Weather to Watch
Athletics at Philadelphia Phillies | Citizens Bank Park | Overcast, 69F | Wind: 12.2 mph WSW (Crosswind)
Best HR park environment of the slate by a wide margin. The model has Citizens Bank graded as elite at a plus 15% HR impact, with a healthy crosswind off the right field line that helps anything pulled to right. Expect this game to play to its 8.5 total and then some, and the right field power side gets the boost. PHI lefties are the immediate beneficiaries.
Cincinnati Reds at Chicago Cubs | Wrigley Field | Overcast, 53F | Wind: 6.7 mph NNE (Wind In)
The HR killer of the slate. Wind blowing in from straight center at 7 mph in cold dense air grades as a severe HR suppressor at minus 22%. Bats can still get gaps and doubles, the runs damage is only minus 4%, but power-stack ceilings are gutted. CHC is a top ROO stack on starter vulnerability, but the home run upside flips to a contact and gap stack today.
Minnesota Twins at Washington Nationals | Nationals Park | Partly Cloudy, 70F | Wind: 10.1 mph SW (Wind Out) | 30% Precip
Wind is blowing out and the temperature is fine, which gives the model a plus 7.6% HR boost. The precip chance is the wrinkle. 30 percent is high enough to keep an eye on this one for a delay risk through lock. If the rain holds off, the Nationals Park environment is the second best HR setting of the slate behind Citizens Bank.
Outdoor games not flagged for action:
Yankee Stadium is calm with a 5.6 mph crosswind and a 17% precip chance, just under the threshold but worth a glance. Comerica, Kauffman, and the rest land in the plus or minus three percent range on HR impact. Daikin Park, Chase Field, loanDepot are all domes. The big two weather inputs are PHI as a HR boost and CHC as a HR killer. That is what shapes the build.
HR Calls
Note on rotation: Judge, Seager, Raleigh, and Buxton have all run hot on recent calls, so today rotates to new names that the model still likes but the field has not been chasing.
Riley Greene (DET) $4,300 vs Sonny Gray
[STANDARD MODEL]
Greene is the value HR call of the slate. He is a 232 ISO bat against right handed pitching with a 16.7% barrel rate and a 40% pull rate, and Comerica plays as a 119 HR park for left handed pull side. Sonny Gray is sitting on a 4.30 ERA with a 1.17 HR per nine and a 13% strikeout rate that is well below his career mark, which means he is putting more balls in play in a park that punishes pull side fly balls. Greene at the four hole gets at bats with traffic, and his salary at $4,300 is well below where the lineup spot and matchup quality should price him. The Tigers are 4.42 implied at home as small favorites, so the win equity helps the hitter scoring profile too.
James Wood (WSH) $6,000 vs Bailey Ober
[STANDARD MODEL]
This is the regression and weather combo. Ober has a 3.55 ERA but a 4.64 xFIP, with a 43% fly ball rate that does not want to face Wood today. Nationals Park is grading at plus 7.6% HR impact with the wind blowing out. Wood is 18.2% barrel rate, 32% HR per fly ball, and a .323 ISO against right handed pitching, with the kind of left side pull rate that turns a Nationals Park breeze into a ball over the right field wall. Ownership will be light because Wood is a less national name than Judge or Trout, which is the leverage. The only risk is the 30% precip chance.
Salvador Perez (KC) $3,400 vs Joey Cantillo
[SLEEPER MODEL]
The model loves this one. Perez has a .245 xISO but his actual ISO is 124 points lower, the largest xISO gap of any starting hitter on the slate, which is the model saying his contact quality has not yet shown up in the box score. Cantillo is a left hander who has been getting lit up by right handed bats at a .378 wOBA and a 4.94 ERA in the bigger sample of his split, with a 41% fly ball rate that fits Perez pull side power. Salary at $3,400 is a punt tier price tag for a 13.7% barrel bat in the four hole, and Kauffman plays neutral on HR impact today. This is the leverage HR call of the slate.
Stacks to Target
1. NYY vs Nathan Eovaldi (R) | Implied Total: 5.44 | ROO Score: 6.6/10
Highest implied total on the slate at 5.44, top three offense ceiling at 7.2, and the slate best HR park at a 116 factor. NYY is the chalk stack and it should be. The Eovaldi setup is the story. He sits at a 4.76 ERA across 39.2 innings with a 2.04 HR/9 rate that is among the worst on the slate, and his vs left handed bats split is .395 wOBA with a 27.6% HR/FB in 24.2 innings. That is a clean sample. He has not been bad against right handers but the lineup is going to attack him from the left side and force him into mistakes.
The platoon math is on a tee. Yankees lean heavily lefty with Grisham, Rice, Bellinger, Chisholm, Dominguez, Wells, and McMahon all from that side, with Judge in the three hole as the right handed thunder. NYY left handed bats post a 122 wRC+ vs right handed pitching with a 13.8% HR/FB rate and a .350 wOBA, and that is the side Eovaldi cannot get past. Ben Rice is the new lineup wrinkle at the two hole at $5,500 with a 16.4% barrel rate, which should be lower owned than Bellinger. Use a five bat NYY run with Judge plus four lefties, or pair a Judge two stack with a Schwarber bring back if you want PHI exposure too.
Core pieces: Aaron Judge (R), Ben Rice (L), Cody Bellinger (L), Jazz Chisholm (L), Trent Grisham (L)
2. MIN vs Miles Mikolas (R) | Implied Total: 5.24 | ROO Score: 6.2/10
This is the matchup arbitrage of the slate. Mikolas is at an 11.02 ERA across 16.1 innings with a 2.02 WHIP, a 7.68 FIP, and a 3.31 HR per nine that is more than three times league average. He is also a high fly ball pitcher into a park that is grading at plus 7.6% on HR impact today. The ROO model checks in at 6.2 with a 7.6 implied score, a 6.7 starter vulnerability, and a 7.6 park weather score. The only reason MIN is not the top ROO is the offense ceiling component coming in at 3.3, which is a polite way of saying this is a thin lineup outside of the top of the order. That is the construction note: stack the top, do not chase the eighth and ninth.
Mikolas does not have a meaningful platoon split worth attacking, his vs left and vs right wOBA marks are both north of .350 in his small sample. He is just bad. MIN right handed bats lead by Buxton at $5,900 are the highest leverage angle, with Larnach and Bell from the left side adding ballast. Royce Lewis at $3,300 in the nine hole is the slate leverage punt, since he is a top three projected hitter at the cheapest price tag of any starting hitter on the team. Ownership on this stack will be moderate because the Twins lineup outside of Buxton looks pedestrian to the casual builder. That is exactly why this stack is a leverage spot.
Core pieces: Byron Buxton (R), Trevor Larnach (L), Josh Bell (S), Ryan Jeffers (R), Royce Lewis (R)
3. CHC vs Brady Singer (R) | Implied Total: 4.92 | ROO Score: 6.9/10
Best ROO score on the slate, weakest pitcher matchup on starter vulnerability at 8.7, but the wind at Wrigley flips this stack from a HR play to a runs and gaps play. Singer is at a 5.57 ERA over 32 innings with a 1.95 HR per nine and a vs right handed bats wOBA of .402 with a 22.2% HR/FB rate. The Cubs lineup is stacked with right handed bats designed to attack right handed pitching, and CHC RHH post a 143 wRC+ vs LHP and 106 wRC+ vs RHP, so the matchup against Singer is a tier below their LHP slate but is still a runs setup at home.
Wrigley grading at minus 22% HR impact means the elevation play is dead. What survives is the run scoring path: line drives in the gap, hits to the wall that stay in. Hoerner at $4,900, Bregman at $4,400, and Suzuki at $5,400 form the core. Pete Crow-Armstrong from the eighth spot adds a contrarian piece since he is the only meaningful left handed bat in the lineup, and his ownership at 3.4% is the leverage. Build CHC with the top four hitters and one cheap leverage piece off the back of the order. Ownership will be around 8 to 10% on the chalk pieces, which is the right amount for the stack on this slate.
Core pieces: Nico Hoerner (R), Alex Bregman (R), Seiya Suzuki (R), Ian Happ (S), Pete Crow-Armstrong (L)
Pitchers
The slate has a clean three tier structure. Top tier is Wheeler and Skenes at $9,800 plus, with Will Warren as a third option at $9,300. Mid tier opens up at Cole Ragans, Soroka, and Eury Perez, $8,200 to $8,800. Punt tier starts with Mikolas at $5,500, which is a tournament avoid spot, and Brady Singer at $6,000 which is a Wrigley wind play.
Zack Wheeler (PHI) vs ATH | $10,000 | CASH
Wheeler is the slate locked cash arm. He has a 2.45 ERA across 11 innings on his return at a 33% strikeout rate and a 1.96 FIP that is the best on the slate. The matchup is the rest of the equation. The Athletics are implied at just 3.35 with a strikeout heavy lineup outside of Kurtz, and this is the Wheeler home start where the park does not hurt him because his ground ball and chase rates are so high. Ownership will be a slate high at 32%, which is fine for cash because his floor is the highest on the slate.
Paul Skenes (PIT) at ARI | $9,800 | CASH
Skenes pairs with Wheeler at the top. He is at a 3.18 ERA across 34 innings with a 29% strikeout rate and a vs left handed bats wOBA of .248. ARI is implied at 3.40 against him, and the dome at Chase Field neutralizes any HR risk. The strikeout ceiling is matched by the floor, which makes him a cash play even though he is a tournament arm at heart. Use him as the leverage arm against Wheeler in cash if you want to fade some of that 32% ownership.
Will Warren (NYY) vs TEX | $9,300 | CASH
Warren is the cash punt of the elite tier. He is sitting on a 2.39 ERA across 37.2 innings with a 30% strikeout rate, a 1.06 WHIP, and a vs left handed bats wOBA of .272. TEX is implied at just 3.06 in the AL East at home, and the Yankee Stadium HR park does not hurt him because he is generating a 47% ground ball rate. The catch is that Texas can get hot, and Warren has been homer prone at one HR per start. He is the cash floor at the third highest tier, which is the play if you want to anchor on Williams and free up salary elsewhere.
Cole Ragans (KC) vs CLE | $8,800 | GPP
The positive regression candidate of the slate. Ragans is at a 5.29 ERA but his xFIP is 4.32, and his strikeout rate at 30% is the highest in the mid tier. He is allowing too much hard contact lately but the Guardians lineup at a 3.40 implied is a clean K target. He has a vs left split of 8.71 ERA but the right handed Guardians order is the bigger sample where he sits at 3.68 ERA. This is a tournament play, the K ceiling is real, the matchup is right.
Eury Perez (MIA) vs BAL | $8,200 | GPP
Domed environment at loanDepot, BAL implied at 3.89 with Brandon Young struggles also being graded into the run line. Perez has a 4.46 ERA but a 25% strikeout rate and the dome park grades at minus 14% HR impact. He has been homer prone in five of his seven starts, but the Orioles lineup has whiff tendencies in the middle of the order that play to his slider. GPP play with some win equity since the Marlins are -130 home favorites.
Pitcher Regression to Watch
The 30 plus inning samples are starting to mean something now, and there are two divergent regression flags worth attacking with stacks today.
Bailey Ober (MIN) at WSH | Negative Regression Candidate
Ober is sitting on a 3.55 ERA across 38 innings, but his xFIP is 4.64 and his FIP is 4.17, which is more than a run gap on the underlying. His strikeout rate at 18% is below average for a fly ball heavy starter, and his fly ball rate at 43% sits him on a knife edge anytime the wind cooperates with the hitters. The Nationals are not the most explosive offense, but their park is grading at plus 7.6% HR impact today and James Wood is a power lefty who fits Ober vulnerability profile. The MIN side of this game is the better stack, but a small WSH leverage piece in tournaments around Wood and Abrams is a plus expected value spot.
Michael Soroka (ARI) vs PIT | Positive Regression Candidate
Soroka has been the unlucky lefty dragon of the season. He is at a 4.70 ERA across 30.2 innings, but his xFIP is 3.32 and his FIP is 3.24, both nearly a run and a half ahead of his ERA. His strikeout rate at 26% is healthy and his HR/9 at 0.88 is fine. He is being undone by a .376 babip and a low strand rate, both of which are bound to revert. PIT is implied at 4.60 against him so the model has not yet baked in the positive regression. He is a $8,300 GPP arm if you want a contrarian SP angle that is not Wheeler or Skenes. PIT stacks should be dialed back from where they sit on the early projections.
Final Thoughts
The cash spine looks like Wheeler or Skenes at the top with a NYY anchor or two underneath. NYY will be the highest owned stack on the slate, but the math holds up because of the 5.44 implied total, the Yankee Stadium park factor, and the Eovaldi vs left handed split. Cash games are about hitting projections and Judge plus a Bellinger or Chisholm fits that bill at fair price tags. The temptation in cash is to also buy in on a third Yankees bat, which is doable but eats salary that should go to a clear-floor SP.
The biggest lock concerns today are weather and Coors logic. The Nationals Park 30% precip threat is the real one. If that game gets pushed, your MIN exposure is dead and the lineup salaries have to flip last minute. Have a backup build with WSH and MIN swapped out for CHC and DET. The Wrigley wind direction is also worth a final glance because a five degree shift turns CHC from a contact stack into a HR ceiling stack and back again.
The GPP pivots that matter most are the Salvador Perez punt at $3,400 against a left hander who has been crushed by righties, the smaller MIN stack at lower ownership than NYY, and the Soroka SP contrarian shot if you want to get off the chalk. The first two should be in 30 to 50 percent of GPP lineups, the Soroka shot is more of a 10 to 15 percent build for tournaments only. Construction wise, double up the NYY exposure in cash and split NYY with a MIN mini in GPPs to differentiate. Cash is about hitting projections, GPP is about being right where the field is wrong, and the field is wrong on Mikolas, James Wood, and Salvador Perez today.
Tools used for this slate
Every number in this playbook comes off the free BankrollSZN tools: today's MLB DFS projections, the MLB home run predictor, first-pitch weather for every game, today's starting pitchers, and the free MLB lineup optimizer.