Weather to Watch
New York Mets at Philadelphia Phillies | Citizens Bank Park | Clear, 91F | Wind: 20 mph WSW
Ninety-one degrees with a 20 mph wind angling out toward the gaps turns an already friendly yard into the best place to hit on the board. This is where a routine fly ball turns into a souvenir, so I am treating every bat in this game as live.
Chicago White Sox at New York Yankees | Yankee Stadium | Clear, 89F | Wind: 17 mph WSW
Upper 80s with the air pushing out, and the short porch in right is always one mistake away from cashing. The breeze does not run straight at the seats, but warm air drifting out is plenty in this building.
Los Angeles Angels at Athletics | Sutter Health Park | Clear, 76F | Wind: 15 mph SW
This cozy yard plays much bigger when the wind kicks out, and 15 mph to the pull side qualifies. It is the highest-total game on the slate, and the air backs up why.
St. Louis Cardinals at Kansas City Royals | Kauffman Stadium | Overcast, 78F | Wind: 7 mph WNW
Kauffman is a spacious park, so a 7 mph crosswind is more nudge than push. I will take the mild warm-weather bump, but I am not building around it here.
San Francisco Giants at Atlanta Braves | Truist Park | Showers, 75F | Wind: 7 mph SSE
The thing to watch is the rain, with showers likely and a real chance of a delay. The air itself reads neutral, so my interest in this game hinges on the cards posting and first pitch actually happening on time.
HR Calls
Nick Kurtz (ATH) $6500 vs José Soriano
Kurtz keeps landing at the top of these boards, and tonight the setup is too good to skip. He swings a .302 ISO with bat speed that ranks among the best in this price tier, and the Athletics own the highest implied total on the slate in a park with the breeze carrying out. Soriano is a tough arm overall, but left-handed bats have found the gaps on him, slugging .376 with a 23.3% HR/FB and a 1.40 HR/9, and Kurtz hits from the side that has given him the most grief. I want the lefty bat in the game Vegas expects the most runs from.
Miguel Vargas (CWS) $4900 vs Ryan Weathers
Vargas is the value hiding in a lineup nobody wants. He is a right-handed bat carrying a .352 ISO into Yankee Stadium with the air pushing out, and Weathers is the reason it works: right-handers have battered him for a .430 slug and a 1.97 HR/9 with nearly 29% of their fly balls clearing the wall. A low-implied White Sox order keeps this contrarian, which is the whole appeal at the price. Vargas has the pull-side juice to make one hittable count hurt.
Jared Young (NYM) $2700 vs Aaron Nola
At $2,700 in the park most likely to launch one tonight, Young is the simplest cheap swing to make. He is a left-handed bat with a .252 ISO facing Nola, a righty who has coughed up homers all year and far more of them to lefties, who have slugged .500 against him with a 24.1% HR/FB and a 1.78 HR/9. Citizens Bank with the heat and the wind out handles the rest. Nobody is forcing you onto a bottom-of-the-order Met, but the price and the park make this one easy to stomach.
Stacks to Target
A trio of offenses pulls my attention, each pointed at a right-hander working in a yard where balls are leaving. The plan is to load the favorable platoon half of every one, then pair a return bat whenever the run total justifies the extra exposure.
1. Athletics vs José Soriano (R) | Implied Total: 5.87 | ROO Score: 6.5/10
The Athletics hold the top implied total on the slate, and the Sacramento yard with the wind out is why. Soriano deserves his credit, with a 2.79 ERA, a ground-ball rate north of 50%, and real teeth against right-handed bats. The lane is the other side of the plate, where lefties have slugged .376 with a 23.3% HR/FB and drawn walks at nearly a 13% clip, a combination of free runners and the occasional pitch left over the middle. Oakland's left-handed hitters check in at a 121 wRC+ against righties, so Nick Kurtz, Tyler Soderstrom, Carlos Cortes, and Lawrence Butler all set up well. The Angels relief group behind him is soft too, running an xFIP in the low-5s with a homer rate that climbs once the starter exits. Stack the lefties and grab a bat from the other dugout when the runs justify it.
Core pieces: Nick Kurtz $6,500 (L), Shea Langeliers $6,200 (R), Tyler Soderstrom $5,800 (L), Carlos Cortes $4,000 (L), Lawrence Butler $3,400 (L)
2. New York Yankees vs Sean Burke (R) | Implied Total: 5.57 | ROO Score: 5.6/10
The Yankees sit just behind the A's in implied runs, and they get the cleaner matchup of the two. Burke wears a tidy 4.18 ERA, but the work underneath says trouble is coming: an xFIP near 5.70 and a homer rate stuck at an unsustainable 6% of fly balls that has nowhere to go but up, especially in the Bronx with the air out. The lefties are where it hurts him, slugging .420 with a 1.27 HR/9, and the Yankee left side rates a 114 wRC+ versus righties with the best hard-contact mark of any of these stacks. Ben Rice, Cody Bellinger, and Jazz Chisholm attack from there, with Paul Goldschmidt the right-handed piece I want sprinkled in. Once Burke walks off, the White Sox bullpen is a leaky bunch with a homer rate near 1.7, so the scoring does not have to stop.
Core pieces: Ben Rice $5,900 (L), Cody Bellinger $4,800 (L), Jazz Chisholm $4,400 (L), Paul Goldschmidt $4,200 (R), Jasson Dominguez $3,500 (S)
3. New York Mets vs Aaron Nola (R) | Implied Total: 4.44 | ROO Score: 3.9/10
This is the dart of the trio, and it leans on the park and little else. The Mets do not carry a big implied total, and their bats are modest, a 104 wRC+ from the left side against righties. What flips the math is Citizens Bank tonight, easily the rowdiest yard in play, sitting across from a Nola line that has bled home runs all season. Lefties have slugged .500 off him with a 1.78 HR/9 and roughly a quarter of their fly balls leaving the yard, and the Mets counter with a heavily left-handed group. Juan Soto fronts it, and Brett Baty, Jared Young, and MJ Melendez give you inexpensive lefty bats lower in the order. Philadelphia's relief corps is the sharpest of these three, so the goal is to pile the runs on Nola before he hands off.
Core pieces: Juan Soto $6,100 (L), Bo Bichette $4,300 (R), Brett Baty $2,800 (L), Jared Young $2,700 (L), MJ Melendez $2,400 (L)
Pitchers
The arms split into a pair of safer matchups and two high-whiff options I would cap at tournament rosters. There is no true ace at a discount tonight, so I am either paying all the way up or punting.
Noah Cameron (KC) vs STL | $7300 | CASH
Cameron is the value that makes a build breathe. He backs a 4.11 ERA with a 3.48 FIP and a 2.19 BB/9 that says he rarely beats himself, and the Cardinals bring a middling offense into Kauffman at a team total under four and a quarter. The one soft spot is left-handed power, where he has surrendered a .500 slug, but St. Louis leans right-handed up top and he handles that side fine. At this number he is the simplest way to free salary for the bats.
Landen Roupp (SF) vs ATL | $8700 | CASH
Roupp has the best stuff of anyone I trust tonight, a near-10 K/9 paired with a FIP in the high 2s and a microscopic 0.49 HR/9. Atlanta is a fair offense, but he misses enough bats to manage them. The honest catch is the sky, because showers in Atlanta put a delay or an early hook on the table, and that is the only thing keeping me from leaning on him as hard as the profile says I should. If the weather holds, he is a strong cash arm.
José Soriano (LAA) vs ATH | $10000 | GPP
Soriano is the most talented arm on the slate, and I still cannot get him into a cash lineup. The skills are real, a 2.79 ERA and a 25% strikeout rate sitting on a ground-ball lean above 50% that caps the damage even in a small yard. The trouble is the spot, since Sutter Health with the wind out is the highest-scoring game on the board, and a 4.34 BB/9 hands out free runners in exactly the wrong place. I will buy the strikeout ceiling in tournaments and leave him alone for cash.
Ryan Weathers (NYY) vs CWS | $9100 | GPP
Weathers is the strikeout dart against the quietest offense on the slate. He misses bats at nearly a 10 K/9 clip with solid control, and the White Sox bring the lowest implied total of any team in play. The reason he stays in tournaments is the long ball, a 1.82 HR/9 that gets uglier against right-handed bats, and Chicago runs a righty-heavy order into a wind-out park. If the homers stay in the yard, the ceiling is there.
Pitcher Regression to Watch
Landen Roupp (SF), Positive Regression Candidate
Roupp's 4.25 ERA is the rare case where the pitcher is sharper than his line. His FIP lands in the high 2s and his xFIP near 3.25, the strikeout rate is excellent, and a strand rate down in the low-60s is what has inflated that ERA. That kind of luck tends to turn for an arm missing this many bats. The runs should start trickling off, weather permitting tonight.
Sean Burke (CWS), Negative Regression Candidate
Burke's 4.18 ERA is doing him a favor. His xFIP is closer to 5.70, only 6% of his fly balls have left the yard so far, and a strand rate above 75% has papered over the rest, and none of that holds. The Yankees are the bats waiting on him tonight, in a park with the wind out and a lineup built to punish a fly-ball pitcher. That profile snaps back hard, and New York is set up to collect.
Final Thoughts
For cash, Cameron is the value that lets the rest of the roster breathe, and I will pair him with Roupp if the Atlanta weather cooperates. The hitting core runs through the A's lefties, with Kurtz and Soderstrom against a Soriano profile that bleeds to that side, and a Yankee bat like Ben Rice or Cody Bellinger in the wind-out Bronx. A near-minimum Met like Jared Young or MJ Melendez buys the salary back without giving up the park.
In tournaments, the Mets and Phillies matchup is what I would build around, because Citizens Bank at 91 degrees with the wind out is the best scoring spot on the slate and both starters are hittable. I lean the Mets lefties against Nola and bring back a Phillie or two off the same park edge. The Yankees against Burke are my favorite single-team stack given the regression case, and for a cheaper route, punting to the minimum Mets bats frees enough salary to fit Soriano's ceiling next to a small A's grouping.
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.