Weather to Watch
Wrigley is the one weather angle I actually care about tonight. Most other parks read close to neutral, so I'm letting the matchups do the talking everywhere except Chicago.
Cleveland at New York Yankees | Yankee Stadium | Overcast, 74F | Wind: 8.5 mph N
Crosswind, no real HR push. Park plays neutral. Yankee bats are still my favorite high implied stack on the board and I don't need the air to help me get there.
Kansas City at Cincinnati | Great American Ball Park | Clear, 77F | Wind: 10.4 mph NE
The reading says neutral, which honestly surprises me at GABP. I would've guessed a slight knock from the crosswind, but you can play the park at face value. No extra bump for the lefties tonight, just the standard small park geometry.
Toronto at Atlanta | Truist Park | Overcast, 72F | Wind: 5.7 mph E
A quarter chance of rain is the only flag here. Wind is gentle, temp is fine. Probably not enough rain risk to skip the game outright, but I'd refresh the radar an hour before lock if you're going heavy in this spot.
Chicago White Sox at Minnesota | Target Field | Mostly Clear, 82F | Wind: 9.1 mph SSE
Warm and benign. The crosswind from the south pushes a few liners around but it's not blowing balls out. Nothing here changes my read on either lineup.
Texas at St. Louis | Busch Stadium | Clear, 80F | Wind: 9.8 mph E
Light wind in, a small HR suppress, nothing dramatic. Busch in general isn't a great extra base park, so I'm not chasing power here regardless.
Athletics at Chicago Cubs | Wrigley Field | Clear, 65F | Wind: 9.7 mph N
This is the one. A real Wrigley wind in pattern on a cool 65 degree night cuts the HR environment by roughly a quarter. I'm fine fading this entire game in tournaments. Langeliers and Kurtz still play because their bat speed travels in any park, but I'm not building stacks here.
Colorado at Los Angeles Angels | Angel Stadium | Clear, 71F | Wind: 8.6 mph SW
Wind out to right, small HR bump. The Halos sit at a 5 plus implied for a reason and the air agrees with that read. I'll get to the LAA stack in a minute.
New York Mets at Seattle | T-Mobile Park | Clear, 82F | Wind: 3.7 mph WNW
Hot for Seattle. A 4 mph breeze doesn't move the needle, but the temp brings a little extra carry compared to the usual marine layer night. Doesn't change my read on Gilbert.
Three domes today: American Family, Daikin, Chase. Park factor lives, weather doesn't.
HR Calls
Three different bats, three different stadiums. One premium dome anchor I want concentrated in, one mid tier right hander on the right side of a platoon, one cheap stack piece in the slate's softest matchup.
Yordan Alvarez (HOU) $6,200 vs Bubba Chandler
This is my anchor. Yordan sits on a .307 ISO with a 20% barrel rate and a 76 mph bat speed. Chandler walks 6.2 hitters per 9 with an xFIP north of 5, which is the kind of command profile where you get one mistake fastball per at bat and Yordan does not miss those. He throws hard but the strikes are wobbly. Daikin plays as one of the friendlier left handed power parks in the league. This is the highest single PA HR shot I have on the board and the price is one tier below where it should be.
Miguel Vargas (CWS) $4,700 vs Connor Prielipp
The last 15 games for Vargas have been silly. He's sitting on a .375 ISO over that window and barreling everything in sight. Prielipp is a lefty with a 5.16 ERA and a 56% strand rate, which is a different way of saying hitters are squaring him up and pulling them into the seats. A right hander hitting second against a struggling lefty at Target Field on an 82 degree night is exactly the early read I want before the price corrects.
Jorge Soler (LAA) $3,700 vs Tomoyuki Sugano
At $3,700 you're getting Soler batting cleanup against the lowest K/9 starter on the slate. Sugano lives in the zone, gives up 1.7 HR/9, and does not have the velocity to punish right on right. Soler's pull profile is dead center on what Sugano gives up. Easiest leverage HR price on the board.
Stacks to Target
Three high implied teams all drawing soft starting pitching. Two of them are going to get traffic, the third is more contrarian than the matchup deserves.
1. LAA vs Tomoyuki Sugano (R) | Implied Total: 5.03 | ROO Score: 6.8/10
The Halos are at 5.03 for a reason. Sugano runs a 4.8 K/9, a 1.7 HR/9, and an 82% strand rate that is begging to come down. He's outrun his FIP all year. The lineup is mostly right handed and the matchup is right handed, which usually I'd want to flag, but Sugano gives up an identical wOBA from both sides because he can't miss bats. There's no platoon penalty when there's no platoon stuff. Bullpen behind him is a 4.67 xFIP unit, so the spot gets better the earlier Bud Black goes to his pen.
Core pieces: Mike Trout $5,700 (R), Zach Neto $4,700 (R), Jorge Soler $3,700 (R), Jo Adell $3,400 (R), Logan O'Hoppe $2,600 (R)
2. NYY vs Joey Cantillo (L) | Implied Total: 5.11 | ROO Score: 6.6/10
Highest implied team on the slate, which also means this is the chalk stack. Cantillo runs a 4.81 BB/9 and a 1.09 HR/9, and the Yankees stack right handed power top to bottom against lefties. Judge against a lefty in his home park is one of the cleanest single matchup edges in the league. Rice and Goldschmidt give you the high contact pieces around him. Bullpen is a 3.91 unit that caps a touch of ceiling, but Cantillo is going to give up his runs early enough that the back of the game shouldn't matter.
Core pieces: Aaron Judge $6,400 (R), Ben Rice $5,900 (L), Paul Goldschmidt $4,100 (R), Anthony Volpe $3,600 (R), Jose Caballero $3,200 (R)
3. ARI vs Eric Lauer (L) | Implied Total: 4.53 | ROO Score: 5.9/10
This is the leverage stack. Lauer has a combined 5.33 ERA between his two stops with a 6.24 FIP and a 2.24 HR/9, which means the surface is bad and the underlying is worse. Arizona runs switch and right handed bats top to bottom and Lauer hasn't been able to hide the ball from either side. Chase neutralizes weather, so you get a clean look at the matchup. Marte and Carroll do the heavy lifting up top, and Arenado at $3,900 against a lefty is a price tier that shouldn't exist if the field were paying attention.
Core pieces: Ketel Marte $5,300 (S), Corbin Carroll $5,600 (L), Geraldo Perdomo $4,100 (S), Nolan Arenado $3,900 (R), Gabriel Moreno $3,700 (R)
Pitchers
The arms tier is deep tonight. Two cash anchors I'm locking, two GPP shapes, and one mid tier I'm taking in just about every build.
Cam Schlittler (NYY) vs CLE | $10,500 | CASH
Highest leverage cash pick on the slate. Schlittler at a 1.50 ERA, a 10.1 K/9, a 0.85 WHIP, and a 14% swinging strike rate that says the K rate is real and not noise. Cleveland is implied for 2.39 runs, the lowest on the board, and they're one of the worst lineups in the league against right handed power. Top price and earns it.
Nathan Eovaldi (TEX) at STL | $9,500 | CASH
Eovaldi has quietly been the best contact suppressor of the season. He's at 8.84 K/9, a 50% ground ball rate, and a 15% swinging strike rate, and the Cardinals lineup outside of Arenado does not punish right handed velocity. Busch with a light wind in is friendly to a strikeout arm. Same tier as Schlittler with a friendlier price.
Logan Gilbert (SEA) vs NYM | $9,000 | CASH
The Mets are sitting at a 3.20 implied for a reason. Gilbert is at 9.1 K/9 with a 1.12 WHIP and a 3.60 xFIP, and T-Mobile is the third best K park in the league. Soto is the bat that scares me, but he's one bat in a lineup that's been below average against right handed swing and miss for two months. I'd take Gilbert as a cash anchor over the next tier down.
Bryce Elder (ATL) vs TOR | $8,200 | GPP
GPP only. Elder has the prettiest top line on the board at a 2.50 ERA but the xFIP at 3.83 says the strand rate is doing more work than the stuff is. Toronto is a contact lineup that doesn't strike out, which caps his K ceiling. If the rain holds off and he gives you 6 frames at a 25% K rate, this becomes a real tournament piece because nobody is rostering him at this price.
Davis Martin (CWS) at MIN | $9,700 | GPP
Same shape as Elder. A 2.01 ERA with a 2.91 xFIP that says the strand luck is going to break. The K stuff is real at 9.5 per 9 and a 13% swinging strike rate, so the upside is there. Not a cash lock, but he's one of the lowest owned mid tier arms on the slate against an offense that doesn't crush right handed K stuff.
Pitcher Regression to Watch
It's early summer so samples are starting to get big enough that the regression flags mean something. Two arms in particular are setting up cleanly on opposite ends.
Mike Burrows (HOU), Positive Regression Candidate
Burrows sits on a 5.42 ERA across 63 innings, but the xFIP at 4.38 and the BABIP at .315 both say he's been giving up more contact than the stuff warrants. A 22% K rate with a near 11% swinging strike rate is a starter level arm, not a 5.4 ERA arm. Pittsburgh is the lineup standing in tonight, which means Brandon Lowe and Oneil Cruz are the bats that get downgraded. I'm dialing back PIT exposure because the underlying says Burrows is finally going to get a clean look.
Kyle Harrison (MIL), Negative Regression Candidate
Harrison's 1.58 ERA looks great on the surface, but the xFIP is at 3.06 and the strand rate is at 90.7%, which no starter sustains. Hitters are going to start getting to him eventually. Tonight against San Francisco the platoon mostly lines up the wrong way for the Brewers, but SF is sitting at a 2.63 implied, which is what makes them the contrarian leverage spot on the slate. I'm not rostering Harrison in cash because of this, but I'm also not going heavy on a SF stack until the price catches up.
Final Thoughts
Cash builds run through Schlittler and one of the high implied stacks. The Yankees are my cleanest path for full team exposure given Cantillo's walks and Judge's home park edge against a lefty. If you're cramming budget for a second SP, Eovaldi at $9,500 gives you a real arm for cheaper and frees the cap for a Yordan slot at first base or DH. Vargas at $4,700 is the salary save bat that makes the math work in cash without forcing a min priced punt into the build.
Pre lock the things to watch are lineup confirmations across the board, since several rosters are still just projected and not confirmed. The Atlanta game has a quarter chance of rain so postponement isn't zero. If you're stacking ATL bats or rostering Elder, refresh the radar in the half hour before first pitch. None of the LAA, NYY, or ARI lineups have a verified scratch yet, but the timing is always tight.
GPP leverage is where this slate gets interesting. The Arizona stack at a 4.53 implied is going to come in lower owned than its matchup against Lauer deserves, and you can get there with Marte, Carroll, and Arenado at three different price tiers, which is rare for one stack. I'm also stashing a small Soler heavy build off the LAA chalk to give myself a contrarian route to the same outcome. If Schlittler is the leader, you'll need bats nobody else has rostered to win, and the cheap LAA and ARI pieces are exactly that.
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.