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I’m on the PORCH. It’s been tornado city in Illinois/Indiana the last couple of weeks. Not that the ‘Nados have made it up my way. I’m far enough north where it’s fine, but we’ve had a lot of rain and wind and stuff, but it’s beautiful today. So I ran a couple of miles and did some jump roping, and now I’m chilling on the porch trying to figure out how to end a streak of two straight double-up losses.
Yesterday doesn’t count because of the double header, obviously. And the time before that doesn’t count either, just because I don’t want it to.
Let’s do the DFS preview for free, and then I’ll put the betting stuff behind the paywall. I might even explore some other betting angles and sneak them into Trevor’s Daily Slip later.
But I’ll help the whole world win a $3 DraftKings Double-Up tonight first, that’s just the kind of guy I am.
Weather
Some real trouble in St. Louis.
ORANGE - Not a great setup here, STL is under a Flood Watch all afternoon and evening for some heavy rain potential. Looks like we get one round of scattered storms around gametime, which could cause a late start or delay. Another round moves in late, 11pm or so, and if there is still a game being played at that time, the 2nd round would be a game-ender. My hope is that they are able to squeeze in a game before that 2nd batch arrives, but even that outcome would likely include a delay of some sort from the first round of storms. I might be trying to be too specific this far out, bottom line: storms in the area tonight, we’ll try to figure out the specifics pregame.
I told you guys, it’s been wild in the middle of the country. That one is Zac Gallen vs. Michael McGreevy, so we weren’t worried about the pitchers in there. But there would definitely be some interesting bats with those two losers on the hill. We’ll have to see what the forecast looks like tonight, but for now I’ll probably opt for hitters in other games if they’re available.
Game Info
I love these slates. The 6-8 games that start at 6:40. I usually even know if I’m going to cash by the time I go to bed at like 10:45. It’s summer and my kids are sleeping in a little longer, so I’ve even stayed up past 11pm a few times. Getting wild out here. Gotta charge up for July 4th. I fully intend to set something on fire.
We’ve got the Phillies at the top of the board. They’re up against Cavalli. But let’s get to the details later.
The Cardinals (vs. Gallen) are the only other team above a five-run implication.
The Blue Jays and Tigers are also well above their season averages. And that’s the key point. The prices will reflect more of how good the team offense has been, so an implied total 1.5 runs above their average is just as good really no matter what the raw implied total is.
So let’s add that column and sort by it:
The three spots:
Phillies for upside
Toronto & Detroit for value
Pitchers
Here’s a free look at the projections:
The ownership is going to Cristopher Sanchez ($11,500) vs. WSH and Kevin Gausman ($8,500) vs. TEX. Not sure if I agree with either one of those. Sanchez is so expensive. We’ve seen most guys fail to really pay off that price tag. And the Nationals are decently tough.
We saw how bad Kevin Gausman can blow up last time against the Cubs, and the Rangers are in decent form right now. Langford is back and crushing, Nimmo’s been great… and the game is outside of Texas, which helps them.
I’m not sure why people would play Sanchez over Schlittler who is $1,500 less. Schlittler just had one of his best starts and now he gets the Red Sox - who are bad. Look at these jags since May 1st:
Just work around Willson Contreras and don’t throw Rafaela a strike and you’ll be fine.
That said, I haven’t liked playing Schlittler in cash this year. He typically doesn’t project like a total ace, and he hadn’t shown much ceiling before last time:
So, should we really change our minds on the guy because of one start? I don’t think so! But the floor is appealing, and the Red Sox are a good matchup to grab 25 points in.
Let’s sort it by value to get another look:
Cavalli should probably be more than $6,100 - but that’s so risky.
Tatsuya Imai feels like a tourney play, but we should take a look at him. This is the advanced game log from his Pitcher Profile page:
Just look at the whiffs column. He had 6 whiffs on 97 pitches on May 25th, 8 on 110 pitches on May 31st, and then 20 on June 19th last time against Cleveland.
I think it’s pretty insane to play him in cash. But his price-considered upside is enormous.
I will stop myself before I start overthinking it. He’s much too risky for cash.
We have a very, very low price on Freddy Peralta after his disaster.
With the low point totals come the lower prices. He’s down $1,000 since his last start and more than $2,000 from his peak.
The Cubs aren’t a good matchup right now. PCA is on some kind of heater, Busch is good, and Swanson gives them a lot of depth in that lineup. There are really no weak spots. He’s certainly a tourney play, but probably not for cash - we can just trust the projection and see that he’s the #4 value and there’s no real reason to go there.
Connelly Early ($8,000) gets the tough matchup with the Yankees. He’s seen them before and scored just 9.2 fantasy points against them in late April.
He’s solid, but really hasn’t been anything super special this year with a 14% K-BB% and 1.5 HR/9. I don’t think the Yankees is a good matchup to mess with him in.
What to do? I think a pay-up for either (not both) Schlittler or Sanchez is the right way to go. And the Gausman price is probably good enough at $8.5K against the Rangers.
My first read is Schlittler + Gausman. But let’s see what the sims say.
Early gets there most of the time. Not much ceiling, and the Yankees always threaten the floor with their home run chops. Paul Goldschmidt has been like mega-Bonds when up against a lefty this year.
I guess you could try to squeeze both Schlittler + Sanchez. Let’s see what the optimizer does in 20 lineups with some projection variance built in:
The optimal lineup is Schlittler + Early. I don’t think I’m trusting my model on Early in this case. If I exclude him, the optimal pairing is Schlittler + Gausman. I think that’s where I’ll start. Gausman’s been reall good at home this year:
I don’t like doing home/road stuff… but it might be enough to break the tie here.
I’m starting with Schlittler + Gausman, but it’s not a ton of confidence from old JA here.
Stacks
And then we get the Cubs projecting as the top offense against Peralta. I’m hesitant to pick on Peralta, and the value number isn’t great for that Cubs lineup.
Arizona up against McGreevy is very nice, but we have the rain there.
The Blue Jays against Gore are popping. Gore on the road has a 22.5% K% with a 13.6% BB% and a .336 xwOBA allowed. Somehow, he’s a completely different guy on the road. And the Blue Jays are cheap and have some guys who can handle lefties.
Springer/Vlad/Okamoto/Kirk makes for a pretty pesky top four. I am not touching Gore in this spot, and I’ll play some of those guys at the top of the lineup. Lots of walks are coming. It might even be a spot to bet against Gore in that regard.
Usually we’re not stacking much in cash, and definitely not tonight. There’s no clear standout offense. If we run the sims:
So that’s
D’Backs 5.88 runs
Tigers 5.83 runs
Cubs 5.03 runs
The top hitters:
The top values:
Pavin Smith is in that danger-zone game. He’s been popping every time against a righty because he has a history of crushing righties. So far, he hasn’t done ANYTHING against them this year (.156/.291/.222), but we’d think it’s coming. He only has 58 PAs all year. I guess it’s possible he could just not be good anymore, and we don’t really want players from that game in the first place. But he’s a great punt play nonetheless.
I wouldn’t go crazy on the Tigers against Imai. We really have no idea Imai is or how he’ll pitch on any given night. But it could go pretty well, and the cheap Tigers who can take a walk are considerable plays.
Plays by Position
CATCHER
I’m all about Alejandro Kirk ($3,300) in this spot. Clean-up guy, good team spot, cheap price, solid floor player. If the STL/ARI game does get washed out, this slate gets a lot easier. And the ownership gets very concentrated too, I guess.
Francisco Alvarez ($3,200) has been smashing and he gets another lefty (Boyd) for this one. So that’s a tourney special.
FIRST BASE
It’s Harper, Busch, Smith, or Vlad all the way. If you want the ceiling, you probably go with Harper / Busch. Vlad just didn’t hit homers or steal bags.
And then yeah you can play Goldy. They really have not been pinch hitting for him in his starts against lefties, so that’s good. The projections just aren’t going to give him anywhere near the credit you might think he should get for how he’s murdered lefties so far.
Harper is probably too expensive. I like Busch ($4,500) here.
SECOND BASE
Only two viable options here unless you’re looking to completely punt it. I’ve never seen play scores like that. 100 and 94 for the top two, nobody else over 47.
And both of those options are in the potential PPD game. So it seems like a pretty good spot to punt with Urias ($2,100) / Schneider ($2,200) on the Blue Jays.
THIRD BASE
You may be noticing that my model really enjoys Kevin McGonigle. The ceiling really isn’t great since he struggles to hit homers and steal bags, but his OBP and elite contact ability makes him a high-floor player.
I’m on Okamoto ($3,500), though. I think that price is ridiculously low for a guy with good power against a pitcher who has been very bad away from home.
SHORTSTOP
Francisco Lindor ($4,500) is back and a little bit cheap since he’s just shaking off the IL stint. That’s a fine spot against Boyd. Corey Seager ($4,300) is also apparently returning from the concussion. Those are both sneaky tourney plays. Wetherholt and Perdomo would be the cash plays if we weren’t worried about the weather.
OUTFIELD
My favorite cash options: Springer ($4,000), Alvarez ($6,000), Crow-Armstrong ($6,000), Schneider ($2,200), Osuna ($2,400), Rincones ($2,700).
OPTIMIZER RUN
The hitters that turn up the most in the optimizer:
This slate is kinda getting ruined by this weather situation in ARI/STL. That would be the main game for bats.
We might want to build two cash lineups for this one with one completely ignoring that game.
Let’s get to it.
I know I’m starting like this if ignoring ARI/STL:
And we can finish it off like this:
But if the STL/ARI game is looking better by this evening… something like this:
For a tourney, I like the Phillies stack with some Blue Jays:
That should get you going for DFS tonight, but please keep a close eye on the forecast for ARI/STL.