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I’m coming at you from the Ohio Turnpike. I took a break from drive to Pittsburgh for our fantasy football draft so I wouldn’t miss a Friday night slate. So I hope that a bunch of you are still reading things and benefiting from them!

But it will be quicker today!

Game Data

13 games, four offensive spots popping in implied total and implied total above season average:

Cleveland vs. Tanner Gordon (in Coors)
Dodgers vs. Bubba Chandler (in LA)
Astros vs. JT Ginn (in Houston)
D’Backs vs. Nick Lodolo (in Arizona)

Cleveland is running away with it. None of those other three spots are super attractive to me off the top. But Cleveland is a pretty cheap lineup in Coors against Gordon and his pitch-to-contact ways.

So I’m not telling you anything secret here, but it seems like a great spot to take some value from here. Kwan /Lowe/Genao/Ramirez/Martinez would be my favorites at the price points.

Pitchers

Lots of viable names on the board tonight, I’m sorry we can’t take the time to go more into them individually.

Gore and Detmers square off in Texas, and they’re the top two projections on the board. The price on Gore just won’t come up. But it’s true that he’s been projecting better than his results end up being almost every time. But I can’t veer far away from that Gore spot at home. It’s a reasonable tourney fade as usual. The Angels did just put 18 runs on the board last night. That doesn’t mean anything for tonight, let’s not do recency “they’re hot” stuff, but it does at least show us that they’re not a total rollover lineup.

As for Detmers, his pitch counts are normal after a short start a couple times ago. I guess they’re riding him out, and Texas is beatable. They’re a tougher matchup right now than they were earlier in the year, but Detmers has a lot of ceiling and looked excellent last start.

I don’t like Schlittler much for $11K against a contact-heavy Blue Jays lineup. You pretty much need 7+ strikeouts at $11K to have a chance for it to be worth it, and we can’t say the Yankees lineup is handing these SPs easy wins at this point.

The Sean Manaea projection is very nice at 17.9 points for just $7600. The projections really like picking on this White Sox lineup with lefties, and Manaea is on a good run of things right now.

I think Joey Cantillo is a tourney play even in Coors. He is getting a ton of strikeouts, won’t have to deal with Hunter Goodman, and has a lot of ceiling for those reasons. Obviously it’s not a cash play with his lack of efficiency and the park environment, but I could see 6+ strikeouts with ease in this one, add on an extra inning and a win bonus if the Guardians stack smashes and you have yourself a nice play there.

Sonny Gray $9100 and Yamamoto $10,600 seem like great cash plays to me. Neither guy has a ton of ceiling, but the floors and matchups are very strong. Gray takes on the Giants and Yamamoto gets a home matchup with the Pirates.

Hayden Wesneski $6400 would also make my short list for tourneys. You want to play pretty much anybody against the Athletics away from Sacramento right now, and he is more than good enough to take advantage of that soft lineup.

Don’t sleep too much on Ryan Gusto at $6000. Decent matchup for him against a radically changed Nationals lineup. Wesneski is a better play at $400 more, but I’d have Gusto exposure if I were playing 20 lineups tonight. I think he’s sneakily kinda decent for 5+ strikeouts.

Noah Cameron at $7400 is still pretty cheap for a guy who has had as much success as he’s had recently. Fine spot against the Tigers for him.

CASH OPTIONS: Yamamoto, S Gray, Detmers,

Tourneys: Gore, Detmers, Manaea, Cantillo, Gray, Cameron, Wesneski, Eduardo Rodriguez

Top Hitters

My pay-up would probably be Jose Ramirez in this spot. He hasn’t really hit like a $6K player much this year, but in Coors it’s hard to pass up on.

Biggest Values

Those are mostly really poor hitters woh are priced very, very cheap. That doesn’t often smash.

Let’s look at the guys with the combination of 8+ point projection and 2x+ value:

The model is liking the Mariners against the lefty Boyd. They’re in Seattle, though, where it’s tough to hit, but the ownership will certainly be low. The Cubs bullpen is pretty bad as well.

I think you can also play some Reds against E-Rod. We’re all kinda waiting for it to fall apart for Rodriguez, but he’s been so good that people aren’t going to play the Reds. It’s a good spot for a very low-owned stack, and it doesn’t feel awful clicking on Sal Stewart, Elly De La Cruz, and Dane Myers even with the rest of that lineup being really bad behind them.

Single lineup build, disregarding ownership, I’d probably jam in Yamamoto and Sonny Gray, and take all the cheap Guardians and go from there.

For a tourney angle, I’m playing Wesneski and Manaea, I think. Then we can build with some of the more expensive Cleveland hitters and differentiate with PCA, Tatis, and a couple Mariners or Reds play to really get some low ownership.

Those are my quick thoughts, but obviously I haven’t put the same level of research into this Friday slate. Just didn’t want to leave you hanging if you were waiting to hear from me!

MLB Data Warehouse

MLB DFS Preview - August 21