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I’ve gotten friendly with a couple guys over at RPS. I’ve been looking for a good place to talk DFS, and Steve over there told me about their Discord. So he let me in there for free and I’m going to try to repay him by converting a few of you guys to subscribe over there.

If you’re a big volume DFS player, it makes a lot of sense to utilize what they have going on. Really awesome tools - I’ve seen them and I can vouch. They’re a little bit more professional than what I have here. Obviously there’s a big price difference, but their tools are way above what I’m able to put out on my own. Check them out! My favorite part is the Discord. I was amazed yesterday to see it. I mean it’s 8am right now (5am out west) and there are a few dozen people in there already. It’s a lot of fun, and I’ll be in there for the rest the season chopping it up.

It takes me back to my early days playing DFS. RotoGrinders had these free forums and I’d just spend hours in there talking about MLB and NBA slates during the work day. This was before I kids and this publication - so I had a lot more free time…. but I LONG for some more DFS talk, and I didn’t really think it existed, but I’ve found it over there at RPS.

This will be a super early slate preview as I’m writing it first thing in the morning since I’ll be driving this afternoon/evening. The projections will be running, but if there’s any issue please bring it to my attention. I’ll do my best to keep things running smoothly while I’m not at home.

Weather

https://propfinder.app/weather

Some yellow spots here in the first report. Things could change through the day, but it looks like we’ll be fine so I’m proceeding as if it’s all systems go for the 12-gamer.

Game Info

Huge slate. Here’s the top of the implied run total board:

We’re always looking for a combo of

a) high implied total (5+ runs)
b) 1+ run above their season average

Prices are largely anchored to the team’s season production. So when the Braves are implied for 4.7 runs (decent) but -0.2 points below their season average, we have a hunch that probably the prices aren’t going to be advantageous to us.

The big spots today, then:

1. Orioles vs. Avila (5.79 implied, +1.24)

2. White Sox vs. Lopez (5.67 implied, +1.07)

3. Giants vs. Gordon (5.33 implied, +1.19)

Orioles vs. AVILA

He’s had a few moments this year, but overall he looks bad.

He’s throwing around 85 pitches when things are going right and coming off of a spot where he threw jus 69 pitches. So we might not see him emptying the tank here. The good news for the O’s is that the Royals don’t have much help behind him in the bullpen.

White Sox vs. Lopez

Lopez was recently demoted and then call back up. The game’s in Chicago, which helps him quite a bit since his main problem is fly balls.

But his K-BB% is a mess, too. A 5.11 JA SIERA with a 31% FB%. He’s limited barrels, somehow (4.4% Brl%). I guess the fly balls have been high fly balls. The White Sox get Murakami back tonight, so that will be interesting to look at. It’s a great spot for a cheap Sox lineup around their two big sluggers. Those stacks are certainly in play. You can probably get some lower ownership on Murakami in his first game back.

Giants vs. Gordon

Gordon is a DFS dream for us. He doesn’t waste time with those two-point walks. He throws a ton of pitches in the zone and gets hit hard.

The game is in San Francisco, so it’s a park downgrade. But it’s a very bad pitcher and that’s the most important thing here.

WORST SPOTS

1. D’Backs vs. Ohtani (-1.5 vs. average)

2. Cardinals vs. Sale (-1.4 vs. average)

3. Rockies vs. Ray (-1.3 vs. average)

Pitchers

It’s Friday, so you get everything for free. Here’s the projection table after the first run:

Very interesting pitching slate to dig into.

HUNTER GREENE ($8,600 vs. CHC)

20.7 point projection | 2.4x value

He’s my top projected arm. But you have to be a little bit careful in these situations where a guy is coming off of a long IL stint. Greene got thumped in his first start. But it wasn’t because he wasn’t getting the ball past guys.

→ 15 whiffs
→ 16.9% SwStr%

The fastball looked like it normally does (99mph, 107 Stuff+). So we can definitely believe that Greene will be pretty studly the rest of the way. But the last thing that comes back, often times, is the command. And he did not have that in the first start with a 40% Ball% and some very poor locations in the zone that turned into a homer and a .435 xwOBA allowed.

At $8,600 and a low projected ownership, Greene is an elite tourney play. But on a 12-gamer, we probably don’t have to risk it with his questionable command and touch in cash / small field stuff.

CHRIS SALE ($10,700 vs. STL)

19.7 | 1.84x

Really expensive for Sale who hasn’t been quite as dominant as he was in May. The Cardinals have a team 17% K% against lefties. Their main guys all strike out less against lefties:

In cash on as 12-gamer, we should just play the spots where every box is checked (if possible), and Sale is missing the huge K upside we like at this kind of price point.

But he can crush in any spot, and the ownership isn’t projected to be very high, so he’s fine for tourneys. Although I would be fine totally fading him. It’s hard to lose in a tourney only because you didn’t play a near $11K starter, and I don’t think Sale really has that 40-point upside in this one.

HUNTER BROWN ($10,000 vs. TEX)

19.5 | 1.95x

Brown is in Arlington here, which is one of the best parks to pitch in. Since he’s been back from the IL stint:

• 21% K%

• 13% BB%

• .325 xwOBA

Not great. His SwStr% is down at 9.9% (it’s usually not very high, but this is lower than usual), and he hasn’t been executing late in counts like he’s usually able to do. He has a high 41% Ball% and that very high walk rate.

It’s a bounce-back potential spot, though. He’ll get the touch back eventually (unless he’s still not quite healthy, I guess), and that could result in one of those big eight inning starts against this weak Rangers lineup. For cash? Probably not. But in tourneys he’s probably even a better play than Sale.

PARKER MESSICK ($9,200 vs. MIA)

18.9 | 2.05x

Messick gets the buzzsaw here against the Marlins who have been wrecking guys when the game’s in Miami.

→ Marlins at home since 6/1: .264/.327/.435, .762 OPS
→ Marlins overall since 6/1: .27/.349/.483, .832 OPS

Messick has mostly been a low-strikeout arm since the league got familiar with him. Just a 23% K% for him in his last seven starts. He’s very good at limiting hard contact and having that higher floor, but I don’t really think he’s worth $9K on a slate like this against an offense that has it all working.

SHOTA IMANAGA ($7,600 vs. CIN)

17.5 | 2.3x

Risky spot for the fly ball heavy Imanaga in Cincy. But his price is very low and his ceiling shines. The Reds have a .757 OPS against lefties this year, much better than their .676 mark against righties.

Imanaga has found a groove again lately. After a brutal stretch where he gave up 10 homers in three starts, he’s given up just four in his last five starts. It’s still a very high FB% (31%) lately, and that’s bad in Cincy. I don’t think I want him in cash, but I’d load up in tourneys. He could go for 30 points at $7,600 if he keeps the ball in the yard, and that would be a huge return at the price. The price has been dropping even while he’s pitched a lot better:

That’s a price to take advantage of.

NOLAN McLEAN ($9,400) vs. BOS)

17.4 | 1.85x

The Red Sox are without their best hitter, Willson Contreras (suspension), and they were bad even with him. McLean is throwing strikes again with 25 strikeouts and five walks in his last three. The whiffs are never elite, but he has 10, 19 and 11 in his last three. This is definitely a buy spot for McLean at home against this Red Sox (projected) lineup:

McLean can always blow it by walking a handful of guys, but I’m not sure who is going to get the big hit to blow him up in this iteration of the Boston lineup. I like McLean’s ceiling a ton here, and the matchup might even get me there in cash.

SHOHEI OHTANI ($11,000 vs. ARI)

16.1 | 1.46x

Ohtani’s luck has worn off a little bit.

→ Before 6/15: .206 BABIP, 9% HR/FB
→ Since 6/15: .367 BABIP, 13% HR/FB

That could be beneficial for us (that .367 BABIP which will come down quickly), but the price hasn’t dropped. $11K for Ohtani is tough. And he doesn’t project well at all at the price. That projection is probably low, but it doesn’t seem like the kind of spot to love paying $11K in.

Typically you want that like 35% K% for this level of price. Ohtani’s at 28%. Which is still great, but he should probably be $10K rather than $11K.

SEAN BURKE ($7,400 vs. ATH)

15.6 | 2.1x

The Athletics are struggling, and they’re on the road again for this one. Burke has been awesome with a 33% K% and 10.6% BB% with a .208 xBA and .298 xwOBA allowed in his last four starts. The whiffs are getting there (15% SwStr%).

The matchup would be a lot better if he were left-handed (we saw that with Framber last night), but with Rooker and Sodey out, there’s not a lot in this lineup after Kurtz at the top.

→ Athletics at home: .801 OPS
→ Athletics on road: .648 OPS

Athletics on the road since June began: .206/.278/.304, .582 OPS.

Great spot for Burke, and he’s a -170 favorite.

Tourney play FOR SURE. In cash? Maybe. Would anybody be shocked if he lays an egg here? And on this 12-gamer, you can’t afford a miss at SP. But I like Burke a lot and the projections agree.

ROBBIE RAY ($6,800 vs. COL)

14 | 2.1 x

Ray against the Road Rockies in the best pitcher’s park in the league! He still projects for just the 14 points in my model, because the Rockies are kinda good even on the road and Ray has fallen a long ways from his glory days.

Ray’s K% is below 20% (both on the road and at home). But 10 of his 15 homers allowed are on the road, which makes all the sense in the world, so he should be able to have a pretty good one here.

The 2.50 ERA and 1.09 WHIP at home… that’s a beautiful thing. Not fully believable with just the 8% K-BB%, but he knows how to take advantage of that big outfield. I’m down for Ray. I might prefer Burke in cash at the lower price level, but I like them both.

SANDY ALCANTARA ($8,000 vs. CLE)

13.98 | 1.75x

We’re always looking to play SPs against Cleveland. They’re hitting .222/.290/.363 since June. Jose Ramirez was a big loss and they haven’t had anyone come close to filling his shoes.

Sandy can screw up hugely in any spot. That’s just who the guy is. But he’s found something better lately.

20+ points in six of his last seven, and this is one of the best matchups he’s seen at home against Cleveland. He rocks a 3.34 ERA and 1.11 WHIP at home where he’s very comfortable. Only three homers allowed in 59.1 innings in Miami. So it’s tough to see this going terribly, but we shouldn’t undestimate Sandy’s ability to let us down.

SONNY GRAY ($8,800 vs. NYM)

13.1 | 1.49 x

I was surprised to see the projection this low. He projects for about 85 pitches. And that’s right. Look at the pitch counts:

They have not been pushing it with him, and he’s coming off just a 70-pitch outing, and that’s going to push the projection down a bit.

The Mets are also a really strong offense right now, at least on paper. The emergence of Ewing and Benge with the Polanco and Lindor return make it so you don’t have a ton of weak spots down the order. It could work for Gray, he’s been elite, but I think I’m trusting the projections that this won’t be a start you have to have.

LUIS CASTILLO ($6,600 vs. TB)

13.9 | 2.1x

The piggyback situation with the Mariners is always something to be mindful of. But that’s not a concern tonight as Castillo is set for a normal start. I think the piggyback thing got thrown off when Gilbert said no to it last weekend, pushing Hancock back to make a normal start.

And the Mariners used the bullpen last night after Miller’s mess up. Castillo threw 91 pitches two starts ago and 101 last time, so he’s built up.

But is he good?

He’s fine. A 14% K-BB%, .330 xwOBA, not a big HR problem. The game’s in Tampa Bay, and we like the M’s arms a lot better in Seattle. But the Trop has that Seattle feel being a dome with favorable dimensions to pitchers.

The reason to play Castillo is the price, not the matchup. He’s just $6,600 and that’s influenced by a lot of the shorter outings he’s had. And we don’t have to worry about the outing being shortened by the piggy back thing. It could be shortened because he sucks, but it’s a good price for us.

The Rays don’t strike out much, but they don’t hit homers either. It’s a low-ceiling spot for Castillo, but the price is wrong, so he’s in play. He’s not going to be my top play by any means, and I might not have any of him. But we’ve gotta highlight that this is a good price.

BRANDON YOUNG ($6,700 vs. KC)

12.8 | 1.92x

Young isn’t good (18.5% K%, 8.9% BB%, .319 xwOBA allowed), and the Royals are swinging good bats. There’s enough below $7K to leave him off the player pool tonight, but I don’t think it’s crazy to use him - he has shown some ceiling and the Royals have mostly been beatable offensively.

LUINDER AVILA ($5,600) vs. BAL

We already said we really like the Orioles bats. But Luiner at $5,600 is a tourney play nonetheless. He’s throwing full allotments of pitches at times as the Royals hesitate to go to the bullpen with their very weak overall pitching staff:

And he does have a 21% K% this year. You don’t often find a $5,600 pitcher with some strikeout ability, and the Orioles aren’t a good lineup overall.

ZEBBY MATTHEWS ($7,800) vs. LAA

15 | 1.93x

He has 17 strikeouts in his last three outings. He’s been throwing more cutters as he tries to figure out how to get results at the MLB level. The matchup is a good one and it boosts the projection.

But it’s tough to play a guy with a 20.5% K% and a 32% FB% (12.8% Brl%).

The Angels have some guys that can hit the homer. I think Zebby is probably better for betting K props rather than using him in DFS. His fastball just isn’t working this year (6% SwStr%, 91 Stuff+), so I don’t see a real risk of him having a huge DFS score tonight.

GRAYSON RODRIGUEZ ($6,900) vs. MIN

15 | 2.17x

He projects okay here with the 2.17x value. Buxton is out, and that’s a huge loss for the Twins. We haven’t seen him in the Majors since June 14th, but he did throw 5.1 innings in his last rehab. So we can get 80+ pitches here against a pretty bad lineup.

The problem is that he’s just not good anymore.

Bad fastball, and none of the secondaries have been good. An 8% K-BB% and a start where he’s just getting back to the Majors. I don’t think it will go well.

You can say that he’s been unlucky to this point. You see the .354 BABIP, 17% HR/FB, and 41% RISP H% (a form of strand rate). That’s all very unlucky, so he be a lot better than his 8.41 big league ERA, but what’s the point of using him on a 12-game slate?

NICK MARTINEZ ($7,200) vs. SEA

10.6 | 1.5x

The projections will always hate Martinez. He’s not a strikeout pitcher (15%), but he’s been getting by nicely for the Rays this year with a 4.5% BB% and only ten homers allowed. The Mariners are also pitiful right now. Here’s their team 15-day rolling xwOBA:

I guess it’s not crazy to play Martinez. The projections aren’t telling you to do that (he’s the third lowest value on the board), but they can’t really account for whatever magic the Rays have going on. I wouldn’t blame you for taking him, I just don’t see the ceiling there for the price.

JP SEARS ($7,000) vs. TOR

10.8 | 1.5x

He’s no good, but I think he’s better than people think. I’m surprised that this price is at $7K.

The quick story with Sears is that he’s an 18-20% K% at best with a huge home run issue. BUT in San Diego against the Blue Jays, we don’t project many homers, typically. He did score 23 fantasy points last time. So if you’re looking for like a 3% owned play that could kinda luck into 18+ points, there you have it. I just think there are many better options.

That’s a look at way more pitchers than I usually do, but I really wanted to dive into it today. Hopefully that sets the stage for you.

CASH OPTIONS: McLEAN, RAY, OHTANI, SALE, BROWN, ALCANTARA

You’d think on this slate there’d be a clear 1-2 we want to get to, there usually is. But not so tonight. I have some problems with every single available play. I think McLean plus Ray feels best to me. But there’s a lot of different ways to take it.

FAVORITE TOURNEY PLAYS: GREENE, SALE, BROWN, IMANAGA, MCLEAN, BURKE, CASTILLO

Hitters

CATCHERS

Too many options to go through hitter-by-hitter on this slate. I’ll just give the highlights that I’m seeing.

• Sam Basallo ($3,900): Big pop, great spot for the O’s and the price is right where we like at C

• Logan O’Hoppe ($2,300): Home run power against Zebby who can give up a lot of things

• Tyler Stephenson ($2,900): Imanaga in GABP makes for a lot of HR potential from right handed bats

• Alejandro Kirk ($2,800): Not a good park to hit homers, but that’s not really how Kirk usually does it anyways. Sears is easy to hit if you’re a right handed bat, so Kirk looks very nice there.

FIRST BASE

• Sal Stewart ($5,000): I’d like my model to cool down on him a little bit. The Bat X is much lower, but the Stewart play has worked a lot more than it hasn’t this year. Great HR spot for the Reds tonight.

• Rafael Devers ($3,800): Sucks being in AT&T, but Gordon is a pitch-to-contact righty and the Giants are in a very good spot for their prices.

• Nick Kurtz ($6,100): Would rather pay the big price at home, but at low owenrship he can have a huge game facing off against Burke.

• Josh Bell ($3,0000): Too cheap for this spot against Grayson, and Bell has been strong as a left handed hitter this year.

SECOND BASE

It’s gross again at 2B. Ketel Marte projects okay, but he’s against Ohtani so I don’t think you want to pay it there.

Maybe Jose Altuve ($3,800) is our guy again. We didn’t mention the Astros earlier, but they’re up against Cal Quantrill - which is a great spot even in Globe Life.

We also have the Padres against Shane Bieber, who looks completely awful. So I don’t mind going back, once again, to Jake Cronenworth $2,500 with the Padres attack.

Some punt options:

• Cronenworth

• Luis Urias ($2,100)

• Anthony Seigler ($3,000)

THIRD BASE

• Sal Stewart ($5,000)

• Kazuma Okamoto ($3,600): The park sucks, but he can hit the ball a long ways and Sears should give him some meatballs to try it again.

• Junior Caminero ($6,000): Luis Castillo doesn’t have much of a chance against Caminero who is hitting all kinds of pitches out of the ballyard. Really high price, though.

• Casey Schmitt ($4,300): Giants bat here against Gordon.

SHORTSTOP

• Bobby Witt Jr. ($6,400)

• Elly De La Cruz ($5,800)

• Zach Neto ($4,700)

• Gunnar Henderson ($5,500)

Witt and the Royals up against Brandon Young. That’s enticing. Witt gives you a lot of different ways to score points. I don’t typically love paying the huge price for him, but it might work tonight.

Punts:

• Jim Jarvis ($2,200)

• Tsung-Che Cheng ($2,000)

I guess there’s no runaway play at SS. Gunnar, Witt, Elly, and Neto are the pay-ups.

OUTFIELD

• Yordan Alvarez ($6,200)

• Juan Soto ($6,300)

• Pete Crow-Armstrong ($6,600)

• Mike Trout ($5,600)

• AJ Ewing ($3,900)

We should probably like us some Yordan against Quantrill. That’s the clean pay-up to me. PCA I can leave off the rosters against Hunter Greene. Mike Trout is back - I didn’t know that until right now. That makes life tougher for Zebby.

The big values:

• Josh Lowe ($2,200)

• Jonatan Clase ($2,000)

• Max Kepler ($2,400)

• Kahlil Watson ($2,500)

• Victor Robles ($2,300)

• George Springer ($3,300)

Who saw Springer getting to $3.3K this year after what he did a year ago? What a bust!

Here’s a lineup I put together for cash:

But man, there are a lot of different ways to attack it tonight. Definitely a fun tourney slate to play. But I’ll be on the road instead of sweating 150 lineup builds.

Projected Optimal

There’s a DFS optimizer in my tools. Here’s what it’s saying for tonight, using my projections:

SP Messick
SP Greene
C Stephenson
1B Devers
2B Seigler
3B Stewart
SS Perdomo
OF Alvarez
OF Ewing
OF Springer

I’d prefer to stay away from those two SPs in cash because I have some recent concerns, but it should help you know what the projections want to do.

Goodbye!

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Another day of ME. And this will be my last betting preview of the first half. I have had some fun with them this week. But Trevor will return to help out again this weekend. I’ll try to do a little more betting stuff in the second half, I think.

I’m going through EVERY game in this one to hit some bets I think are good.

Athletics @ Tigers

The model loves some Jack Perkins. Check out the home/road splits, they mostly make the point:

Very strong K% in both spots, but on the road he’s given up just the one homer. That makes logical sense, given the home park. So we should be targeting Perkins (positively) on the road. He’s even been great with the walk rate on the road. That’s probably mostly random/small sampley, but maybe it just plays out because he’s more willing to attack the zone on the road not dealing with those fences that are 67 feet behind him.

But it looks like they might be throwing an opener out before him. So the LINES are gone. We’ll have to wait for those to come back, but they might not come back if he’s really behind an opener, I guess.

If he’s the bulk, I’d be pretty into his market on getting a win. These bulk guys don’t have to throw the five innings to get the win. As long as they’re the “most effective”, the official scorer can give them the win. And they usually do give the bulk the W. But that would require the Athletics to lead for most/all of the game, and they’re just +109 on the moneyline so that’s a coin flip at best for them to even win the game.

But the model loves Perkins, so I figured I’d tell you that.

Bullpen advantage: Tigers

The matchups model on the A’s:

Not great. With Rooker and Soderstrom out, there’s very little power in the lineup - and look at Kurtz against lefties like Framber - it’s all bad.

So the path forward here might be an UNDER bet. That’s where I’ll take you for this one:

ATH/DET UNDER 9 -115

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We had some prices mixed up on the tools yesterday. You may have noticed. But that’s fixed now. The script was scraping the next day’s slate and using those salaries. But a line of code fixed that so it only ever looks at prices for the current day.

I have to hurry through this one as it’s been a busy day and I have an appointment to get to. Or this will coming out later than usual with a little more detail.

We did not win SQUAT last night because of Gore and others. Bad lineup, but that’ll happen. I guess. Let’s get it back tonight.

Weather

propfinder.app/weather

MIL / STL

ORANGE/YELLOW - There are clusters of “game-ending” storms close to STL tonight. High-res models for now actually keep the worst storms just a hair south of the ballpark. If that happens, we could still get a delay, but the game would likely play. If models are a bit off and the bigger storms are farther north, it’s a wash. Looks like a game where we’ll need a pregame radar check to have any real specifics.

That looks to be the only issue.

Game Info

• Phillies vs. Singer

• Orioles vs. Peterson

• Padres vs. Kelly

• Tigers vs. Perkins

• Giants vs. Feltner (in SF)

There comes a time in the season where I don’t even feel like I need to look up the numbers because I am so familiar with every pitcher from writing these posts every day.

Singer has pitched well at times AGAINST US in Cincy. But there’s no reason not to pick on him. He’s bad, the Phillies are high-powered, and the game is in GABP. However, the Phillies offense mostly runs through two guys, and they’re both going to be priced way up for us tonight.

The big +1.19 is on the Padres against Merrill Kelly. Few pitchers have looked worse than the old bag MK. But it’s another spot IN SAN DIEGO, which makes scoring tough. But I’m not opposed at all. The Padres are very cheap and this is the softest pitcher they’ve seen in awhile.

Pitchers

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This is article #6 on the day at MLB DW, and #4 for me… let’s hope it pays off for me personally because this is a lot of work while maintaining my normal job as well! But I can’t complain, what a life it is getting to right about baseball for money.

I don’t think it was overall a winning night last night. deGrom came up one K short of our 8+ parlay with him and Skubal. That probably made the difference. The home runs picks failed again. We lost the Skenes bet because the Braves piled up like five hits under 80mph. But the hits parlay hit, the SEA/MIA game went over, and Kurtz struck out twice. So it might have been close to an even night depending on how you distributed.

I’ve written the two DFS slates already. If you’re not playing DFS, why not? Just throw the lineups into a $5 double up or something and you get a little bit of fun to track for the night.

Turbo Slate

Main Slate

So what did we find in those posts?

DREAM SPOT FOR PRIELIPP

The Guardians are a historically bad lineup right now. They’re sooo bad, especially against lefties.

Awesome spot for Prielipp. I took this bet on him:

UNDER 8.5 H+BB+ER -122

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Weather

Nothing has changed in the 90 minutes since I wrote up the turbo slate. It’s all good to go on the weather front.

Game Info

DODGERS vs. Rockies (+1.8 above average)

The method the last couple of days has been playing Ohtani from LAD, and then you haven’t needed anybody else. Ohtani’s the only guy above 2.0 DK points per PA. The Dodgers success has been mostly with having a bunch of good to very good hitters up-and-down the lineup rather than having four guys at the top with massive OPS. Ohtani’s the only guy above .900. So Ohtani by himself (we’d call that “naked Ohtani” in NFL DFS lingo, but we should probably come up with a different term) is good again for tonight if the money is there.

Someone named Gabriel Hughes (RHP) is pitching for the Rockies.

So let’s take a gander at him. This will be his first MLB start, but he does have three innings out of the bullpen this year, that happened five days ago. Prior to that he was a starter in AAA, and he did pretty well. Here’s the mix:

Lots of 93mph fastballs and now much swing-and-miss on that pitch. But five pitches behind it and a good sweeper, it would seem.

He has the advantage of this not being in Coors and the Dodgers being wholly unfamiliar with him. I don’t know how seriously the Dodgers take their regular-season games. It wouldn’t surprise me if they just kinda coasted through it and they’re not in the film room right now watching this guy’s AAA starts.

Hughes did a decent job keeping the ball on the ground and has allowed just two homers in almost 50 innings this year.

My gut feel (which is worthless) is that this could be a little bit of a letdown spot for the Dodgers. There’s a good chance Hughes is much better than most of the rest of their pitching staff. So I don’t know, I guess I’m once again unenthused with the idea of stacking Dodgers in cash.

METS vs. Royals (+1.65 Above Average)

This will be an opener situation for the Royals (Steven Cruz). And they do not have a good bullpen behind him. But bullpen games are typically good for the pitching team as they can pick their matchups, which helps.

Cruz will be in there for 1-2 innings and then this bullpen gets at it:

Fine spot for the Mets, who we profited on bigly last night. But not as good as getting a full array of pitches from Seth Lugo, I don’t think.

Reds vs. Phillies Bullpen Game

I don’t know who is starting for the Phils. I just put Max Lazar in there cause the projections didn’t know what to do and I had to pick someone.

The Phillies bullpen is good. But they’ll have to get through the bulk of the game before using the big boys.

As with any bullpen, there are very bad MLB pitchers in the middle of it.

But four lefties and four righties work for them. They’ll be able to get the platoon advantage when they want it, and that’s bad for the Reds.

So I’m not in love with this spot, either! We’re 0/3.

Padres vs. D’Backs (Jose Cabrera) +0.83 above average

Teams have trouble covering 6-7 games a week at this point in the season, apparently! Another unknown name here. Jose Cabrera has been in the 70-pitch range with Arizona, so he can probably shoulder 4-5 innings here.

But he’s not good at all. BUT this game’s in San Diego, where only 7.5 runs per game are being scored (the second-lowest in the league to Seattle).

Only one lefty available for the D’Backs tonight, though. So the Padres lefties are in a decent spot. Except that their lefties aren’t good!

So definitely no run-away spot for a team offense on this slate. Let’s go to the individual players.

Pitchers

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I smashed both slates yesterday. Easy wins in both and a doubling of the cash I put in. That’s what it’s all about. So now I’m charged up and ready to play the double slate again tonight.

I’m separating this into two posts today to keep it organized. Let’s do the turbo slate and then come back a bit later for the main slate.

Weather

We’re all good again today. No double headers this time, no worrisome weather spots. Maybe a note to say that Roth has the Guardians/Twins game at YELLOW.

YELLOW/GREEN - A few storms around. It looks to me like they actually all hold just south, but it’s close enough that it warrants a second look later today.

We can proceed without regard to the weather. Remember that the projections take the winds and temps into account, so we don’t really want to double count that by juicing up wind games in our minds. Although if it’s extreme, it’s probable that the model isn’t quite applying the full strength of the winds. But I think it’s correct to only slightly adjust since wind is so unpredictable.

Game Info

• Orioles vs. Colin Rea +1.04

• Tigers vs. Jeffrey Springs +0.97

• Mariners vs. Tyler Phillips +0.72

• Nationals vs. Spencer Arrighetti +0.38 (5.8 implied total to lead the slate)

We really like any spot where the implied total is 1+ run above the team average. The Orioles hit righties pretty well and their prices are all pretty cheap just because they haven’t been all that great offensively for DFS this year.

The Tigers are near that +1 as well up against Jeffrey Springs, who can hit very hard by right-handed hitters.

I have realized that I have a few missing name mappings. Hao Yu Lee needed added to the file, so his price and position stuff should pop up from now on.

The righties to like here are Vierling, Dingler, and Torkelson, and less so Jahmai Jones as a punt.

Pitchers

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We hit a couple of good ones last night!

• Curtis Mead HR +468

• HOU/WSH over 14.5 +379

The rest were about a split of hits and misses, but it was a winning night with those two nice finds.

THE DREAM SPOTS

Two of the best pitchers of our current age are in near perfect matchups tonight.

• Tarik Skubal at home vs. ATH

• Jacob deGrom at home vs. LAA

These two lineups are #1 and #2 in the lineup strikeout rate:

Of course, the lines are high. It’s 8+ strikeouts before you get to even money. But we’re playing for some upside here, and both of these guys have huge, huge strikeout upside.

The path is to bet both for 8+ strikeouts if you want to be a little bit “safe”, or go to 10+ strikeouts if you want the big potential payout.

8+ for both gets you +191
10+ for both guys get you +1307

I’m taking the first one for one unit and the second one for half a unit. Let’s hope for some double-digit numbers coming from those two future Hall of Famers. I guess neither guy is a lock for the Hall of Fame, but whatever they can be in my Hall of Fame, I haven’t been on earth that long. Only 35 years.

Home Run Bets of the Day

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Last night was great for me. The projections were on it, nobody really played Schlittler, and the optimal lineup cashed with ease thanks to some big hitter performances. I went Roupp + Jax and had Mead + Wood in there. I even played The Bat X optimal in some double ups and it also cashed, although it was ten points behind the MLB DW optimal.

Double Header Problems

Double headers are a real problem for me, as you may have noticed. The Cardinals and Brewers play two games today. The first one is Misiorowski vs. Svanson, and the second one is Dobbins vs. Gasser. I’ve gotten rid of that first game from the projections entirely, but you might still see some duplicate lines in the DFS projections. But those projections are correct for the night slate.

Weather

full report here

Two potential bad spots, both on the Turbo slate:

Astros at Nationals

ORANGE/YELLOW - Scattered downpours. This is similar to the BAL forecast, but models are currently a bit more aggressive with rain over DC than BAL. Can we trust those specific details this far out? Absolutely not. We’ll need a pregame radar check here.

Cubs at Orioles

YELLOW/ORANGE - Scattered downpours. Right now high-res models are showing this as a Late Start and Play, but we can’t really trust models this far out to be precise. Will need to circle back before first pitch and see what radar looks like.

It’s a six-game turbo slate… so we could probably play it. I don’t see any RED in Roth’s forecast, so we can proceed as if it’s all green.

TURBO SLATE GAME INFO

• Tigers vs. JT Ginn

  • That’s a no go for me. I like Ginn, especially away from Sacramento. You see the Tigers implication is 5.5 runs, nothing special, but 1.3 runs above their average.

• Orioles vs. Matthew Boyd

  • Not a great spot either, but they’re +0.3 on their average against the lefty

There’s nothing really standing out for a can’t-miss offense on this slate. We can just take this slate focusing on individual player projections and prices rather than focusing on the team context in addition to that.

MAIN SLATE GAME INFO

• Dodgers vs. Lorenzen

  • The green implied totals just follow the Rockies wherever they go. They’ve been hitting well this year, but not pitching well. The Dodgers are +1.7 on their season average, which is huge for them.

• Phillies vs. Abbott

  • It’s a lefty against the Phillies, which typically doesn’t go super well for them. They struggle against southpaws, but they’re in Cincy here and Abbott has been far from great this year

• Mets vs. Lugo

  • The Mets came through for us late on the over 4.5 team total, and they’re back in a good spot here against Lugo, who has been terrible. But the Mets remain kinda tough to trust.

• Padres vs. Gallen

  • Gallen is simply one of the worst pitchers in the league. The Padres should have a nice night even at home in a tough park to hit in.

Turbo Slate Pitchers

Skubal gets pretty much the nut matchup. He was awesome last time, so we aren’t concerned about the IL stint earlier this year. The Athletics on the road vs. LHP this year: .213/.263/.328. It’s a must-play for Skubal in cash and tourneys.

Can you trust Paul Skenes at $9,500? Probably not. He has not come through on that price very often this year. That said, it’s actually a sneaky good matchup for him in Pittsburgh against a Braves lineup that has struggled since Acuna got hurt.

Skubal is the far superior play, but the price drop on Skenes makes him appealing. We went through last week in the Daily Notes that he’s still really good under the hood and just needs a little bit of luck and slight improvement in putting guys away to look like an ace again.

Matthew Boyd ($7,200) is #2 in value behind Skubal. That’s a nice price for a matchup with the Orioles lineup that has a .660 OPS against lefties this year.

Andrew Alvarez ($6,000) has been decent. He takes on the Astros in this potential rain spot. He has a 27.6% K% this year with a 9.2% BB%. That K% is down a couple of points since he’s been stretched out as a starter, but it’s still above 25%. It’s probably too much risk with his actual talent and the potential rain to go to in cash, but I think he’s a tourney play.

Ian Seymour ($7,700) is getting uncomfortably priced, but he takes on the Yankees in Tampa tonight, and that should be considered a fine spot. I think he’s a start in fantasy leagues, but I like Boyd better for $500 less (he projects one point above Seymour).

Bryan Woo ($9,000) does not project well tonight at the price. He’s worse on the road, and the projections are reflecting that tonight (even though it’s not designed to do so directly). The model doesn’t take pitcher home/road stats; it just takes their basic skill projections and applies them to the park they’re in that day. So this is interesting. It seems like a trap spot for Woo in Miami. Just a 16.3-point projection for him, so he’s out of the picture for cash.

CASH DECISION: Skubal is an easy lock. And Boyd is the obvious SP2 with this weird price he has.

Turbo Slate Hitters

Top of the board raw projection-wise:

I want some blue and green combo in the spend-up hitters. That takes Junior Caminero and Pete Crow-Armstrong off the board for me under a 1.7x value. PCA’s splits:

He’s kind of a Wrigley winds merchant, isn’t he? Maybe that’s too harsh, still a .444 SLG on the road, but he’s not really deserving of that high price tag in this spot.

Caminero’s up against Warren who handles righties very well.

So the top play up here in my model is McGonigle against Ginn. Platoon advantage, high floor with Kevin’s plate discipline. Good play. But the ceiling does keep him down a little bit in my mind. He’s not popping homers and stealing bags like the PCA’s of the world at the top of the board.

The other guys combining for both a high value and a high projection:

• Luis Garcia Jr. $4,100

• Michael Busch $3,900

• Jonathan Aranda $4,200

• Kerry Carpenter $3,600

• Dominic Canzone $3,400

Feels like a good slate to just live in that mid-tier. That’s where most of the value is. I suppose that’s usually true, but the guys at the top of the board price-wise just aren’t in great spots on this slate.

TURBO SLATE TOP PLAYS BY POSITION

• Catcher

  • Cal Raleigh $4,200

  • Adley Rutschman $4,100

  • Yainer Diaz $3,200

  • Hunter Feduccia $2,500

CASH PLAY: YAINER DIAZ $3,200

• First Base

  • Luis Garcia Jr. $4,100

  • Michael Busch $3,900

  • Jonathan Aranda $4,200

  • Spencer Torkelson $3,300

Garcia projects very well in my model, I’ve been ahead of his recent surge more than other systems, I’ve noticed. But he’s against Imai tonight, who can go out there and dominate when he has the command. I like Busch or Aranda the most. Both of those prices seem way too low to me.

CASH PLAY: JONATHAN ARANDA $4,200

• Second Base

  • Jose Altuve $3,500

  • Nasim Nunez $3,400

  • Richie Palacios $3,300

  • Brice Matthews $2,100

Nothing really stands out here. Jose Altuve is very cheap and showed that he can still hit the ball out of the yard last night. Against Alvarez and the Nats bullpen, it’s fine. I don’t hate the punt play with Palacios, though. We’ll see what kinda salary we need.

CASH PLAY: JOSE ALTUVE $3,500

• Third Base

  • Kevin McGonigle $4,700

  • JP Crawford $2,900

  • Amed Rosario $3,000 (pinch hit risk)

  • Jared Triolo $2,400

CASH PLAY: KEVIN McGONIGLE $4,700

• Shortstop

  • Kevin McGonigle $4,700

  • Nasim Nunez $3,400

  • Jim Jarvis $2,100

  • Zach McKinstry $2,500

Another weak position here. Abrams is against Imai and kinda struggling lately, and Gunnar is up against a lefty. Those are the two big ceiling bats, but I’d rather pay down a bit. Maybe put McGonigle here at SS and use Crawford at 3B if he’s leading off.

• Outfield

  • Yordan Alvarez $6,000

  • James Wood $5,900

  • Kerry Carpenter $3,600

  • Tyler O’Neill $2,600

  • Dominic Canzone $3,400

  • Brice Matthews $2,100

  • Esmerlyn Valdez $3,200

  • Zach Dezenzo $2,000

The model wants us to pick on Max Meyer with JP Crawford and Dominic Canzone. I don’t really love to do that because of how well he’s pitched. But the model has some wisdom here, because Meyer is due for plenty of regression (in my opinion) with his bad fastball and the history of struggles he had prior to this year. I’ll leave Canzone off, I think there’s just too much downside (pinch hit possibility too) on the road against Meyer who has been great.

Yordan isn’t projecting like a good play at $6K, but we have money to spend. I guess the projections would say to choose James Wood over him as the projection is a little higher and he’s $100 cheaper.

Zach Dezenzo has recently been recalled. We’d expect the Astros to use him against lefties like Alvarez tonight. The minimum price tag there is one the model usually likes. But he hasn’t had much success as an MLB hitter.

I think we need some help from the optimizer. The MLB DW projections give you this:

SP SKENES
SP SKUBAL
C RALEIGH
1B GARCIA
2B ALTUVE
3B CRAWFORD
SS McGONIGLE
OF CARPENTER
OF GREENE
OF CANZONE

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Trevor is BUSY this week, so you’ve got ME. Big JA doing the betting work. I have very little confidence in my betting abilities.

But here’s what we’re finna do. We’re going to follow the model and take some things to the dumb extreme. Let’s splash around a bunch of $5 bets and see if we can’t hit something LARGE.

RESOURCE ALERT

MLB DW Projection Tracking by Lineup Spot

I tweeted about this yesterday. What it does is compare my projections before the lineups come out with my projections after. It looks like this:

So an example from the early game. I had Lane Thomas projected to hit #3, but then the lineup came out and he was #1. That boosted his projection from 6.9 to 7.2 and gives you the BUY SIGNAL. If you react really quickly on those, you can probably get some value in the R and RBI betting.

So for Thomas, you might have wanted to bet his RUNS because he moved up two slots. That puts better hitters behind him and gives him a higher AB projection.

The link’s in the resource glossary and below the paywall here when we get to it. It’s also just kinda fun to see how the projections change due to lineup spots.

PITCHER BUYS

GRIFFIN JAX

This should be an “easy win”:

The juice is on, but Jax has been awesome. He’s better at home, and the Yankees are terrible right now. They like him getting through five innings, and they did let him get up near 90 pitches to get him through the fifth a couple of starts ago. But he’s been ridiculously efficient and has gone 5+ innings in five straight without much of a sweat.

LANDEN ROUPP

The guy isn’t giving up homers at home. Just two all year, and a very high K% there as well. The Blue Jays don’t strike out much, but they really don’t have many home run threats in this park. So I like Roupp to have a nice start.

UNDER 9.5 H+BB+ER FOR -117.

PITCHER FADES

CRISTOPHER SANCHEZ

I think he’s going to give up like nine hits and eight earned runs today! I wrote this before it happened, TRUST ME.

That was a JOKE if you didn’t notice.

CAM SCHLITTLER

It doesn’t set up well for Schlittler and his up-and-down strikeout totals. The Rays make a ton of contact and will be looking to do that against the Schlit-man.

I’ve got Schlittler for 5.9 strikeouts. The under 6.5 is at -160:

Don’t love the juice, but I doubt he’s getting to seven.

REYNALDO LOPEZ

I hate Reynaldo Lopez. It’s not personal, I don’t think. But he’s bad and I love the Mets being up against him. Specifically, the top four:

I’ve already bet METS OVER 4.5 TEAM RUNS (+100). But we can gear up for some upside giving all of these guys over 1.5 H+R+RBI. If the Mets go nuts, that probably cashes and we get a nice pay-off.

Or you can go bigger than that on 3+ in a couple spots.

DC CRAP FEST

The Nationals pitching staff + breakout offense has turned DC into one of the top venues in the league for run-scoring. You can’t get find too many worse righties than these two.

Yordan Alvarez + James Wood HR Parlay. That makes some sense, but the prices are rough on them and you’re lucky to get 9:1 on that combo.

You could also just go the whole way up to OVER 13.5 RUNS FOR +380 on DraftKings. Take a look at the HR projections from that game:

Curtis Mead and Isaac Paredes are fly ball hitters with more advantageous home run lines. About +450 for both of them. There should be some fireworks in that game if the rain holds off, so we can sprinkle the long ball bets all around it.

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Weather

Full report from Kevin Roth at PropFinder here!

One spot to worry about: Astros at Nationals. And that’s a big one because it’s Mike Burrows vs. Miles Mikolas. That’s the game of the night for offense, but it might get washed away. I suppose it looks fine for bats right now:

ORANGE/YELLOW - Scattered storms in the area during the game. I can’t really pinpoint the details until closer to first pitch, but my best guess currently would be some kind of delay and a game that eventually finishes.

You don’t need to fade bats in the case of a rain delay; they’ll still almost surely play nine innings. But we will have to keep an eye on the announcements there, because a PPD would change a lot of stuff about the slate, taking one of the top scoring games off the board and dropping it to a six-game slate.

Game Info

Dodgers

The Rockies leave Coors for Los Angeles. They’ll send Kyle Freeland to the hill. So the Dodgers are juiced up. They scored eight runs on nine hits against him on May 26th in Coors. They are more than 1.5 runs clear of the second place implication. That’s not a spot to fade in cash games, and probably not tourneys either.

The expected lineup and projections for the Dodgers:

So the prices are mostly fair. The values aren’t popping off the page by any measure. But the floor is very high for that offense.

Nationals

The next biggest implication is the Nationals in that potential rain game.

Burrows continues to be a disaster and now he’ll have to deal with the Nats who lead baseball in run scoring.

Burrows is way better against righties than lefties.

So your targets should be the many lefties in that lineup (Wood, Garcia, Abrams, Lile, Tena).

Braves

It’s Freddy Peralta taking on the Braves in Atlanta for the fourth game in that set. But Peralta isn’t awful. I mean, he’s been bad (13% K-BB%), but not like a total gas can. Just a .302 xwOBA allowed, and he’s survived most of his starts.

So it’s fine to use the Braves, and you can certainly stack them up and hope for a real bad night for Peralta - but the Braves are a significant step behind LA and Washington.

Astros

I’m surprised at how low they are. Just 5.02 implied runs off of Mikolas. The Nationals have been removing him before things get too out of hand, he’s been down in the 60-70 pitch range quite a few times. But I don’t believe they have an opener to use ahead of him tonight, so it could be a higher pitch count for him tonight and I’d want to bet on Yordan and the other decent Astros hitters.

Padres

The lefties on the Padres will get some pitches to crush as they take on Brandon Pfaadt tonight. But it’s in San Diego, which makes it tough to totally crush homers. Still, the Padres have some affordable lefties and Pfaadt just can’t get those guys out.

Jake Cronenworth really has been hitting #2 for them. But I don’t know why, because he can’t hit.

A .218 xBA and .296 xwOBA this year. Awful stuff, but $2K for a #2 lefty against Pfaadt is very hard to pass up.

Those are clearly the core offenses tonight. The projections on those team offenses:

Pitchers

As usual, we hit the paywall here before we start seeing the full projections and talking about how to build these lineups.

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We’re going to start off with a free play today on what is more American than Nathan’s hot dog eating contest. Joey Chestnuts line is 70.5 at DK here is why the UNDER has value. There is no paywall today. Happy 250th America!!

• Heat is a killer: Forecast is upper 90s (some projections near 99–101°F) with extreme heat warnings and feels-like temps over 105°F. The contest is outdoors in direct sun. Heat historically tanks totals, Chestnut’s personal low was 54 in 96° heat back in 2010. Buns get stale and harder to eat, and dehydration slows everyone down.

• He doesn’t need to push it: Chestnut already made his statement last year by eating exactly 70.5 after missing 2024. He’s a massive favorite to win his 18th title and will dominate regardless. Second place was only around 46–47 last year. No real incentive to chase his 76 record (set in much cooler 2021 weather) when 65–68 would still win easily.

• Recent form supports caution: Before last year’s 70.5, he went 62 (2023) and 63 (2022). At 42 years old, he’s not the same peak version from 2020–2021.

• Odds vs. reality: The -165 to -175 on the Under implies roughly 62% probability for the Under. Given the heat and motivation factors, many bettors think the true probability of going under 70.5 is higher than that.

Joey Chestnut U 70.5 Hot Dogs Eaten -175 1u

One of our favorite spots to attack is the Los Angeles Angels and tonight Sonny Gray gets them on a 6.5 line at plus money. Remember the Angels are the number two K rate league and the team number two versus right-handed pitching, striking out way less against lefties. Gray’s got back-to-back 11 and 9 Ks and 11 Ks were at Colorado. His put-away rate has been really good; he’s up to 21.7%. This is just too good a value at plus money to pass up when we have him projected at 6.81 today.

Sonny Gray BOS O 6.5k +106 2u and O 7.5k +198 1u

Next spot we’re going to attack is Hunter Green, who is back against the O’s today. They are the number four-ranked K team in the league. He is number five versus right-handed pitching and when we project him for 8.66 strikeouts on a six and a half line, it’s too good to pass up. Francona has said he’s not on a pitch count today also.

Hunter Greene CIN O 6.5k -122 1.5u

The Nationals are letting Carson Palmquist open for Zach Littell today but that’s not going to stop us from betting against him. Zach is giving up a 3.4 home run to nine-inning rate, 47% hard hit rate, 37% fly ball rate, 25% home run fly ball rate for his lefties. It’s just too good a spot for the left-handed bats of the Pirates.

Brandon Lowe PIT O .5 HR +280 .5u
Ryan O’Hearn PIT O .5 HR +470 .5u
Tyler Callihan PIT O .5 HR +600 .5u

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Two hundred and fifty years of America today. That's a milestone worth pausing on for a second before we get to the slate. Freedom, family, faith, and a country where you can build something of your own from nothing. I don't take that for granted. Now let's honor the founders the right way: with a cold drink, a full grill, and a sim that's about to tell us exactly where the field is wrong tonight.

The Run Environment

The sim’s top two totals sit alone at the top: SF @ COL at 12.73 and STL @ CHC at 12.58. Coors is Coors, but the sim isn’t just rubber-stamping the park. It has SF putting up 6.89 runs against Tomoyuki Sugano and COL at 5.84. In Chicago, the Cubs are the story at 7.27 runs against Kyle Leahy, with St. Louis chipping in 5.32. After putting up 17 yesterday who knows what they do

The second tier is a cluster of double-digit games: MIA @ ATH (11.24), BAL @ CIN (10.54), SD @ LAD (10.28), and PHI @ KC (10.20). These are where the field spreads out.

The quiet spots are just as important. CWS @ CLE (7.24), NYM @ ATL (7.89), and TB @ HOU (8.12) are the pitcher-friendly games. That is not a coincidence, and it tells you exactly where to look for arms.

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We got absolutely hosed on the Miz yesterday. He was only at 82 pitches, had 10 Ks through five but gave up those two home runs so they pulled them early. We should have absolutely hit the ladder.

Brady Singer has gotten rocked by lefties this year giving up a 2.47 HR/9, 33% FB rate along with a 25.5% HR/FB%. Its going to be 90 and sunny in the Great American Small Park tonight……Cowser has a 27% barrel rate, 13.6 pull barrel rate and 50% HH rate.

Gunnar Henderson BAL O .5 HR +300 .5u

Colton Cowser BAL O 1.5 H.R.RBI +110 1u and O .5 HR +410 .5u

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So I’m going to have an update and a little bit of a change in how I’ve been writing the articles. I would love to hear everybody’s thoughts and some feedback on what you like and didn’t like. I’m always trying to get better and I think this will help maybe condense it a little bit. Let me know your thoughts please.

Tonight’s Run Environment

Eleven games, and the sim splits them into two very different buckets. Five game totals sit above 10.5 simulated runs, and one towers over everything.

NYM @ ATL is the print of the night at 12.31, and it’s lopsided. The sim hands the Mets 7.54 runs against Grant Holmes and gives New York a 68.2% win and an 81.2% chance to clear 7.5 runs by themselves. That’s the highest team run projection on the board by more than a run. BAL @ CIN (11.72) and MIA @ ATH (11.41) round out the top of the environment, both with over-9.5 odds north of 60%. TB @ HOU (10.60), SF @ COL (10.85), and MIN @ NYY (10.14) fill out the high-scoring tier.

The floor games: BOS @ LAA is the lowest total on the slate at 7.20, with two arms the sim respects. TOR @ SEA (7.83) and MIL @ ARI (7.86) are the other pitcher-friendly spots

Where the field is likely to be wrong:

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I’m off work and we have some family coming for the long weekend, so I don’t think we’ll get a DFS post out tomorrow unless Trevor fills in for me.

The day has been crazy with work, but I’m going to jam out this July 2nd DFS slate preview because I need to play tonight to give myself some enjoyment of baseball today to kick off this elite July 4th semiquincentennial weekend.

Weather

Another beautiful night, no problems here!

Game Info

No stupid Wrigley winds, no Coors Field!

The big spots:

• Dodgers vs. Vasquez in LA

• Rays vs. Kolek

• Royals vs. Seymour

• Mariners vs. Urena

I don’t get the implied totals in this Rays/Royals series. Junior Caminero is doing ridiculous things, but the Royals at 4.98 against Seymour and the Rays doesn’t make much sense to me.

The Dodgers are in a class of their own. Vasquez has been awful, really really awful, and this game being in LA makes quite a bit of difference for Vasquez cause he doesn’t have the San Diego park to help out.

So a horrific spot if you’re a Padres fan. And I’m just going to aim my fire at Dodgers bats where I can fit them.

Cleveland is also a half of a run in implication above their season average. They’re against Davis Martin… so that’s another interesting line. Martin’s really fallen off lately with really high ball rates lately and just 11 strikeouts in three starts.

But he’s given up one run in his last two after that nine-run disaster. I’d rather be on the Martin side than the side of that bad Cleveland lineup, but I’m not opposed to some cheap lefties on Cleveland. And that should describe every lefty because they’re all bad.

Pitchers

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All right boys and girls, we got the Miz pitching today. His K line is at 9.5, which is lunacy but why is it at 9.5? He is producing a 37.9% whiff rate, a 38% K rate, a 32% put-away rate, and an outstanding 18.7% swing strike rate. Overall he is averaging 13.27 K per. Now who is the number one K rate team versus right-handed pitching this season? It’s currently the Cincinnati Reds. They’re now number one. They’re way better against lefties. They’re number four on the season but to give you an idea they’re also number 23 versus lefties so they struggle way more versus righties. You have their lineup, which is going to have Ellie, Stewart, Bleday, Suarez, Lowe, and Marte, all above 20% K rate.

Jacob Misiorowski MIL O 9.5k +110 1.5u and O 10.5 +200 1u and O 13.5 +1200 .25u

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What I wish is that only you and I had access to good projections and advanced data. We’re doing good stuff here in DFS. We’re on the right spots, the right plays, we’re not missing the big values that pop up. But pretty much everybody is reading the same book.

The lineup smashed last night. 155.5 points. 53 from the pitchers, 28 from Tatis, 19 from Machado, 33 from Swanson. But it finished 429th out of 815 and fell just shy of the cash line.

90% on Woo, 65% on Skubal, 57% on Tatis. I guess we got pretty good numbers on Swanson and Machado on those smash plays. So this wasn’t too bad. I just whiffed on Marsee and Keys. So we’re over the target, it’s just that there aren’t many people out here playing even the small dollar DFS contests without using projections.

But man, it’s fun to do. I’m having a blast with these cash lineups. Just hoping we can get hot and rip off some consecutive wins to get the bank roll back to where it was.

Weather

I guess some rain might be coming this weekend, but it ain’t here yet, and it’s super hot everywhere. We don’t have this Wrigley game on the night slate, but we do have th MIA/COL game again.

Game Info

The boosted up offenses:

• Marlins vs. Freeland

• Dodgers vs. JT Ginn

• Rays vs. Lugo

• D’Backs vs. McDonald

• Royals vs. McClanahan (???)

I am not crazy about targeting Ginn. He’s limited barrels at home (5.7%) with his ground ball rate on that heavy sinker. He’s struck out 26% of righties this year. So he knows how to limit the damage. He hasn’t faced a lineup like the Dodgers, and we’re going to LA their fair shake, but it’s just not a smash stack like some people will think it is.

Trevor McDonald is the same kind of situation. He’s been taken deep all of four times this year with a .317 xwOBA allowed and a 57% GB%. You have to string hits together against him to really rack up the runs. You don’t do it in one or two swings. But the D’Backs are a good lineup for that, and this game’s in Arizona - which makes a difference.

I have no reason to avoid Kyle Freeland or Seth Lugo, though.

Both have sub-14% K-BB% with xwOBA allowed over .351. Lugo gives up tanks to both sides of the plate. Freeland has just one homer allowed to lefties, so we’re on the right-handed side of the Marlins tonight.

Those are the two offenses I’m most interested in.

The Rays have been better at home:

But I can’t say that makes a ton of sense since Tropicana hasn’t historically been a hitter’s park, although maybe some of the renovations this winter changed some things.

The Marlins can and will stack up some righties to take on Freeland:

The straight 1-4 stack there works even in cash.

STOWERS SPLITS:

Not too bad there for Stowers, but the lower SLG against lefties is expected. Freeland is nothing special with the platoon advantage, so it’s a fine Stowers spot - just not an auto-lock like he probably should have been for me last night.

Pitchers

The Dodgers have not announced a starter tonight, but it’s not Ohtani. It will be some sort of bullpen game. So that’s throwing off the projections a bit. The Dodgers have, of course, a good bullpen.

We’ll see some Kyle Hurt and Jonathan Hernandez, but the Dodgers will be able to choose their matchups. I doubt they’ll let Nick Kurtz see a righty more than once. So the Athletics dodged a bullet not seeing Ohtani, but it’s still not great, and the implied total reflects Ohtani not starting.

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Trevor is out today, so I’m getting in the action and dropping a couple of plays. I like the idea of just carefully putting together ONE play per day and seeing what we can do with it.

I have this one tracking resource that looks compares the projections when they’re using the projected lineups with the projections when the lineups come out. We can see the impact of the lineup coming in like in this way.

I’ll share it below the paywall at the end of this.

The guy I’m eye-balling today is Gavin Sheets. He was projected to hit 5th against Colin Rea today and given a 9.8-point projection. But now he’s actually hitting 2nd, and look at what that does to the projection! He’s up to 10.4, a +.67 difference - pretty large.

Hitting 2nd for the Padres is a great spot for R+RBI, especially since this hitting weather looks so elite.

What I like to do the most is put together 2-3 legs that are likely to hit to build a parlay up to around even money. I project Sheets for 2.9 H+R+RBI, so that would give us a really good chance at grabbing 2+ H+R+RBI. So that’s where we’ll begin:

GAVIN SHEETS 2+ H+R+RBI (-149)

For the second spot, we’re going to embrace MacKenzie Gore’s strikeout projection. It’s near an eight-K projection. The Guardians have a history of limiting strikeouts, but that’s not the case with this current lineup. Their lineup leads the slate in strikeout rate:

I’ve been doing this for awhile, so I know better than to trust Gore. So I’m buying this down to 5+ strikeouts for -486. That gets us to +101 for the parlay.

Here’s your play of the day for the early slate:

Projection and matchup approved!

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We have to be swift here. Shout out to D’Andre. The slate starts in two hours and I’ve only now started typing.

Weather

No problems, it’s hot as balls.

We have another FREAKING WRIGLEY spot. 14mph winds blowing out an 91 degrees temps. And it’s Colin Rea vs. Walker Buehler. So this will be a simple build and we’ll be seeing like 70% ownership all over that game’s bats.

Pitchers

There’s not much to feel confident about:

Gore and Warren at 1-2 in both projection and value, so there’s your cash duo. But I don’t know if it has to be that simple.

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We have continued to do really really well attacking certain spots with our pitching and today we’re going to go on the other side of the game. We went up 3.41 units yesterday……

Woo has a 7.89 projection versus 7.5K prop against the Angels; however Jose Soriano has a 6.88 on a 5.5K prop.

For the season Seattle strikes out the ninth most in the league and they are a little bit worse against right-handed pitching. This has been a decent medium bar for Soriano this season, who has produced a 33% whiff rate, 21-22% put-away rate, and over 25% K rate, so we’re going to take advantage here.

Jose Soriano LAA O 5.5k -132 1u

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