Friday Night DFS Main Slate Breakdown
Covering another massive Friday Night slate from a DFS perspective
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I’m back on the cash game train. And to those who might be new to the DFS world (the best world), when we saw “cash games” we’re talking about head-to-head and double ups. Those contests where you’re just trying to get into the top 50% of lineups (or like 45% in the case of double-ups) to double your money.
It’s a tough way to play. It’s a challenge. Because if you’re winning half the time, you’re losing money to the JUICE (or the cut of the money that DraftKings is taking). The best players are profitable at this, but the margins are pretty thin. So you have to play bigger volume and play consistently to realize a worthwhile profit.
But from a lineup construction standpoint, to me, it’s the most fun way to play. There’s more skill to it, you could say, because you’re really nailing down on the best plays. In tournaments, chasing first place, you’re just trying to find the high upside spot and iterate your lineups a bunch of times to hope to luck into the right combination. There’s plenty of strategy and skill to that as well, but your big wins will always be a lot of luck.
Understanding and playing against ownership in tournament is key. In cash games, it’s not that important. We’re just trying to find the best plays, which makes the projections all the more valuable. And that’s the main thing here at MLB DW, projections.
Also important to understand - the competition level is much lower at the lower dollar value entry fees. The big name sharps aren’t even allowed to play the $1, $2, and $3 contests. I believe that’s where it cuts off.
So if you’ve played hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of contests in your DraftKings career, you can no longer compete against the normal people playing for just a couple of bucks. You’ll have a lot better results over the long haul playing the $3 double up vs. the $20 - for an example.
You’ll find me in pretty much every $1 and $3 double up I can find tonight. So don’t go in there with a duplicated lineup! Or do, and let’s just hope we all cash together.
So we’re going to break down the main slate from that perspective today. But of course, I’ll throw in tourney thoughts and plays as well.
Weather
Nothing to worry about here. I’m especially not going to react to wind and stuff in cash unless it’s an extreme situation. The projections work that in, so we’re counting it already. I’m just not going to double count it by stacking bats that I wouldn’t otherwise because we have some alleged winds blowing out.
Game Info
The implied totals are important to know, even though they will obviously correlate well with the projections since we’re taking the same things into account as the books.
Top of the board:
GIANTS IN COORS
The Giants are a key to the slate. They play half of their games in probably the worst hitting park in the league. But twice a year they get to go to Coors Field where everything flips on its head. And the Rockies are nice to us in always rolling out a hittable starter and bullpen in these games. Tonight, it’s Michael Lorenzen, who has a 13% K%, a 9% BB%, and a horrible 4.87 SIERA in Coors this year. He lets a ton of balls get into play, which is exactly what you don’t want to do in that huge outfield with the thin air.
And since the Giants have been pretty bad this year, their prices are low. They come up a bit for the day’s matchup. But what they don’t do is jack guys up $1500 to account for the change in environment.
In this case, everybody is up like $500-$800. Probably not enough, but the projections will tell us.
YANKEES IN SACRAMENTO
It is Luis Severino going at the Yankees tonight in one of the top parks for home runs. If you get a home run from a guy you’ve played, you made a good pick in cash. Even if it’s Aaron Judge at $6,400.
Judge hasn’t been great lately, but we really don’t care about that. We should never care about that.
Three years ago, I did this analysis:
In that post, I found that “hot hitters” don’t really exist. And by that, what I mean is that hitters who have done really well recently don’t do better in the next few games than they do when they’ve not done really well recently.
If Aaron Judge had five straight games with a homer, he’s no more likely to hit a homer tonight because of it. And if Judge is one for his last 19, it doesn’t change what he’s likely to do tonight in the negative direction.
Knowing this is to our advantage. Some players will stay away from the “cold” hitters. And that’s probably even more emphasized lately with the huge increase in daily content we’ve seen. It’s not hard at all anymore to develop a model to show who’s hot and who’s cold. And most people think that stuff is real.
Betting has overtaken DFS as the most popular thing to do for ordinary guys. Most vibe coding bros aren’t grinding out $3 double-ups. So it’s probably not a huge advantage, but it’s something we need to realize. Projections don’t overweigh the recent performances, so just trusting and using those projections will take care of this for us.
Severino has a 3.78 JA SIERA this year. Not horrible, but we’re not mistaking him for someone who is tough to score on, especially not at home where he’s given up six homers already.
BRAVES vs. PADDACK
Oh boy. Paddack got cut by the Marlins and scooped up by the Reds who are hurting at SP. Paddack has a 6.86 ERA this year with a 1.67 WHIP and six homers allowed in 41 innings. This will be his second start in Great American Ballpark, and we really, really expect him to be terrible there.
The Braves are kinda cold. Here are some last 15 days stats on those guys:
Olson slugging just .273, Albies at .291, Acuna at .303, Riley at .392. BUT WE JUST SAID - we don’t care about that. Throw out 60 PAs immediately; it doesn’t matter. Unless you think someone is playing hurt, but we don’t have that here.
The Braves are in a terrific spot.
RAYS vs. WALBERT URENA
Here’s a spot I don’t like even though the implication is pretty high. Urena is a ground ball pitcher, and he’s really held his own in the bigs. The Rays don’t hit homers, so this is a spot where you’re going to get your points from walks, singles, runs scored, etc. And that’s not what I want to depend on.
A 3/4 day with a couple of runs from Yandy Diaz would work just as well as a solo homer, of course, but that’s building in a lot of variance. We need those line drives to fall in, and we need the guys behind him to drive him in, etc. We should be more willing to target the guys who can do it all themselves and get us a nice price-considered score in one swing.
So the three offenses to target are very clear tonight: Giants, Yankees, and Braves. There’s a case to fade those in tourneys, but not in cash.
Bottom of the board:
Cardinals vs. Imanaga
Royals vs. Gore (in Texas)
Angels vs. Martinez
D’Backs vs. Kirby
I would be willing to play some high-upside Angels against Nick Martinez, who has been one of the luckiest pitchers in the league as we discovered this morning in the daily notes.
But Martinez is very good at getting ground balls and preventing huge damage, and the Angels strike out a ton, so it’s not an offense we need to bother with in our single lineup.
That’s the offensive side at a high level. Let’s look at these pitchers, because it’s a tough pitching slate.
Pitchers
Two nights ago, it was clear to go to deGrom and Ohtani. Two studs at pretty nice prices in great matchups. We don’t have those spots tonight.
It’s pretty easy to narrow things down at SP in cash. You don’t absolutely have to avoid the low-priced guys by any means. Sometimes you get a price that is just wrong. 15 points at $5,000 is just as good as 30 points at $10,000. It’s still buying three points per $1,000 spent.
Price is king in cash. Let’s check the top projectors:
And here are your top values:
We must consider both. We want a high projected score and we want a high value score. The Play Score factors that in, along with giving a boost for upside. Because we do want to expose ourselves to that potential 4x-5x upside if it’s there.
So the top PLAY SCORES:
Note that the projections I’m showing here are an adjusted projected from my model that layers in what The Bat X is saying. What you’ll see in the app is just my projection. Because I can’t sell you The Bat X projections, obviously - they’re not mine to sell. But I buy those projections myself, so these mixed projections are what I’m using because I want to know what both models are saying.
There’s no stone cold ace on the board tonight. But it’s pretty clear to me who the cash duo is. I eyeballed it last night before the projections were out, and the quick conclusion I came to matches what the projections ended up saying, which I think is a good sign.
GEORGE KIRBY $8,800 vs. D’Backs
Kirby has not pitched like a fantasy stud this year by all accounts. His 3.54 ERA and 1.21 WHIP are much closer to “good” than “great”. He’s given up nine earned in his last two. BUT WE DON’T CARE ABOUT THAT - REMEMBER?
We want about 22 points from Kirby tonight to get to a 2.5x value. If we get 2.5x on average while spending $50,000, that’s 125 points. Which should be enough. You never know for sure, sometimes the chalk goes nuts and the cash line goes way up - and vice versa. But 125 points is a good target.
Kirby has done that three times this year, which isn’t great. But you see the floor being around 13 points before these last two.
And it matters that this game is at home. He has a 3.30 xFIP in his career in Seattle. It’s 3.66 on the road. His K% is 25.8% at home; 21.3% on the road. He’s much better at home, and that’s been the case in the early goings of this year as well.
The Diamondbacks hit the road into this tough-hitting environment. For what it’s worth in a short sample, the Snakes have a .742 OPS at home this year and .688 on the road.
It’s never easy dealing with Ketel Marte and Corbin Carroll at the top of the lineup. But the bottom seven leave a lot to be desired. You can even see that just by looking at the prices:
Kirby is the top play in raw projection and in play score. And the price is fair. That’s a cash play.
CARLOS RODON ($7,700) vs ATH
My model likes MacKenzie Gore, as usual, with a 16.5-point projection at $8,600. The Bat X actually has as lightly higher projection. So it’s a considerable spot for Gore.
But knowing Gore’s floor and inconsistency always takes him off the board for cash in my mind. He’s a great tourney play, but the guy goes out there and tanks so, so often. His command hasn’t been good this year. So it’s an easy ignore.
That leads us to Rodon at $900 less than Gore. We’ve seen only three starts from the big lefty so far this year. But he looks fine.
→ 14.9% SwStr%, 3.80 JA SIERA, 3.41 JA ERA
He threw 95 pitches last time, so he’s fully built up for this one. It’s a tough ballpark, as we already noted while we’re drooling over the Yankees lineup in this spot. But this A’s lineup hasn’t been taking advantage of it. They’re htiting .238/.306/.353 against lefties this year. The big scary guy in the lineup, Nick Kurtz, has a .685 OPS against lefties this year as his struggles in that regard continue.
And Rodon has a 57% GB% this year as he’s throwing plenty of sinkers and changeups. It all checks out here.
The biggest point in the favor of Rodon is the price. He’s less expensive than Imanaga, Peralta, Gore, Kolek (lol), Wrobleski, and Gallen tonight. That’s just a mistake by DraftKings, and we’re jumping on it.
Some people will play Shota Imanaga ($9,300) tonight. He’ll go against the Cardinals coming off of two awful starts. I like Imanaga to bounce back and continue to pitch well. But I’m not paying $9,300 for him against a Cardinals lineup that can do some damage, and really limit the K%.
Max Meyer and Zack Wheeler have both been awesome this year. But Meyer is $9,800 against the Mets. Wheeler is $10,300 against the Dodgers. They don’t project well at all from a value perspective in those matchups.
Trevor Rogers ($6,000) is a really nice cheap play in tourneys against the Blue Jays. I think he’ll pitch better than he has, and the Blue Jays are a fine matchup for him. But Rogers has pitched poorly this year to say the least with an 18% K% and a 9.2% K-BB%. There’s no reason to try that out in cash. But I do like him in tourneys.
The tourney pool I’d use: Imanaga, Gore, Rodon, Meyer, Peralta, Rogers, Wheeler
We haven’t seen a ton of ceiling from Kirby, so at higher ownership I think it’s a really strong fade in tourneys where you’re chasing a 180-point score or something like that. You can absolutely play Wheeler in the tough matchup against the Dodgers there. He still has a lot of ceiling with how good he’s looked this year.
But the cash duo for me is Kirby and Rodon. And I hope I’ve made that case well!
Hitters by Position
We’re typically looking for a hitter or two at near minimum prices to make things work. We probably want to get to Judge and some expensive Braves, and we don’t have a strong $6,000 play to use in cash at pitcher. So we need those cheap guys.
And this is where it becomes extremely important to monitor the projections as lineups come out. There are 24 teams on this slate. There’s no doubt we’re going to see a few guys get in the lineup at some sub-$3K price tag that we don’t see in the projected lineups. That was the case with Eric Wagaman on Wednesday. He ended up hitting 6th for the Mets against a hittable lefty (Abbott). When the lineup came out and the projections re-ran, he was the #1 value on the board - and he wasn’t mention in this article because he wasn’t in the projected lineup.
But we can only work with what we have right now. Just keep an eye on the projections as we get close to lock, and I’ll be monitoring and putting some stuff out on X to help.
Right now, we have two plays in the Royals lineup popping:
The Royals face a lefty, so they’ll want to sneak some right handers in the lineup. Lane Thomas has a .257 xBA with a .365 xwOBA against lefties this year. Gore is a tough lefty, sure, but he walks guys, and Thomas has a 24% BB% against lefties. A single walks gets him to 1x value. And yeah, two points isn’t going to be the reason your lineup cashes - but it makes the point.
Tyler Tolbert is a speedy middle infielder who the Royals will use mostly for pinch-running. But we think he’ll be the nine-hole for this one. He’s not much of a hitter with a .707 minor league OPS the last two years. But he has a 39% stolen base attempt rate. So if he gets on base, we’re likely to get a steal attempt. And he’s 8/8 in the minors this year.
All of that said, I don’t want to build this lineup with Tolbert in it. Left-handed pitchers are harder to steal on, and steals seem to be the only way he’ll score tonight (three homers in the last two years total). Also, if we put in that $2K hitter to make our lineup, and then the lineup comes out at 5:45pm eastern and he’s not in - we have to scramble a lot if there’s no viable $2K replacement.
But Thomas is going to be a play for us.
Let’s go through each position now. In tourneys, we’re looking for STACKS. But in cash, we want to play the best offenses, but we don’t as much want to just stack entire 1-4’s in cash if a piece or two of those stacks aren’t projecting all that well individually.
CATCHERS
Let’s sort by VALUE for this exercise. We’re looking for that 2.5x return tonight.
Salvador Perez $3,300 vs. GORE
The price is way down from where it has been in his career, and that’s because he’s hitting .214/.257/.369 this year. But it looks like he’s been shaking off the slow start lately:
He projects better when facing a lefty, which is right. This year, he has a .390 xwOBA aginst those lefties with a 17% K%. That’s a great sign. He’s +0.087 in xwOBA OE against lefties. So the boxes are all being checked here. Good hitter, good price, platoon advantage, and a pitcher who can give up points when he’s not locked on his game (which is often).
AUSTIN WELLS $2,600 vs SEVERINO
Lineup spot matters a lot in cash. Wells is going to hit 9th in this one, if he’s in the lineup at all. That takes away PAs. Here are your average PAs per game by lineup spot:
1: 4.48
2: 4.41
3: 4.30
4: 4.20
5: 4.06
6: 3.95
7: 3.81
8: 3.63
9: 3.47
So with Perez hitting 3rd, and Wells hitting 9th, we expected 0.8 more PAs for Perez than Wells. That all works into the projection, so we’re not changing anything from what we’re seeing in the projection, but I’m trying to teach some DFS lessons along the way here. Wells has a .340 xwOBA against righties this year, and he hits his share of his homers when he does get to the ball. And it’s a good park for that, very similar to his home park of Yankees Stadium. So he’s a real option if you need the $700 savings from Perez.
Perez is the runaway cash option for me. Tourney-wise, these guys stand out:
Shea Langeliers $5,800: Way too expensive against Rodon for me in cash, but he’ll be lower owned and has immense upside.
Hunter Goodman $4,700: Webb is coming back from the IL, and the game’s in Coors. Webb is more than good enough for me not to pay the tag for Goodman, but the Rockies could definitely end up welcoming him back pretty rudely.
Orioles: Adley and Basallo are both in great form this year. Basallo has really gotten it going. And they face Austin Voth in Baltimore tonight.
PREFERRED CASH PLAY: SALVADOR PEREZ
FIRST BASE
We probably don’t have to consider Ohtani in cash tonight against Wheeler. Ben Rice ($5,900) is in an awesome matchup against Severino in SAC TOWN. But $5,900 for Rice… that’s tough to take on. I wouldn’t hate doing it, and he’d be a guy to I’d consider the massive upgrade to if I have the cash. So we’ll keep him in mind.
I’m going through this lineup and just building it piece-by-piece with the best play. Then we’ll see how much money we have left and adjust from there.
COLT KEITH $2,600 vs. ERICK FEDDE
We didn’t see the Tigers at the top of the implied total board. But they are, indeed, in an awesome spot against Fedde, who has not business being in the Major Leagues. Fedde has a 5.45 JA ERA this year, that’s one of the worst you’ll ever see.
Keith kinda sucks, and that matters quite a bit! He has no homers and one steal this year. He’s scored double-digit DK points four times all year. It’s pathetic stuff. But the price reflects all of that, and this is the softest matchup of his season.
He has a .268 xBA with a .308 xwOBA, so he’s been okay at getting base hits and getting on base for some of the guys around him. The floor is relatively high, I’d say. And our 2.5x target needs only 6.5 points from him. He’s pretty likely to get that. I just don’t like the fact that we have seemigly zero upside with his inability to hit homers and steal bases.
ALEC BOHM $2,800 vs. WROBLESKI
Fun series here with the Phillies visiting the Dodgers. Bohm is hitting .212/.273/.328 this year with a .240 xBA and a .291 xwOBA. He has a 3.1% Brl%. So I’m not very interested. But Wrobleski is pretty bad, and this is a very low price on a guy who gets plenty of RBI opportunities.
SPENCER TORKELSON $2,900 vs. FEDDE
This might be the guy. Tork has been very bad this year with a .210 AVG and a .210 xBA. But Fedde is one to target, and Torkelson can at least get the ball into the air and do some damage. His 27% Air Pull% is elite, and he quietly has a 15.5% Brl%. He’ll probably hit 5th behind Keith, McGonigle, Dingler, and Greene. A pretty decent top four in the lineup. So we have RBI equity here, and Torkelson is a home run hitter.
RAFAEL DEVERS $5,100 vs. LORENZEN
Not projecting all that well. He’s #5 on the play score. But Giants in Coors against Lorenzen. You have to consider Devers here.
PREFERRED CASH PLAY: SPENCER TORKELSON
SECOND BASE
You can really see the Tigers piling up here. But it’s a great time to play them in cash. We love these low prices for guys in a season-best matchup. But I’m pretty hesitant to play McKinstry ($2,200) and his .252 xwOBA this year with a .206 xBA. He has one homer and doesn’t usually steal bases. So he’s like Colt Keith but worse and lower in the lineup.
CHARLES McADOO ($2,500) vs. TREVOR ROGERS
The Blue Jays just called this guy, and we get a low price on the young righty who sees a lefty in this one. His minor league splits (2025-2026):
24 bombs in 695 PAs, that’s something. He’s a bit better against lefties. The high K% make me think he won’t be much of a big league hitters, and he’s not a highly touted prospect, but the model thinks he should be a bit more than $2,500.
His K% is down to 20% this year (28% last year), and he’s gone for eight homers and seven steals. Not a terrible option.
JAZZ CHISHOLM ($4,600) vs. SEVERINO
LUIS ARRAEZ ($4,900) VS. LORENZEN
This is where we think the ownership is going to go. And they’re the pay-up options. I don’t really care to pay for Arraez regardless. No homers, no steals. It’s a good spot for him get three hits and a run or two, but he doesn’t have the “have to have it” upside to kill us at $4,900.
Chisholm does have that sort of upside. He’s been improving lately and has a .309 xwOBA against righties this year with five homers. Plus all of the steals and the great team context. He’s the best play here.
PREFERRED CASH PLAY: JAZZ CHISHOLM
THIRD BASE
Some repeats here with Keith and Bohm. Projecting very well, but no real upside to speak of.
The highest ownership projection is Matt Chapman ($4,100) in Coors. It’s a get-right spot for Chapman, I guess. But there just might be something wrong with him. He looks lost at the plate, one of the worst in the league by the best metrics. So that’s a no thanks from me, dog.
Jose Ramirez ($5,300) and the Guards take on Tyler Samaniego as an opener for the Sox, and then the bullpen. J-Ram has a low batting average but keeps on doing elite stuff with the HR + SB. As a switch-hitter, he’s matchup proof. So he’s a good way to spend some money.
Kevin McGonigle ($4,600) is our Tigers play here. It’s expensive for a guy with three homers this year. But he’s almost never giving you a zero. He has a 14% BB% with a 13% K% and eight steals. He can score in a lot of different ways, and you know we love the Tigers against Fedde.
PREFERRED CASH PLAY: KEVIN McGONIGLE
SHORTSTOP
Only two guys near 2.5x value. Jose Caballero ($3,000) and Carson Williams ($2,200). The Bat X likes Carson Williams. He’s a HR+SB guy, at least he has been in the minors. But he strikes out a ton and he’s hitting .100 in 33 PAs with no homers or steals for the Rays so far. I can’t deny his HR+SB upside, though. But I don’t think we have to go there.
Caballero presents us with the problem that we don’t know if he’ll be in the lineup. With Volpe back, they’re benching him more often. But if he’s in the lineup, he’s a strong play at $3K. Severino is a righty, which makes it easier to steal, and that’s how Caballero does it. 49 steals last year, 13 steals this year. And a non-awful .684 OPS this year with four bombs. Big upside on him. But it’s a late game, so we have to worry about building a lineup with him only to have to redo if he’s out of the lineup.
The top projections are Bobby Witt Jr. ($5,400) vs. Gore and Gunnar Henderson ($5,500) against Voth. Two pretty studly players there. Witt is the better hitter, very clearly.
I’d generally rather play the expensive studs against pitchers I know are bad. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Gore dominate this Royals lineup. So I guess it’s not a spot for me to play Witt.
Henderson is even more expensive, and his high K% has been a problemt his year. Neither one of these guys projects near the 2.5X value.
Worth noting that we can also play McGonigle at SS. So maybe we go to J-Ram at third and use McGonigle here.
One guy who doesn’t project super well but I still like is the Giants guy - Willy Adames ($4,300). Just a 2.1x value projection on him. But he’s the lead-off man for the Giants, and they’re in Coors. So I think I’m going to him. He’s been very good lately.
It’s not as easy to hit homers in Coors as people think, but he has that big power to go deep anywhere, and the .373 OBP in his last two weeks is a good sign that he can do some run-scoring to get him there.
PREFERRED CASH PLAY: WILLY ADAMES $4,300
OUTFIELD
This is where most of the value plays typically live.
But let’s keep it to the TOP PLAY COLUMN to simplify things.
I want to get to Judge. Any time you have someone projecting two points clear of the rest of the field (three points clear of everybody not named Ohtani), I think you just jump at that.
Trent Grisham ($3,500) is also way too cheap for this spot. We can go Grisham + Judge and get the 1-2 correlation on the best lineup on the slate.
Those two plus Lane Thomas make it pretty easy!
CASH BUILD
Putting all our favorite plays together leaves $1,700 in cash:
The reasonable spot to upgrade is Torkelson. But we don’t have enough to get to Rice… not even close. We could go Torkelson → Rice and McGonigle → Keith. Which I actually kinda like. But we’re not making any final decisions until the lineups are out. So here’s what I have for you as a first draft:
Dang I just drafted nine road hitters. Which is fine. Road teams are guaranteed to hit in the 9th inning, while the home team doesn’t hit in the 9th when they have the lead after the top of the 9th. So it works to our benefit in that way.
BUT, if the home team doesn’t hit in the bottom of the ninth, that means they scored some runs. So on average, it balances out. I actually wrote this in the MLB DFS Strategy Guide:
Read the full strategy guide here:
Alright well that was a lot of words! Hope it pays off. Let me know if you liked the specific cash focus more or less than the tourney talk, please. It was more fun for me to write.