The Thursday main slate is a seven-game break from the giant slates of the past few days, but that does not make it any less difficult or compelling. There are excellent options on both DraftKings and FanDuel this evening, both at the plate and on the mound. Between the two sides, there is probably a bit more depth of pitching than there are numerous obvious spots for run creation or power, even some of the top options in our power index are just good teams facing talented pitchers with short track records. Vegas seems to agree with this overall assessment, only one team is carrying an implied run total above 5.0, the Braves are at a massive 5.88, a full 1.2 runs higher than any other team in action. The matchup against the Rockies is a strong one that should render the Braves lineup very popular, which is entirely justifiable, finding quality bats and affordable pitching to pair with the high end team is one of the day’s highest priorities.
Don’t miss our new Stack Suggestions feature and our Power Index for more on the top opportunities at the plate tonight.
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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 – 6/15/23
Detroit Tigers (+175/3.18) @ Minnesota Twins (-193/4.42)
The low-end Tigers are facing a good pitcher this evening and Vegas has them at just a 3.18-run implied team total. Detroit is baseball’s worst team against right-handed pitching by collective WRC+ with a 77 across the active roster this year. Their 24.6% strikeout rate is aggressively high and they have a limited .122 ISO as a group against righties, this is a bad baseball team. Sonny Gray is a good right-handed veteran starter who has been in strong form for most of the season. Gray has made 13 starts and thrown 72 innings with a 2.25 ERA and 3.59 xFIP. He has a 25.2% strikeout rate that is slightly up from last year on a swinging-strike rate that has increased from 9.2% to 11.3% so far this season. Gray has also been terrific at limiting power this season, he has allowed some hard hits and sits at 40.7% with an 89.2 mph exit velocity on average, but it has not hurt him for home run upside, Gray has allowed one home run in 13 starts, something he accomplished partly by keeping barrels somewhat in check at 7.5%. While that is not predictive, it is noteworthy for a pitcher who has missed barrels with regularity throughout his career. Last seaosn, Gray’s barrel rate was actually lower at 5.5% and it was just 4.7% the season before. The starter checks in at a very affordable $9,300/$10,100 price, he is one of the top options on the pitching board today. The Tigers are tied for ninth among today’s 14 teams in our aggregate point projections, though their cheap pricing gives them a favorable value score. Overall this does not seem like a great spot to roster Tigers bats, but a few shares would not be out of the question to help offset pricing on a small slate, but the options are very thin in this lineup. Zach McKinstry leads off for $3,600/$2,700, he has five home runs and a 109 WRC+ and has been one of the two players in the projected lineup who has been above-average for run creation this season. McKinstry hits from the left side and has a productive 11.3% barrel rate but just a .136 ISO, he strikes out at an 18.8% clip and walks 12.1% of the time, he should be in lineups as a potentially frustrating leadoff hitter for Gray. Spencer Torkelson continues to strike the ball well when he makes contact, he has an 11.5% barrel rate and 49.7% hard-hit rate, both of which are quite good. Torkelson has translated the contact into seven home runs with a .148 ISO and 98 WRC+ over 279 plate appearnaces so far this season and he has also cut his strikeout rate slightly while pushing his walk rate up by 1.6 points. This is not to say that he has figured things out entirely, but for $2,800/$2,700 there are at least encouraging signs from the first baseman. Kerry Carpenter missed a signficiant chunk of time, he has four home runs in 97 plate appearances with a 118 WRC+ and a .200 ISO. Carpenter is another left-handed hitter who is probably the top bat on this team when he is in the lineup. For $3,000/$2,700, Carpenter has a 7.06 to lead the team in our home run model against Gray. Javier Baez is slashing .228/.267/.320 with a .092 ISO and 62 WRC+ so naturally he hits cleanup and is the most expensive player on this team. Baez costs $4,000/$2,700 at shortstop, in some alternate universes he is still the best player on this team and well worth getting to for that cost at shortstop, in this one he is a mix-in part at best. Nick Maton hits lefty and plays second or third base on the DFS sites for just $2,600/$2,200. The infielder has six home runs but just a .143 ISO and a 70 WRC+ while slashing .160/.288/.303 this season. Matt Vierling has hit five home runs and has an 89 WRC+ while striking out at a 20.4% clip with a 44% hard-hit rate, he is a mix-in option from the bottom of the lineup which also includes Andy Ibanez, Eric Haase, and Jake Marisnick. Those three hitters have WRC+ marks of 79, 63, and 39 over 118, 180, and 37 plate appearances, there is not a lot to love but any can be mixed in if one gets carried away building numerous lineups focused on stacking Tigers.
The Twins high-strikeout lineup looks to be in a good spot against lefty Matthew Boyd, who has an average 22.1% strikeout rate and an ugly 5.55 ERA with a lousy 4.79 xFIP in his 12 starts and 58.1 innings. Boyd has induced a very good 13.1% swinging-strike rate this season, so there is a path to success for the limited lefty if he punches out Twins free-swingers while avoiding run creation. Boyd has allowed a 3.56% home run rate this year, but that comes on just a 33.9% hard-hit rate with 89 mph of exit velocity and a 7.6% barrel rate, the flyball pitcher has his home run to flyball ratio sitting at 11.7% this season, which is a significant improvement over the 19.7% and 18.2% levels at which he worked in 2020 and 2019, his last two full seasons, though it is up slightly from the 9.3% over 78.2 innings in 2021. At $5,800/$7,000 there is a fair amount of potential scoring for any starter capable of cracking 20% strikeouts to find a few additional whiffs against a projected lineup that has a collective 27.4% strikeout rate. As we were aggressively reminded by the DFS gods last night, value pitching can be extremely important in this volatile game. All in all, however, the Twins lineup is probably the better side of the equation, they will be getting superstar Byron Buxton back from the injured list, again, in a big bump to their overall lineup quality. The confirmed Twins lineup opens with Donovan Solano for $2,000/$2,400. Solano has made 182 plate appearances this season and he is slashing .283/.374/.384 with a 117 WRC+. While he does not provide indivdual counting stats, the correlated scoring potential from a hitter with a .374 on-base percentage ahead of the Twins power core for the minimum price is undeniable. Solano slots in at first base and there is no higher-end first baseman that he would displace in the Twins lineup on either DFS site, making him a massive piece of value on this slate. Carlos Correa costs $4,000/$2,900, the veteran shortstop has bounced along the bottom for much of the season, he is slashing just .218/.305/.423 but he does have nine home runs with a .205 ISO and a 101 WRC+ and he has been barreling the ball with regularity when he makes contact. Correa’s 13.8% barrel rate is up 2.4 points year over year. Correa is a star at a very cheap price in a good matchup. Alex Kirilloff has three home runs and a 143 WRC+ over 129 productive plate appearances, he adds another cheap bat to the top of this lineup. Buxton slots into the cleanup role with his titanic power upside. In 212 plate appearances, the outfielder has 10 home runs on a .225 ISO with an 11.5% barrel rate. He costs just $5,000/$3,300, which is too cheap for his talent and easily affordable given the discounts up and down this lineup. Kyle Farmer slots in at second base or shortstop as an under-appreciated option in this lineup. Farmer hit 14 home runs last year and 16 the year before, he has four in 134 plate appearances this season and costs just $2,500 on both sites. Royce Lewis is a $3,300/$3,000 option at third base with added shortstop eligibility on FanDuel. Lewis is a high-end young player finding his way in the Show, he has two home runs and a 110 WRC+ over his first 46 plate appearances this season while slashing .304/.304/.457 in the tiny sample. Michael A. Taylor has 10 home runs and a .210 ISO and almost all of his production has been unowned from a DFS perspective. Taylor belongs in Twins stacks at $2,200/$2,500, particulalry with the climb to seventh in the lineup. Ryan Jeffers and Willi Castro have both been productive this season, Jeffers is a cheap catcher with pop, he has three home runs and a .167 ISO with a 119 WRC+ in his 118 plate appearances while Castro has hit five home runs and stolen 13 bags in just 151 opportunities. The Twins look like a good source of value today, they seem likely to be popular but worthwhile.
Play: Sonny Gray, Twins bats/stacks with a lot of value upside, Matthew Boyd value shares particularly as a DraftKings SP2
Update Notes:
Colorado Rockies (+216/3.76) @ Atlanta Braves (-240/5.88)
The Rockies and Braves are squaring off with Colorado bringing heavy Coors-like run totals from Colorado through Boston and into Atlanta. Unfortunately for Colorado, most of the run total lands on the Braves’ side of the equation, the Rockies are massive underdogs at +216 with just a 3.76-run implied total against rookie AJ Smith-Shawver who is making his second start. The righty is a highly-regarded starter who is a top-ranked organizational prospect and a top-100 prospect in many rankings. Smith-Shawver went 5.1 against the Nationals in his first start on June 9th, he threw 2.1 relief innings against the Diamondbacks five days prior and struck out three. In the 5.1 inning start, Smith-Shawver found just two strikeouts but limited the Nationals to two unearned runs on three hits while walking two. The rookie looks like an excellent piece of value on this slate, but there is a bit of price-based value in the Rockies lineup as well on the small slate. At $5,500/$8,000 Smith-Shawver should be the DraftKings value SP2 du jour, he looks like an excellent option on the site and should gain a ton of popularity, if he does not he is worth additional shares. The Rockies lineup includes a few interesting young hitters and a number of flawed veterans, particularly when Charlie Blackmon and Kris Bryant are both out. Jurickson Profar is in the latter group, the flawed outfielder is slashing .247/.324/.393 with an 81 WRC+ and five home runs that he has been sitting on for weeks now. Profar is likely to lose this job when other outfielders return, which is not soon enough. Ezequiel Tovar has five homers and three stolen bases with a 69 WRC+, so he hits second. Tovar has been a big disappointment so far, but he is a very young player who is a fairly well-regarded prospect. At just $3,400/$2,700 the lineup spot would dictate Tovar’s value in stacks of Rockies, assuming he hits here instead of ninth. Ryan McMahon is an interesting left-handed power hitter against the rookie. McMahon has 10 home runs and a .227 ISO for the season with a 13.6% barrel rate and 48.8% hard-hit rate. Elias Diaz has been a valuable price-based catcher with his .295/.351/.457 triple-slash and 105 WRC+, and Randal Grichuk has flashed a good hit tool but no power over 153 plate appearances with a 106 WRC+. Rookie Nolan Jones is projected to hit between them, fifth in the lineup. Jones leads the team with a 9.45 in our home run model, he has four long balls in 68 plate appearances from the left side of the plate and he has ammased a 17.1% barrel rate in the tiny sample. Jones is a good option who was raking in the minors and should have been with this team all year, he is cheap at $3,800 on DraftKings where he has first base and outfield eligibility, on FanDuel he is already priced up at $3,900 and he slots in only at third base. Mike Moustakas is another lefty who has the memory of being a premium Major League power hitter for a number of years. This is not one of those years. Moustakas has three home runs in 119 plate appearances with a .149 ISO and a 6.8% barrel rate with a 39.2% hard-hit rate. Harold Castro and Brenton Doyle are talented enough to be in play late in the lineup, Castro is a mix-in spare part of a player but Doyle is a young right-handed hitter with some power potential, he has four home runs and nine stolen bases in 131 plate appearances.
The Braves have by far the night’s highest implied team total at 5.88, a mark that sits more than a run above the next-highest team total. So, cue the Kyle Freeland CGSO, we assume. The DFS gods and baseball gods do enjoy pranks like that on the field, but the odds of Freeland delivering a good performance in this one are extremely thin. Atlanta’s loaded lineup is simply too good for the lefty who has a 15.7% strikeout rate with a 3.91 ERA but a 4.76 xFIP on the season. Freeland has induced a 7.7% swinging-strike rate with a 23.1% CSW% this season and he has allowed an 8.2% barrel rate with 40% hard hits and 89.5 mph of exit velocity. Freeland’s 3.83% home run rate allowed so far this season is up somewhat from last year’s 2.48% but is in-line with the 3.88% from two seasons ago. Last year seems to have been a bit of good fortune, Freeland allowed a 9.7% barrel rate and 42% hard hits with 89.8 mph of exit velocity and had a 17.1% strikeout rate for the season, it’s not like he was pitching better. The lefty is a very low-end option for DFS purposes at $5,000/$7,500. A handful of points at a hitter price as an SP2 are not entirely unfathomable, but there are just better options at similar price points. The Braves are a major option on tonight’s slate. The lineup has six hitters with 11 or more home runs, with Ronald Acuna Jr. in the leadoff role in the projected lineup as usual. Acuna has 15 home runs and 29 stolen bases and is slashing .333/.405/.580 with a .246 ISO while creating runs 63% better than average and is rapidly reclaiming his crown as the best overall player in the game. Matt Olson costs $6,200/$3,800, his FanDuel price is far too cheap in this matchup, the DraftKings number makes it difficult to combine Olson with Acuna’s $6,600 price on the site, the outfield star is a $4,600 item on the blue site where Olson’s discount helps average-down the total investment. Austin Riley has 11 home runs with a .174 ISO and is still not quite on pace with his prodigious power production of the past few seasons. Riley is cheap for his talent at $5,300/$3,000, he is a good third base option on both sites tonight and should be popular. Ozzie Albies slots into the cleanup role with catcher Sean Murphy hitting fifth in the projected lineup. Albies is a star second baseman for $4,800/$3,200, his price is not increased for the climb up the lineup. The always underrated Albies has 15 home runs with a .230 ISO in the books and he is pulling a 7.83 in our home run model in the matchup. Murphy has a dozen home runs with a .250 ISO and 144 WRC+ as one of baseball’s most productive catchers this season. Marcell Ozuna has hit 13 late-lineup low-owned homers this season, he remains cheap at $3,600/$3,000 in the outfield. Orlando Arcia and Kevin Pillar are having good seasons for cheap prices, Arcia is a particularly good value on FanDuel where he plays three positions for just $2,900. Michael Harris II is finding his way back to life. The outfielder still costs $3,500/$2,500 at the bottom of the Braves lineup, which is a major discount for a player who went 19/20 with a .297/.339/.514 triple-slash, a .217 ISO and a 136 WRC+ in 441 plate appearances as the Rookie of the Year last year. Harris has alernately slumped and been injured to start the season but has recently fought his way to .221/.288/.364 with a .143 ISO, five home runs, and seven stolen bases in 170 plate appearances. While that does not look good, it looked a lot worse about a week ago. The outfielder has maintained sturdy contact throughout, he has an 11.1% barrel rate and 47.9% hard-hit rate for the season, there is a lot to believe in with this player, particularly at these prices, strong buy at the bottom of the lineup.
Play: Braves stacks aggressively but they will be popular, AJ Smith-Shawver aggressively at his way-too-low DraftKings SP2 price but also on FanDuel, small doses of Rockies value bats
Update Notes:
Los Angeles Angels (+112/4.12) @ Texas Rangers (-122/4.48)
The Angels are always a flawed option when Shohei Ohtani lands as a pitcher and not a hitter for MLB DFS purposes, which is the case in the star’s matchup with Texas this evening. Los Angeles will be facing Nathan Eovaldi, which is already a limiting factor for their lineup, they can provide good players at fair prices on both sites, so their points-per-dollar rankings are fairly high, but the lack of Ohtani’s production in our scoring systems is a downgrade to the stack potential overall. Eovaldi has been mostly excellent this season, the righty has a 24.9% strikeout rate and a 5.1% walk rate over 86.2 innings in 13 starts, he has been one of the top options for depth of innings throughout the season. Eovaldi’s gleaming 2.49 ERA is not totally betrayed by a still-strong 3.37 xFIP for the season and his 11.7% swinging-strike rate and 28.3% CSW% are both effective marks. The righty has been excellent at limiting power this year, his 1.20% home run rate comes on just six percent barrels and 88.3 mph of exit velocity with a limiting factor of a 4.8-degree average launch angle. Eovaldi remains a good buy at $10,800/$11,000, while he will have to navigate Ohtani as a hitter in real life and his team will have to find runs against the Los Angeles ace to bump him to a win, the starter has upside for seven or eight clean innings with a handful of strikeouts against the aggresive Angels. When rostering Los Angeles hitters, Taylor Ward is easily playable from the leadoff spot despite a downturn overall this season. Ward still has eight home runs and a 45.1% hard-hit rate despite his dip in run creation and he was a roller coaster through last year’s ultimately productive season as well. For just $3,700/$2,900, the outfielder provides a good correlation option with shares of Mike Trout who checks in at just $5,900/$3,700. Trout has 14 home runs and a .215 ISO but is slashing .252/.359/.467 over 290 plate appearances. The superstar’s contact profile is still excellent, which should offset any concerns about things like batting average. Trout has a 15.5% barrel rate and 51.2% hard-hit rate, Ohtani is at a 15.6% barrel rate and 48.3% hard-hit rate, there is no cause for concern here, Trout belongs in almost every stack of Angels hitters. Anthony Rendon, Matt Thaiss, Brandon Drury, Hunter Renfroe, and Jared Walsh are a good run of hitters through the heart of the lineup. Rendon is more of an option to get on base and score runs with limited power, but he has upside at his $3,300/$3,000 price points. Thaiss hits lefty and has three home runs with a 10.7% barrel rate and 41.7% hard-hit mark in 146 plate appearances as a cheap catcher. Drury has 10 home runs, Renfroe has 12. Both right-handed veterans are underpriced and belong in stacks of Angels. Walsh has scuffled over 67 plate appearances since his return, he has zero home runs and is slashing just .107/.254/.161 with a 25 WRC+, all of which is awful, but he costs $2,400/$2,300 and did hit 15 home runs in 454 opportunities in a lousy year last year and 29 in 585 in a good season in 2021. Luis Rengifo rounds out the lineup as a moderate power option, the cheap infielder hit 17 home runs last year and has four this year but he is slashing just .214/.296/.310 with a 70 WRC+ overall.
The Rangers have a 4.48-run implied total against Ohtani, who has pitched to a 3.32 ERA and 3.48 xFIP so far this season. The high-scoring Texas lineup is favored in Vegas but not by a wide margin, the team will be hard-pressed to pay off their high-prices in a full stack against this starter. Ohtani has an outstanding 33.3% strikeout rate and a 13.7% swinging-strike rate with a 32% CSW% for the season, his only flaw has been in issuing too many free passes. The two-way superstar’s walk rate has bounced upward from 6.7% to 11.1% so far this season, but he remains elite at $10,700 on both sites. The Rangers can be rostered against Ohtani but it should be done in small doses, we favor the pitchers on both sides of this matchup. Marcus Semien and Corey Seager are one of our favorite duos to start a lineup in the entire league. The hyper-productive pair fill second base and shortstop at high but worthwhile prices across the industry, they have created runs 28% and 88% better than average in their opportunities this season and should be in most stacks of hitters if one chooses to attack Ohtani. Nathaniel Lowe sat out last night, with Ezequeil Duran ascending to the third spot in the lineup. Assuming Lowe returns, he is in play for value-based upside at his always reduced price compared to teammates. Adolis Garcia costs $5,300/$3,800, he has 15 home runs and a .227 ISO and has been mashing to the tune of a 15.1% barrel rate and 52.4% hard hits. Josh Jung has been morphing into a star before our eyes this season, he has 13 home runs and a 130 WRC+ over 276 plate appearances and has been making major strides in every aspect of hitting. Jonah Heim, Robbie Grossman, Duran, and Leody Taveras are a very productive bottom-end of the lineup but the spot against Ohtani is not a great one. The lack of volume of Texas stacks across the industry will render all of those late lineup players almost entirely unowned, which makes them more interesting if we do choose to stack Rangers hitters. Grabbing a Duran or Taveras wraparound play provides correlated scoring to a lineup at a cheap price with a near-total leverage position against the slate.
Play: Nathan Eovaldi, Shohei Ohtani, bats on both sides in small contrarian doses
Update Notes:
Pittsburgh Pirates (+131/3.24) @ Chicago Cubs (-142/3.84)
The Pirates and Cubs are both drawing sub-four implied team totals on a cold night with strong winds blowing in toward the plate at Wrigley Field this evening. This is typically an excellent situation for pitching and a highly-limiting factor for hitting in this ballpark, which gives a bump to home starter Marcus Stroman, who is typically very good at limiting home run upside while pitching clean innings. Stroman has a 2.42 ERA and 3.60 xFIP over 85.2 innings in 14 starts, he has been pitching well and finding depth regularly this season. The righty has always been good at cutting barrels and launch angle, he has allowed just a 1.48% home run rate with a 3.5% barrel rate and 2.1-degree average launch angle allowed this season, all of which are improvements on a long-standing trend for the starter. He has also pushed his strikeout rate to 21.7% after sitting at 20.9% last year and is inducing a few more swinging strikes. Against a Pirates lineup that sits in the middle of the league with a 102 collective WRC+ against righties on a good day, Stroman seems to have signficiant potential for just $8,700 on DraftKings. He is a good option at $10,500 on FanDuel but that aggressively high price is wiping out any situational upside. The Pirates lineup is not great, but they have a few productive options if one chooses to target a good pitcher who limits the direct line to DFS points in terrible hitting conditions, which is not recommended. Andrew McCutchen, Bryan Reynolds, Connor Joe, and Jack Suwinski are the primary focus for anyone scanning the horizon for Pirates. McCutchen is a former MVP having a nice late-career resurgence in the city where he started out, Reynolds has not hit many home runs but has a sturdy 124 WRC+ and can provide counting stats, Joe has six home runs and three stolen bases over 213 opportunities and has been 19% better than average for run creation, and Suwinski has most of the team’s power with 15 home runs in the books in 214 chances this year and a .299 ISO. Carlos Santana had a good game last night but has not been good overall this year, Ke’Bryan Hayes can produce in spurts and hits the ball hard when he makes contact but he has been unreliable overall, and the bottom third of the lineup is weak. Ji-Hwan Bae, Tucupita Marcano, and Jason Delay round things out for Pittsburgh.
The Pirates will have Johan Oviedo on the hill tonight, he is pulling in situational upside against the Cubs and costs just $7,200/$8,300 as a fairly interesting value option. Oviedo has a 19.6% strikeout rate with a 4.16 ERA and 4.76 xFIP and his 10.6% walk rate is a concern that will cut through the wind and the cold. If Oviedo issues too many free passes his upside evaporates on the idea of a few earned runs cutting into his low strikeout expectations. The Cubs do not have to hit home runs to ruin Oviedo’s night, but his price is good, the situation is great, and he is not inept on the mound, which is good enough for us some days. Oviedo is a mid-range value option on the mound tonight. The Cubs are a low-end stack given the weak run total and the conditions, their ability to get on base and sequence is their weapon in this spot, but that does not always lead to DFS scoring. Those rostering Cubs would do well to look toward the middle of the lineup. Mike Tauchman leads off as an on-base and correlated scoring play, but his upside is limited and he is a quad-A caliber player overall, Nico Hoerner is a better starting point for limited Cubs stacks, he has four home runs and 15 stolen bases and gets on base enough to correlate with the team’s core of Ian Happ, Seiya Suzuki, and Dansby Swanson. Those three hitters are the focus for our Cubs stacks, they all come cheap with a bit of power, moderate stolen base potential, and excellent abilities to get on base. Christopher Morel should be an everyday player in this lineup, he has 11 home runs in 104 plate appearances this season and is an option if he plays. Matt Mervis has three home runs in 99 plate appearances but he is not much of a sequencing and run creation option with his 32.3% strikeout rate and 8.1% walk rate. Nick Madrigal and Tucker Barnhart are low-end late-lineup plays.
Play: Marcus Stroman, Johan Oviedo in smaller portions
Update Notes:
Washington Nationals (+172/3.41) @ Houston Astros (-189/4.70)
With right-handed ace Cristian Javier on the mound we are not overly inclined to spend too much time discussing Nationals bats. Washington’s lineup is better against lefties, the team sits 29th out of 30 with an 83 WRC+ collectively against right-handed pitching, beating out only the terrible Tigers. Javier has been good this season, he has a 3.13 ERA and 4.37 xFIP but his strikeout rate has dropped significantly from last year’s spectacular 33.2% over 148.2 innings to just 24.8% thise season. Javier has allowed a few more barrels and more premium contact, but his home run rate has barely moved and he has not been hurt by the dip very much. His swinging-strike rate and CSW% are both down year over year, but only by a couple of points. The righty’s slider has been slightly more hittable this season, he had a .121 batting average and .126 expectated batting average with a .223 slugging percentage and .211 expected mark and a 39.4% whiff rate on the pitch last year but sits at just a 31.8% whiff rate with a .324 slugging percentage and .384 xSLG on the pitch this year. The slider appears to have lost about 100 rpm of spin and half a mile-per-hour of velocity and a critical two inches of horizontal movement that take the pitch from 5.4 inches better to just 1.4 better against the average per Statcast, making an unhittable pitch slightly less superhuman. None of this takes Javier out of play, sometimes we just like to dig in a bit. The righty costs $10,200/$10,300 and makes a great play on either site tonight. If one chooses to roster Nationals, the focus is on Lane Thomas, who has nine home runs and a 115 WRC+ for the year. Luis Garcia is a mix-in option in the infield, while Joey Meneses is a better option hitting third. Meneses has a .297/.341/.386 triple-slash but only two home runs in 276 plate appearances. Jeimer Candelario gets his power against righties, all eight of his home runs came on this side of splits this year. Corey Dickerson is a left-handed veteran with a semi-capable bat, he has a pair of home runs and a 101 WRC+ in 64 chances this season. Keibert Ruiz is a cheap young catcher with more long term upside than day-to-day value. Dominic Smith, CJ Abrams, and Alex Call are low-end options at the bottom of the lineup.
The Astros have been up and down this season and star Yordan Alvarez is still out of the lineup, which pushes some upside toward MacKenzie Gore on the mound for Washington. Gore got off to a great start this season and has progressively come closer to a full return to Earth. The lefty was excellent with a 3.40 xFIP and 31.5% strikeout rate for March and April while allowing just two home runs in 27 innings. He gave up six home runs in 31 innings while striking out 28.5% with a 3.56 xFIP in May, and has so far allowed three long balls in 11 innings with a 4.37 xFIP and 19.6% strikeout rate in the month of June. Gore is a talented young pitcher overall and his price is right at $7,800/$8,600 in this matchup, he can be deployed as a mid-range SP2 option at worst with a bit of upside for more on the FanDuel slate. The Astros are in play coming back the other way in this spot as well. The lineup has been up and down this year, but there are effective hitters and a potentially surging Jose Abreu to consider. Abreu has been a mess at the plate this season, but he hit his fourth home run of the year and third in the last week just last night and is now up to .233/.289/.320 with an ISO threatening to crack the .100 mark at .087 and an ascending 69 WRC+. We are rooting for the turnaround for the veteran first baseman who costs just $3,100/$2,600 in the heart of the lineup. Mauricio Dubon is a mix-in option who has a 103 WRC+ as a fill-in player for the Astros, he can provide hits and on-base skills with correlated scoring potential with the team’s primary bats. Jose Altuve has two home runs and a 129 WRC+ in his 78 plate appearances after an injury cost him the first third of the season. The second baseman is a star who is cheap at $4,900/$3,900. Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker have 18 home runs combined, with nine in the books for each. Bregman has a 105 WRC+ and Tucker sits at 119, they are both good players who are priced down slightly for a bit of underperformance. Abreu is slated to hit fifth ahead of Jeremy Pena and Chas McCormick who got the night off last night. Jake Meyers and Martin Maldonado follow to close out the lineup. The bottom four hitters are all playable, Pena is a productive enough shortstop at a fair price, McCormick has good power upside that typically comes cheap and low-owned, Meyers has a 104 WRC+ in 191 plate appearances with six unowned home runs, and Maldonado is a cheap catcher who can bend a slate from time to time.
Play: Cristian Javier, MacKenzie Gore value, Astros bats/stacks
Update Notes:
Cleveland Guardians (+111/4.13) @ San Diego Padres (-120/4.46)
Lefty Ryan Weathers has bumped around in a hybrid role for the Padres this season, providing a few full starts, a few limited starts, and some bullpen work. Weathers appears to be in line for a traditional start tonight, he went three innings in his last outing against Colorado in Coors Field, giving up just one run on three hits, and he lasted just 1.2 innings in a rough start in which five runs were scored against the Cubs prior to that. There does not seem to be much of a plan in place, but Weathers seems likely to provide only about four to five innings of total mediocrity on the mound at best, he is entirely skippable for MLB DFS purposes. This is not to say that the Guardians are a premium option on this slate either, the team has just a 4.13-run implied total against a pitcher with a 4.93 ERA and 5.25 xFIP. The low-end Cleveland lineup is definitely the preferred side of the equation, but they are only a mid-level stack tonight. Steven Kwan strikes out in just 12.4% of his plate appearances and walks at an 11.1% clip but his WRC+ has cratered from 124 last year to just 91 this season and he has not hit for average or provided stolen bases. Kwan costs $3,600/$3,000 in the leadoff role. Disappointing infielder Amed Rosario has been worse, his 68 WRC+ should demand movement out of the second spot in the lineup when paired with a .285 on-base percentage and .092 ISO, but there are few options in the Guardians lineup to replace him. Rosario has the idea of mid-range power and speed, he hit 11 home runs and stole 18 bases last year and went 11/13 the season before. Jose Ramirez has 10 home runs, about half of which he hit just last week. The star third baseman is having a down year overall, he is slashing .281/.349/.490 with a 121 WRC+ and .209 ISO that still make him a good player, but he has underperformed expectations. Ramirez is at a discount on one site for $4,500/$3,900. Josh Naylor has eight home runs and a 10.6% barrel rate that leads the team by a fair margin. Josh Bell has six home runs but just a 7.8% barrel rate, he costs just $2,500/$2,700 at first base which is at least viable value when deciding between the two first basemen on DraftKings. Andres Gimenez slots in at second base for $3,400/$2,600, putting him in play lightly but he has also been bad this year with an 84 WRC+ and only four home runs and seven stolen bases in 246 plate appearances. Gabriel Arias, Mike Zunino, and Myles Straw close out the lineup in weak form.
The Padres top-heavy squad is facing lefty Logan Allen which has our model looking in two different directions. Allen projects well in the spot, the young lefty has a 3.31 ERA and 3.89 xFIP over his first 51.2 innings and nine starts this season and he has struck out 22.8% with a 6.7% walk rate. At 12.4%, Allen is inducing an excellent swinging-strike rate as a rookie and he has been good at keeping power in check with just 88.9 mph of exit velocity and a 2.23% home run rate. At $6,900/$9,100 Allen is a very different play across sites. He will hopefully be under-owned at the low SP2 price on DraftKings with the Padres’ stars blinding MLB DFS gamers to the pitcher’s quality. On FanDuel, Allen is a much bigger risk at his aggressively high price, but he remains a recommended play on a day that has five pitchers priced above $10,000 on the blue site. The Padres hitters are among the slate leaders in our home run model. All four hitters in the top of the lineup have home run marks above the magic number, with Fernando Tatis Jr. leading the way once again at a massive 17.65. The star was at a similar 17+ number and homered for his 14th of the year last night, he is a great option on basically any slate. Tatis has eligibility at shortstop and in the outfield for $4,500 on FanDuel and is an outfielder at $6,000 on DraftKings. Juan Soto has a 12.04 in the home run model with 11 in the books for the season, he is a bargain at $5,400/$3,500 and should be at least $500 more expensive on both sites. Manny Machado has seven home runs while slashing .249/.295/.398 with a .149 ISO and 91 WRC+ in 217 plate appearances, which has his price down to $4,800/$2,900, which is a price territory in which this hitter should never be found. Gary Sanchez is the last hitter with a 10+ mark for home run potential at 11.27 tonight, he has six on the season in 61 plate appearances and remains affordable at $3,500/$3,100. Xander Bogaerts is slashing .264/.348/.403 in a downturn due to an injury but he is a value play in the lineup at his daily prices. Nelson Cruz drops into the projected lineup against the lefty, the ancient one costs $2,400/$2,500 with a 6.79 in our home run model. Against a lefty that mark would have been three times higher a year or two ago, Cruz has upside at his price but he is a shadow of his former self at this point, even against southpaws. Ha-Seong Kim, Brandon Dixon, and Trent Grisham close out the projected lineup.
Play: Logan Allen, Padres bats/stacks, Guardians bats/stacks as a lower-mid option
Update Notes:
Chicago White Sox (+126/3.98) @ Los Angeles Dodgers (-137/4.62)
The White Sox lineup is elevated in both our stack rankings and Power Index in a matchup against righty Michael Grove, but this is one spot on which Vegas seems to be in disagreement with Chicago landing at just a 3.98-run implied total. Grove is making his sixth start and seventh appearance, he has thrown 25 innings with his most recent outing coming in bulk relief and lasting four innings. Grove has a 20.2% strikeout rate with a 4.49 xFIP concealed under an awful 8.28 ERA. He has allowed a 7.3% barrel rate with 37.8% hard hits and 90 mph of exit velocity amounting to a 3.51% home run rate. In six starts and 29.1 innings last season, the righty had an 18% strikeout rate with a 4.60 and 4.77 xFIP while allowing a 4.51% home run rate on 91.6 mph of exit velocity and a 43.4% hard-hit rate. Grove looks more like a target for bats than a great option on the mound, but if he keeps runs in check like the run total suggests he could provide a sneaky score at $5,200/$6,100. Grove is not a part of our plans, but those are extremely cheap prices for a starter who might book five moderately successful innings. Our lean for MLB DFS remains with the White Sox bats. The team has not been good all season, they have suffered an unfair number of injuries, but even when healthy many of their key bats have underperformed. Still, there is significant potential shining through in our model for the collection of talented players. Tim Anderson has not been himself over 209 plate appearances this year, he is slashing .253/.292/.298 with a 64 WRC+, zero home runs, and seven steals. Anderson is a career .286/.315/.434 hitter who has hit .300 for four straight seasons, he is off at the plate this year but he comes cheap in the leadoff role for $4,200/$2,700 at shortstop. Andrew Benintendi has been similarly lousy, he is slashing .265/.337/.338 with an 86 WRC+ after spending most of his career as a good hitter who gets on base, hits for average, and scores runs. Luis Robert Jr. is our overall home run pick for the day, he has a 14.89 in the home run model with 16 in the books for the season. Eloy Jimenez is another star who simply can’t stay healthy, he has six home runs in 154 plate appearances this year and returned to the lineup yesterday. Yasmani Grandal, Andrew Vaughn, and Jake Burger are viable options through the middle of the lineup, Yoan Moncada will be absent with another injury. Grandal is a good value catcher who can get on base and has infrequent pop, Vaughn has a 112 WRC+ with eight home runs on the season, Burger has 15 home runs after hitting another two yesterday when he heard we compared him to Brent Rooker. Burger is now sitting at .250/.299/.600 with a .350 ISO and 140 WRC+ over 174 plate appearances. Gavin Sheets is an effective enough lefty bat late in the lineup which closes with Romy Gonzalez who has three home runs and seven steals but a 51 WRC+ in 97 opportunities.
The Dodgers’ elite lineup draws righty Dylan Cease who has lost above five percentage points on his previously excellent strikeout rate to sit at 25% for the season. Cease has a 4.38 ERA and 4.30 xFIP over 14 starts and 74 innings this year and he has allowed a lot of premium contact despite limiting hitters to just a 2.78% home run rate. Cease’s barrel rate allowed has climbed from a good 6.2% to 8.3% this season with hard hits taking a massive leap from an outstanding 31.2% last year to 48% this season and exit velocity following in a ride from 86.8 mph to 91 mph. Cease has only been lousy in a few starts this season, but he his excellent outing have been fewer and farther between, most of his outings have been only OK for DFS purposes. Against the Dodgers, that does not play very well. Cease has potential and plenty of talent, but the upside is a big question mark against a low-strikeout high-scoring hard-hitting Los Angeles lineup. For $8,200/$8,300 there is value enough to roster a few shares of the righty, but the Dodgers are the preferred option in this space and on the board in Vegas where they have a 4.62-run implied total. Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Will Smith open the Dodgers lineup in high-end expensive fashion. The three stars cost $6,400/$4,200, $6,300/$4,500, and $5,800/$3,800, they have 40 combined home runs so far this season and are entirely worth the salary. JD Martinez has another 16 home runs to throw on the pile, he has a team-leading .337 ISO and a 134 WRC+ in an outstanding return to form. David Peralta climbs to fifth in the projected lineup that is again without Max Muncy. Peralta has four home runs and a 92 WRC+ across 165 plate appearances but his 51.2% hard-hit rate has appeal. Miguel Vargas is a productive young second baseman with a .186 ISO and six home runs for just $3,200/$2800, Jason Heyward is a veteran outfielder who hits the ball very hard and has seven home runs in 151 chances, and Chris Taylor fills multiple positions for a cheap price with 10 home runs in the books to match his output for all of last year already. Miguel Rojas rounds out the lineup in low-end form, but we can forgive the Dodgers for one unplayable part. Cue the unowned Rojas grand slam for $2,100/$2,500.
Play: White Sox bats/stacks, Dodgers bats/stacks, minor shares of Dylan Cease
Update Notes:
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