .327 ISO and 169 WRC+ in 347 plate appearances as the second-best starting pitcher in baseball. He also plays the outfield and has first base eligibility on the DraftKings slate. Trout has 17 home runs with a .230 ISO and 134 WRC+ while slashing just .255/.365/.486, wait until he starts hitting like the real Mike Trout. The two stars are well worth their salaries on both sites. Brandon Drury has 13 home runs and a .225 ISO with a 120 WRC+ over 290 plate appearances, Matt Thaiss has four homers and a 123 WRC+ in 164 opportunities as a cheap catcher, and Hunter Renfroe has hit 72 home runs since the start of the 2021 season but costs just $4,200/$2,9o0. The projected lineup also includes newly acquired veteran switch-hitter Eduardo Escobar, who has four home runs and a 104 WRC+ in 129 plate appearances this year. Escobar was banished from the Mets but may find a good home late in the Angels’ lineup, he hit 20 home runs with a .190 ISO and 106 WRC+ last year and had 28 with a .219 ISO and 107 WRC+ in 2021. Mickey Moniak may ascend to the top spot in the lineup today. The left-handed former first-overall draft pick has been good when he has been in the lineup, he is slashing .337/.371/.707 with a .370 ISO and 193 WRC+ with seven home runs and two steals in his limited 97 plate appearances. David Fletcher is a light-hitting infielder who slots in ninth in the projected lineup.
Play: Reid Detmers, Angels bats/stacks, Dylan Cease, White Sox bats/stacks in that order
Update Notes:
Washington Nationals (+223/3.13) @ Seattle Mariners (-249/4.99)
The final game of the slate is an imbalanced matchup between the lousy Nationals and the talented but underperforming Mariners and their ace starting pitcher. Luis Castillo has the second-highest projection on the board behind Strider tonight and he is making a race of it. Castillo has a 28.6% strikeout rate on 15.2% swinging strikes and a 30.2% CSW% this season. The righty has pitched to a 2.89 ERA and 3.69 xFIP over 87.1 innings in 15 starts and typically works into the sixth inning and chases quality starts. The Nationals’ active roster has a 91 WRC+ against right-handed pitching this season, ranking them 26th among 30 teams. Their collective ISO in the split sits at just .137 but they are good at avoiding the strikeout at just 18.4% in the split. Castillo is better than their ability to limit strikeouts, the righty is a strong buy in this matchup and he has a great chance to breeze to a very high fantasy point total on tonight’s slate. Strider and Castillo are far and away the two most likely options to post slate-leading pitching scores tonight. The Nationals’ lineup projects 12th out of 12 options for us tonight, they rank last on the stacks board and do not look like a good play in anything but the most contrarian sense. Those who choose to take on the Nationals lineup for value should include Lane Thomas, the team’s best hitter at .295/.344/.503 with a 127 WRC+ from the leadoff spot. Additional options include Jeimer Candelario, who has gotten most of his quality against righties this year, Joey Meneses who has displayed a good hit tool but no power, and Keibert Ruiz who has good pop at the catcher position for cheap prices. Luis Garcia, Corey Dickerson, Dominic Smith, Derek Hill, and CJ Abrams are mix-in options at best, this is a very low-end team that we would rank behind the Tigers in terms of contrarian upside.
The Mariners are facing Trevor Williams, which is good news for Mariners fans. The team lands at a 4.99-run implied team total that is one of the highest on the slate against a pitcher who has a 4.14 ERA and 4.84 xFIP on the season. Williams has allowed a 4.26% home run rate and 11.8% barrel rate over his 15 starts and 76 innings this year with lefties managing six of the long balls and righties accounting for eight of them, he is bad against hitters on both sides of the plate. Williams is not much of an option at $5,800/$7,400, the Mariners can push strikeouts with their free-swinging approach and similarly talented righties have found success against them this year, but this is a starter with a 17.6% strikeout rate and 8.2% swinging-strike rate with a 24% CSW%, there is no faith in a ceiling for Williams tonight. JP Crawford is a good leadoff hitter on the left side of the plate but he is more of a correlated scorer in stacks than a standout individual at shortstop. There are better positional options on the slate at the premium spot, but Crawford can be included when stacking the top of the Mariners’ lineup in a good spot. Julio Rodriguez has a 51.4% hard-hit rate and 10.1% barrels with 13 home runs and 17 steals but is slashing .240/.301/.419 in a bit of a dip. He has been coming on strong in recent weeks and has his WRC+ sitting four percent above average and seems likely to normalize to last season’s output with better counting stats by year’s end. Rodriguez is still a bit cheap at $5,200/$3,700. Ty France has seven home runs and a 120 WRC+ as a cheap first baseman on the right side of the plate. France costs $3,500/$2,900, like with Crawford we do not want to replace too many shares of first basemen like Pete Alonso with Ty France when combining Mets and Mariners, but France has plenty of potential to produce for cheaper prices in Mariners stacks. Teoscar Hernandez has 14 home runs but strikes out too much at 31.8% while not walking much at just 4.8%. Jarred Kelenic is better because he walks 9.6% of the time, offsetting his 32.5% strikeouts slightly. Kelenic has 11 home runs on the season but was at the same total on June ninth. The hard-hitting outfielders cost $3,700/$3,000 and $4,500/$3,000 as good value options with ceilings tonight. Cal Raleigh, Mike Ford, and Jose Caballero round out the projected lineup. Raleigh has 11 home runs in 252 plate appearances, the switch-hitting catcher has big-time power at his position and is always in play for cheap shares, Ford has six home runs in 49 plate appearances from the left side but should not be counted on for much more at the plate than infrequent power, and Caballero has been good at getting on base to reset the table for the top of the lineup with a .370 on-base percentage and 112 WRC+ in 154 opportunities.
Play: Luis Castillo, Mariners bats/stacks
Update Notes:
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