Red Sox/Yankees

This series is looking like all offense and no pitching. Vegas has this game as the highest o/u tonight, which isn’t the least bit surprising. Find your way to get some exposure to this one, as the Sox just put up 19 runs yesterday.

Twins

The Twins have possibly had the most surprising season out of any team. The bats have been hot all year and I expect that to continue tonight in Chicago against Dylan Cease. Cease has a 6.19 ERA and should really struggle once again, with a very difficult match-up on his hands.

Mariners

The Mariners just put up 10 runs last night and should be able to ride that momentum into tonight at home with another great matchup against Daniel Norris of the Tigers. Norris has a 5 ERA and hardly goes deep into games without giving up handfuls of runs. All righty Mariners bats are heavily in play here.

Col @ Was and SDP @ NYM seem to be the two games with the most concerning rain. As of right now, they should be able to play both games without a cancelation. Let’s look at a few teams worth a stack tonight.

Nationals (-230 favorite, 9 o/u)

The Nationals are destined to put up a healthy amount of runs tonight against Peter Lambert of the Rockies. Lambert has over a 6 ERA and could really struggle tonight on the road in Washington. Just make sure that the rain forecast doesn’t get any worse closer to first pitch.

Braves (-220 favorite, 9.5 o/u)

The Braves are the second biggest favorite tonight right behind the Nats. They should have no issue hitting the lefty, Danny Duffy at home tonight. Duffy carries a 4.5 ERA into this and Atlanta has been playing as more of a hitters ballpark all year. I love all Braves righties in this game (and Freddie Freeman because he hits any human he wants).

D-Backs (-194 favorite, 9 o/u)

I love the Diamondbacks again tonight. They face the righty Dylan Bundy of the O’s here and should be able to duplicate what they did last night. Bundy has over a 5 ERA and got busted for 7 earned runs in an inning against the Rays last time. He also has been on the IL for 10 days so he isn’t as sharp as they come, coming into this game. D-Backs could do some serious damage at home here.

We come into this Friday with no Coors game, no real weather concerns, and a lot of good hitting match-ups… How lovely!

Red Sox (-250 favorites, 9.5 o/u)

The Sox are expected to put the hurting on John Means and the Orioles tonight at Camden Yards. Means hasn’t been bad this year, but as of late, he has given up 14 hits and 8 earned runs in his last 2 outings. Camden Yards is a hitters park and the Red Sox are a hitters team. The proponents of this game line up for a good amount of Sox runs.

Yankees (-220 favorites, 11 o/u)

The Yanks find themselves as a heavy favorite at home and a part of a massive total tonight. They should have no issue generating runs off of Kyle Freeland of the Rockies. Freeland has a 7.39 ERA on the year and is priced as the cheapest pitcher on FanDuel tonight. Expect nothing but disaster for him and the Rockies tonight at the hitters paradise of New York.

Indians (-260 favorites, 9.5 o/u)

The Indians are another huge favorite tonight at home against the newly acquired Mike Montgomery of the Royals. Montgomery has seen nothing but bullpen work while on the Cubs this year and isn’t used to a heavy inning load as a starter. He should struggle tonight and the Royals could find themselves in a bullpen game before the first hour of this game is over tonight. Look for right-handed Indians bats here.

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We have a few games on the east coast looking at a lot of a rain so make sure to pay attention to weather updates until lock! Lets look at a couple pitchers to be targeting on tonight’s main slate.

Chris Paddack (-150 Favorite, 8 o/u)

Paddack is the best pitching option dollar for dollar tonight in my opinion. He’s a favorite in the lowest total game on tonight’s slate. He’s coming off of solid back to back performances with 49 and 35 fantasy points and looking to stay on a roll in Miami. At $8,900 on FanDuel, Paddack finds himself as the top cash game option tonight.

Mike Clevinger (-270 Favorite, 9 0/u)

Clevinger is another great pitching option tonight. His price is the only thing separating him from Paddack. I think $9,400 is a little pricey on a guy who isn’t the most consistent. When he’s on, he can hit double digit strikeouts and for that reason, he’s an awesome tournament play tonight. As listed above, he’s a massive favorite of -270 and should have no problem getting the win. You can use him as a cash play as well.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve had enough of Coors Field games for a little bit. Yesterday, the early game ended at 19-2. For the night game during the main slate, the game decided to play out with a final score of 2-1…. Oh, and we have another Coors game tonight that currently has an over/under of 14… FOURTEEN. Let’s jump into tonight’s slate, excluding that SF v. COL game.

Nationals (-190 Favorite, 11 o/u)

The Nats are in an awesome spot tonight at Camden Yards, against Asher Wojciechowski of the Orioles. Asher has a 6.1 ERA and lasted just 2/3 of an inning last time out. Camden Yards also plays as a hitters ballpark, so the Nationals could be in for a big offensive night.

White Sox (-120 Favorite, 10.5 o/u)

I like the White Sox for a couple different reasons tonight. They have a great match-up against Glenn Sparkman, who has a 5.09 ERA and has allowed 25 hits in his last 3 starts. Chicago also should stay on the lower owned side of things tonight, making them great GPP plays.

Cardinals (-180 Favorite, 9 o/u)

The Cardinals have been frustrating to say the least this year. They have really good hitters on their team that stay very cheap on DFS sites, but they seem to really struggle to generate runs on a majority of the nights. I’m thinking tonight is a bit different. They are coming off of a big win last night, beating the Pirates 7-0 and they are positioned in another great spot tonight at home against Dario Agrazal.

If you are interested in bundled passes for full FanDuel and/or DraftKings lineups, message me on twitter @fd_guru

Man do I love how short the MLB All-Star break is. The All-Star game was Tuesday, had a day off on Wednesday, and they were already back at it with a game last night. Guys like George Springer and Alex Bregman, who participated in the All-Star game festivities, only had one day off (Wednesday). This was nothing different than a rest day in between series’, which I find pretty funny. Nonetheless, lets jump into tonight’s slate and look at some teams to stack.

Yankees (-280 Favorite, 11 0/u)

The Yankees open up the second half with a picture-perfect matchup at home against Aaron Sanchez of the Blue Jays. Sanchez held a miserable 6.31 ERA in the first half of the season and it most likely won’t go down at all after tonight. Look for the Yankees bats to jump on the right hander early and often in this one.

Angels (-162 Favorite, 10 o/u)

I’m doing a couple of late game teams in this write up because they sometimes go over looked and they are in some great spots tonight. First one, being the Angels with a matchup against Mike Leak. Leak is coming off of a really solid game against the Cardinals, but that doesn’t faze me. The 3 prior games to that, he had allowed a combined 26 hits and 13 runs. Sign me up for the Angels at home.

Athletics (-190 Favorite, 9.5 o/u)

The A’s are my second late night team that I’m targeting. They draw a great matchup at home against Ivan Nova of the White Sox. Nova has a 5.58 ERA and the Athletics bats remain fairly cheap on DFS sites. I think this is a great spot for the A’s to have some great potential and decently low ownership throughout the lineup.

The Rockies v. Astros game is obviously a good game to stack. It’s just a matter of which bats in the game you want to spend up on because of the Coors salary adjustment that FanDuel does.

Angels/Rangers Game (11 o/u)

Both teams in this game are great to target for a stack, as two below-average pitchers face off against each other. You have the young Canning of the Angels, against Ariel Jurado of the Rangers. Both pitchers should give it up here at the friendly hitting Globe Life Park in Arlington. Look for bats on either side of the plate in this one.

Phillies/Braves Game (11 o/u)

This game is very similar to the Rangers and Angels game in the fact that it’s basically a pick ’em and has an 11 over/under. Pivetta squares off against Bryse Wislon here. A 5.6 ERA vs. an 8.3 ERA. Sign me up for all the bats in this game, as Atlanta is a friendly hitting park to begin with.

Reds/Brewers game (10.5 o/u)

Like yesterday, this game is looking promising as far as offense goes. It presents a large over/under and has two below-average pitchers facing off again. Roark and Anderson take the rubber at a friendly-hitting Cincinnati park. A full game stack here doesn’t hurt.

Rangers (-148 favorites, 10.5 o/u)

I was ready to pile in this game on yesterday’s slate, but we had a surprising cancellation due to the tragic death of Angels’ pitcher, Tyler Skaggs. What a terrible story this has turned into over the last 24 hours. Thoughts and prayers go out to the Skaggs family and Angels organization. DFS wise, this game should be on your radar once again. We have the Rangers squaring off against the lefty, Jose Suarez, who has a 5.57 ERA. The Rangers righties look very intriguing in this matchup at Arlington.

Dodgers (-235 favorites, 9 o/u)

The Dodgers are massive favorites tonight, at home, against Taylor Clarke of the D-Backs. Clarke has been pretty bad in every single start all season long, sporting a 6.1 ERA. The Dodgers should be able to put it on him early and often and this one and coast into a win.

By: Stephen Smith – @SM17Hdfs

7/1/19 7:05PM Main Slate (5 Games)

What’s up everyone? My plan with this article is to guide you in the right direction on where to go with the slate for today. This article is written based off of the projected lineups from the night before so if anything drastic changes follow me on twitter (@SM17Hdfs) to get my updates! I will be referencing Fanduel’s positions due to it being less roster construction friendly over there. Let’s get right into it.

We have a 5 game main slate on both Fanduel and Draftkings tonight. With the 5 games, we have 5 starting pitchers with less than 35 innings pitched this year. Starting off with the Padre’s Logan Allen, he has 2 starts in 2019 and performed excellent in both showings – 46 and 37 FDP. Looking back at his AAA numbers, he had 57.2 innings pitched allowing 33 ERs, 8 HRs, 63 Ks, a 5.15 ERA, and 1.44 WHIP. In his first 2 starts with the Padres, Logan used his four seamer 48% of the time, followed by his slider at 25.7% and changeup 21.8%. His fastball is below average but is able to place it pretty well. His changeup is his best pitch as he owns a crazy 41.2% Whiff% with this pitch. Today, he gets to face an opponent with a slate low wRC+ (75), ISO (.160), and BA (.224) vs LHP.

Next we have Adbert Alzolay ($7,500) of the Cubs. Alzolay has also started 2 games going 4 innings in his first start and 4.2 in his second. He’s only allowed 1 ER in his first 2 starts and is averaging 26.5 FDP. In AAA this year, he has a total of 36 innings pitched and has a 4.00 ERA, 16 ERs, 5 HRs, 49 Ks, and a 1.08 WHIP. Alzolay faces a PIT team that has the highest BA vs RHP on the slate (.265) and a low K% at 21.5.

Jose Suarez ($6,500): has 21 innings pitched this season under hit belt and during that time he definitely struggled thus far. He has a FB% over 50, GB% under 30, a 5.25 SIERA, 5.82 xFIP and a 17.6 HR/FB%. The one positive would be to highlight TEX’s 33.2 K%.

Adrian Houser ($5,700): gets a pretty decent matchup tonight vs CIN. 84 wRC+ (2nd lowest on slate), .173 ISO, 27.2 K% (3rd highest on slate), and a .235 BA (2nd lowest on the slate). He has a great 58 GB% and 22.2 FB%. He struggles vs lefties and CIN is currently projected to only have 3 in their starting lineup, unfortunately, they are the better hitters on their team. However, Houser does have great K upside at only $5,700 on FD with his 27.5 K% to RHB and 31 K% to LHB. He also has a 32.4 Whiff% to LHB which could help shut down those 3 lefties in CIN’s projected lineup.

Jimmy Yacabonis ($5,500): coming in as the cheapest pitcher on the slate tomorrow, Yacabonis faces a tough offense in the Rays, and has possibly the worst stats on the slate. Lowest Whiff%, highest SIERA and xFIP, and the gives up the highest BA, ISO, xwOBA, and xSLG just to name a few.

Ok, now that we got the small sample pitcher out of the way, let’s go over the remaining 5 pitchers in highest salary to lowest salary order:

Mike Minor ($10,800): currently my 4th ranked pitcher, going against a tough LAA team in a hitter park. Minor has been relatively lucky this year with a 2.4 ERA and a 4.3 SIERA and xFIP. He is excellent vs LHB and is only projected to see 2 of them tonight.

Ryan Yarbrough ($6600): Fanduel has Morton starting but I’ve also seen Stanek starting with Yarbrough getting the bulk of the innings. I like Yarbrough, but definitely not as much as Morton. If Morton starts, I’m going to be playing him, if its Yarbrough, he’ll be in the mix, but it’ll make me think about paying up for Allen or looking elsewhere depending on how my roster construction looks.

The next 2 pitchers according to Fanduel salary are Allen and Alzolay. I have no interest in playing Alzolay tonight.

Trevor Williams ($7,200): This dude is just the definition of mediocre. I have no interest in playing him and I don’t think I’ll be attacking him with bats either.

Tyler Mahle ($7,000): He is interesting. He’s let up 11 HRs to LHB this season so far and he faces 4 of them tonight, that will be heavily owned. I don’t hate the idea of using him in a GPP, mainly because those 4 lefties have K% of 21, 24, 25, 40. Mahle strikes out righties a lot more than lefties but sometimes you have to embrace the variance in MLB DFS and hopefully it’s on your side. I’m also attracted to Mahle’s low BB%, lower SIERA and xFIP than ERA, low FB%, and high GB%.

Jeff Samardzija ($6,200): On to my 2nd ranked pitcher of the night, Samardzija faces a SD team with a 26% K rate to RHPs. He struggles vs LHB and he’s only projected to see 2 tonight, 1 that I’m worried about and that’s Hosmer. Samardzija’s away numbers are worse which makes me hesitant to use him in cash. I’ll list him as a GPP option due to the number of righties he should see.

Stacks:

TB both sides

TEX both sides

PIT lefties

CIN lefties

Top positional plays:

C/1B: Bell**, Rizzo, Jacob Stallings***, Grandal, Pujols, Choi**

2B: Moustakas, Frazier**, Lowe**, Russell

3B: Diaz**, Moran**, Bryant

SS: Adames**, Andrus**, Newman**

OF: Yelich (#1 play on the slate), Gallo**, Pham**, Dickerson**, A. Garcia**, Austin Meadows**, Bryan Reynolds**, Willie Calhoun***, Winker, Reyes, Mazara**, Heyward, Trout

*small sample for batter

**small sample for pitcher

***small sample for both

Small slates where half the pitchers have small samples kind of sucks but TB and TEX should both be good plays regardless of the small pitcher sample.

Slate approach:

As of now, my main pitching options are Allen, Yarbrough, Samardzija, Mahle (GPP only) or Houser (GPP only) in that order.

There’s plenty of options at the OF and C/1B positions so I would generally pick them last due to the options that are there. Start building your lineups with the weakest position to try to lock up the top guy. Tonight, I think the weakest position is probably SS. Lock in your pitcher and SS then head over to 2B and 3B then it’ll make your decision for OF and C/1B a little easier. Good luck everyone, feel free to shoot over any questions or suggestions you may have on twitter.

Updates 4:18PM

Things changed a little from last night when I initially wrote up the article. We now have Eshelman making his first start instead of Jimmy Yacabonis. In 74.2 IP this year in the Minors, Eshelman has 37 ER, 11 HR, .282 AVG and 1.35 WHIP. He also has 1.33 HR/9 and 7.23 K/9. He’s pretty much a guy with average stuff that throws a lot of strikes. Which could be dangerous going against the Rays tonight.

Pitching Breakdown:

Ok, so the Rays are throwing curveballs at us, no pun intended. It looks like Stanek is going to start with Yarbrough having the bulk of the innings, nothing too unusual there; however, they are having McKay DH today.

Allen ($9,300): His low FB% and high GB% threw his first 2 starts are very promising. He gets a matchup vs a team with the lowest wRC+, ISO, and AVG on the slate in a good pitcher’s park. I think he put up another performance that looks similar to his first 2 starts this year.

Yarbrough ($6,600): Will gain a decent amount of ownership tonight. I don’t think I’m as high on him as others are as his numbers vs RHB scare me, especially with a slate low 17.6% K rate and 19.9% whiff/swing to RHB. I think I’d rather fade and take the upside with the cheaper Houser.

Houser ($5,700): Struggles vs LHB and has to face 4 of them tonight, but a 58% GB rate paired with a 32.4% whiff/swing to LHBs has me a little excited about his upside. This slate is pretty bad so I think I could see myself on Houser for his upside and get all the bats I want tonight.

Samardzija ($6,200): He grades out as my top rated pitcher of the night, but he scares me a little. I just don’t trust his low K% and high SIERA and xFIP enough to play him tonight so I’m gonna pass.

RHB Stacks: TB, TEX

LHB Stacks: TB, PIT, TEX, MIL

Top 10 batters on the slate: Gallo, Yelich, Bell, Diaz, Moustakas, Dickerson, Frazier, Dietrich, Rizzo, Moran.

Good luck and remember to reach out to me on Twitter with any questions @SM17Hdfs

As of right now, we have one game with rain trouble. This game is the White Sox at Red Sox. The Red Sox are an awesome team to stack if the weather shapes up, just keep an eye out later on.

Padres (-185 favorite, 10.5o/u)

The Padres find themselves in a great spot tonight in Baltimore against Jimmy Yacabonis. Yacabonis has a 4.7 ERA and never goes more than a couple innings. Expect the O’s to be pitching out of their bullpen all game and for the fairly cheap Padres bats to take advantage. Side note, we have the first return of Manny Machado to Baltimore here.

Cubs/Braves Game (Even spread, 12 o/u)

We normally only see this high of a total out of a Coors Field game or a hot day in Arlington. But here, we have a juicy offensive matchup of both teams who like to do a whole lot of hitting. The pitchers in this one are extremely underwhelming, so both teams should be able to put some runs up on the scoreboard. A full game stack here isn’t such a bad idea.

Brewers (-177 favorite, 10 o/u)

I love the Brewers tonight at home. Their opponent, Marco Gonzales, has actually strung together some solid starts over the last few. But, I’m not ignoring his 4.38 ERA and the fact that he’s pitching in one of that hardest ballparks in the league. Milwaukee plays as a hitters park and the Brewers take full advantage of this on a regular basis. There should be some great right handed value in that Brewers lineup tonight.

FanDuel and DraftKings cash lineups have won the last 3 days in a row. Tune back 30 minutes before lock to grab some full lineups throughout the site!