Weather to Watch
Twelve games on the main, the biggest board we have had in a while, and the conditions are all over the map. A few yards are flat-out hot, several read neutral, and five teams get to play under a roof. I will work down by how much the air matters.
Cincinnati Reds at New York Yankees | Yankee Stadium | Clear, 82F | Wind: 13 mph WNW
Eighty-two degrees with the breeze rolling out toward right-center, and that is the best air to hit in tonight. The short porch never needs much help, and warm summer drift like this gets a lefty's fly ball over the wall in a hurry. I am treating this as the top power spot on the board.
St. Louis Cardinals at Kansas City Royals | Kauffman Stadium | Overcast, 87F | Wind: 6 mph SSW
The warmest reading of the night is here at 87, and even a roomy outfield shrinks when the ball carries in that kind of heat. The wind is light, so this is a temperature story more than a wind story. Still a real bump.
Los Angeles Angels at Athletics | Sutter Health Park | Clear, 75F | Wind: 13 mph WSW
This is a small yard to start with, and 13 miles an hour pushing to the pull side only makes it smaller. Balls that die at the track on a calm night get out tonight. A sneaky-good place to hit.
Pittsburgh Pirates at Colorado Rockies | Coors Field | Clear, 85F | Wind: 7 mph ENE
Coors at 85 needs no help from the wind, which is a light crosswind anyway. Altitude is the whole story here, and this game carries the fattest total on the slate because of it. Treat every bat in it as live.
Baltimore Orioles at Los Angeles Dodgers | Dodger Stadium | Clear, 65F | Wind: 9 mph WSW
Sixty-five and calm out by Chavez Ravine, so the air is close to a non-factor either way. This one comes down to the matchup rather than the forecast. I will lean on who is pitching.
Boston Red Sox at Seattle Mariners | T-Mobile Park | Clear, 79F | Wind: 7 mph N
The breeze drifts in off the water. Nothing about this air does a hitter any favors. What I care about in this one is the pitching.
Milwaukee Brewers at Atlanta Braves | Truist Park | Thunderstorm, 84F | Wind: 8 mph NW
Storms are in the forecast with the temperature in the mid-80s, so the headline is rain, not carry. If the cells hit, a stoppage or a quick hook becomes likely. I want to see first pitch happen before trusting anything here.
Five roofs are closed tonight, at Daikin, Tropicana, loanDepot, Globe Life, and Chase. In those five, read the park and forget the sky.
HR Calls
Shohei Ohtani (LAD) $6800 vs Trey Gibson
Some nights the chalk at the top is also just correct, and this is one of them. Ohtani is locked in, pulling the ball in the air as well as anyone in the sport, and Dodger Stadium is a launching pad for left-handed pop. Gibson is a rookie whose BB/9 sits north of 5.5, so he pitches from behind and leaves fastballs over the plate in counts where they get crushed, and lefties have already slugged .477 against him. I cannot build much of a case against this one.
Jordan Walker (STL) $5500 vs Seth Lugo
Walker is the swing I keep circling back to in the middle tier. His bat speed grades among the very best in this price range, and the raw power has always been there even when the results were not. Kauffman with the heat and a breeze out is a friendly place for a right-handed bat, and Lugo lives in the zone with enough of a fly-ball lean to get punished when the air is helping. I would call this the cleanest mid-priced power spot tonight.
Jac Caglianone (KC) $4100 vs Michael McGreevy
Caglianone is the cheap dart, and I like the price more than I like the matchup on paper. He is a rookie with loud exit data and a quick bat, and at this salary he frees up a pile of room for the spots that matter. McGreevy does not miss many bats and gives up his share of homers, and in a Kauffman playing this hot, one mistake to a lefty with this kind of thump clears the fence. You do not have to roster a back-end Royal, but the salary relief makes this one painless.
Stacks to Target
1. Pittsburgh Pirates vs Kyle Freeland (L) | Implied Total: 6.48 | ROO Score: 5.9/10
Vegas has Pittsburgh down for more runs than any other team tonight, and Coors plus this particular arm is the reason. Freeland is having a rough year, an 8.04 ERA that his peripherals only partly forgive, and the right-handed split is where it turns ugly: a .598 slug, a 2.51 HR/9, and 46% hard contact against him. The Pirates run a righty-heavy group at him, so Nick Gonzales, Marcell Ozuna, and the switch-hitting Bryan Reynolds are the bats I want from that side. The Colorado bullpen behind him is no escape either, running into the 5s in xFIP and surrendering plenty of homers at altitude. Against this profile, in this park, I want a real chunk of the lineup.
Core pieces: Nick Gonzales $5,200 (R), Bryan Reynolds $5,800 (S), Marcell Ozuna $4,200 (R), Jared Triolo $3,200 (R), Esmerlyn Valdez $3,100 (R)
2. New York Yankees vs Rhett Lowder (R) | Implied Total: 5.99 | ROO Score: 6.8/10
The Yankees grade out as the top spot on my board tonight, and the wind blowing out at Yankee Stadium is a big part of that. Lowder has real command problems, a walk rate near 4.8 BB/9 that balloons against left-handed bats, and free passes plus a short porch is a dangerous mix. Lefties have slugged close to .390 off him while walking at a 16% clip, so Ben Rice and Cody Bellinger up top are the names I want, with Jazz Chisholm and the switch-hitting Jasson Dominguez right behind them. Once Lowder is gone, the Cincinnati bullpen is an inviting place to land, carrying an xFIP around 5.00. Of the single-team builds, this is the one I like most.
Core pieces: Ben Rice $5,800 (L), Cody Bellinger $4,900 (L), Jazz Chisholm $4,400 (L), Jasson Dominguez $3,500 (S), Ryan McMahon $2,300 (L)
3. Los Angeles Dodgers vs Trey Gibson (R) | Implied Total: 6.07 | ROO Score: 6.5/10
I made the Ohtani case up top, and the rest of this lineup deserves the same treatment. Gibson cannot find the zone and gets hit hard when he does, with lefties and righties alike slugging better than .375 and a HR/FB rate that climbs past 30% against right-handed bats. That lets you come at him from anywhere, so Andy Pages and Mookie Betts from the right side pair with Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and Kyle Tucker from the left. Dodger Stadium is a strong power park and the team total backs the spot. The Baltimore bullpen is the sharper of these relief groups, so I would rather pile the damage on Gibson early than count on the late innings.
Core pieces: Shohei Ohtani $6,800 (L), Andy Pages $5,500 (R), Kyle Tucker $5,000 (L), Freddie Freeman $5,400 (L), Mookie Betts $4,900 (R)
Pitchers
Jacob Misiorowski (MIL) vs ATL | $12500 | CASH
There is no such thing as a must-play arm in baseball, but Misiorowski is close. He is missing bats at better than a 13.5 K/9 with a sub-2.00 FIP, and Atlanta brings one of the lowest team totals on the slate into this one. The price is enormous and it still might be worth it, because the strikeout floor at this level all but guarantees the points. If I pay all the way up for an arm, this is where the money goes.
Cam Schlittler (NYY) vs CIN | $10400 | CASH
Schlittler has been one of the better starters in the league this year, and tonight he gets the softest lineup in the pool. The Reds carry the lowest team total of anyone playing, and he backs a sub-2.00 ERA with a strikeout rate near 28% and excellent control. The one nit is the wind blowing out behind him, but a lineup this light is not likely to make him pay for it. He is a rock-solid cash anchor.
Michael Soroka (ARI) vs MIN | $9200 | CASH
Soroka is the salary reliever that lets a cash build come together. He pairs a 2.92 FIP with a tidy walk rate, Chase Field is closed so weather is off the table, and Minnesota carries a below-average road bat into it. He does not have the ceiling of the two arms above him, but the floor is steady and the savings are real. Easy way to afford the bats.
Jacob deGrom (TEX) vs SD | $10000 | GPP
deGrom is the strikeout play I am keeping in tournaments rather than cash. The whiff stuff is still elite, north of a 10.5 K/9, and San Diego drags a weak bat into a closed Globe Life. What bumps him to tournaments is the home run risk, a 1.54 HR/9 that runs high for an arm this good, and one swing can sink a safe score. In a tournament, the ceiling is worth that risk.
Roki Sasaki (LAD) vs BAL | $8100 | GPP
Sasaki has pitched better than his 4.78 ERA lets on, with an xFIP near 3.90 and a swinging-strike rate that says the strikeouts are real. Baltimore's road bats are a soft test, and the price is light for this kind of upside. The homer rate is the catch, which is why he lives in tournaments for me rather than cash. Pairing him with a Dodger group doubles down on the game.
Pitcher Regression to Watch
By this point in June the surface ERA is not noise, but a couple of these starters are propped up by, or buried under, numbers their process does not back. One has been unlucky, the other the opposite.
Cade Cavalli (WSH), Positive Regression Candidate
Cavalli's 4.00 ERA undersells how he has thrown. Both his FIP and his xFIP land in the mid-3s, he is missing bats at nearly a 9.8 K/9, and a .349 BABIP plus a left-on-base rate stuck in the low-70s explain the gap. That is the shape of a pitcher due for better luck, not worse stuff. Expect the runs to ease off from here.
Bryce Miller (SEA), Negative Regression Candidate
Miller's 1.54 ERA is the loudest mirage on the slate. A .200 BABIP and a strand rate near 98% are doing the heavy lifting, and an xFIP above 4.00 says the run prevention is not real. Here is the honest part: T-Mobile with the wind in and a quiet Boston lineup means tonight may not be when it corrects, so I am not rushing to stack the Red Sox. The number is unsustainable all the same, and Boston is the offense that eventually cashes in on it.
Final Thoughts
On cash, I start with one of the premium arms, Misiorowski if the salary allows or Schlittler against the Reds when I want to spread it, and lean on Soroka to keep the build affordable. My hitting comes mostly out of the Coors game, Bryan Reynolds and a Pirate righty or two against Freeland, with Shohei Ohtani slotted in against a rookie who cannot throw strikes. A minimum-salary piece like Ryan McMahon or a cheap Royal covers the difference.
In tournaments, the Pirates at Coors are the build I want to be overweight on, because the run environment and the matchup point the same direction and a full stack with a bring-back has the highest ceiling on the slate. The Yankees against Lowder are my favorite contrarian single stack given the walks and the wind out. For another angle, Jordan Walker plus a cheap Kansas City bat buys Kauffman exposure without paying up, while Sasaki alongside a Dodger stack lets you hammer one game from both directions.
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.