Weather to Watch
Six outdoor parks on the main slate, three domes. Most of the air sits neutral with a couple of soft pushes, nothing screaming chase the elements.
COL at LAA | Angel Stadium | Overcast, 74F | Wind: 8.2 mph SW
Wind blows out to right at a 74 degree game, the most HR-friendly air of the slate at +3.5%. Angel Stadium does not light up in normal conditions, but I will take a soft wind push when Lorenzen is on the mound.
TEX at STL | Busch Stadium | Clear, 82F | Wind: 5.9 mph SSE
Warm summer night, light crosswind, +2.3% HR bump. Busch plays neutral on paper and the air is not moving much, so this one comes down to lineups over environment.
TOR at ATL | Truist Park | Clear, 76F | Wind: 8.4 mph ENE
Wind blows in from the right side at -3.4% HR impact and the air here plays a touch suppressing. That isn't enough to ditch a stack, but I would knock the ceiling down a hair on anything you build around either side.
CLE at NYY | Yankee Stadium | Clear, 76F | Wind: 8.2 mph SSE
Crosswind, neutral conditions, a non-event for weather purposes. Yankee Stadium short porch lives no matter what the wind does, so I trust the park.
KC at CIN | Great American Ball Park | Clear, 81F | Wind: 4.6 mph ESE
GABP usually means launch pad. The wind blows in light today, which docks a couple of percent off HR equity. That does not kill the stack thesis because the park itself is still a launching pad, but worth noting.
ATH at CHC | Wrigley Field | Overcast, 72F | Wind: 7 mph ESE
Wrigley with a light crosswind out of the east. The air grades as suppressing at -3.4% HR. The Wrigley wind story always matters, so this is a knock against any HR-leaning Cubs or Athletics build.
Three domes today: Daikin, American Family, Chase Field. Park factor lives, weather does not.
HR Calls
Aaron Judge (NYY) $6,500 vs Gavin Williams
Williams is a real arm with a 3.07 ERA and a 29% K rate. Judge owns the highest barrel rate in baseball at 21.7%, and he plays half his games in a park where his fly balls find seats easily. Williams has a 1.06 HR/9 and Judge has homered off plus stuff all season. I am paying up at a position where I want the safest ceiling.
Brandon Lowe (PIT) $5,400 vs Spencer Arrighetti
Arrighetti carries a 1.34 ERA that nobody in their right mind is buying. His xFIP sits at 4.98, his walk rate is 13%, and his strand rate is 89%. That is the kind of command profile where you fall behind 2-0 and serve up a get-me-over fastball at the belt. Lowe has a .329 ISO, a 13% barrel rate, and a long track record of feasting on righties who walk too many hitters. Daikin neutralizes weather, but I take this matchup all day in a dome where the ball still flies fine.
Nathaniel Lowe (CIN) $3,600 vs Stephen Kolek
This one is the leverage swing. Lowe hits fifth for the second-highest-implied team on the slate, and Kolek allows a 1.16 HR/9 overall with a 3.92 xFIP. Great American Ball Park has been pushing balls over the wall regardless of wind direction this season. At $3,600 with that team total behind him, Lowe gives me ceiling room I cannot find elsewhere in the value tier.
Stacks to Target
Three team-total spots stand out to me on this slate and the arms across from them all have command issues. Two of them are in domes, which I prefer for stacks because it kills the weather variable.
1. LAD vs Zac Gallen (R) | Implied Total: 5.73 | ROO Score: 7.4/10
The Dodgers sit on the highest implied total on the slate by a wide margin, and Gallen has not looked like the Gallen of two seasons ago. He owns a 5.18 ERA, a 4.37 xFIP, and a 1.52 HR/9, which is bad regardless of context. Against righties he plays even worse with a 5.86 ERA, a 1.95 HR/9, and a .366 wOBA allowed. Betts, Pages, and Smith are the right-handed leverage pieces here, while Freeman and Tucker handle the lefty side against a guy who has lost his fastball shape. Chase Field is a dome, weather is off the board, and the Diamondbacks bullpen ranks below average. I stack 4 or 5 here in both formats.
Core pieces: Mookie Betts $5,800 (R), Freddie Freeman $5,000 (L), Andy Pages $5,500 (R), Kyle Tucker $5,400 (L), Will Smith $4,000 (R)
2. CIN vs Stephen Kolek (R) | Implied Total: 5.02 | ROO Score: 6.8/10
Cincinnati at home is the play I like most for tournaments because the price tags are friendly. Kolek's overall line is a 3.48 ERA, but the underlying is a 3.92 xFIP and only a 5.52 K/9. Contact is coming. Vs RHH he has been worse with an 8.1 ERA and 1.8 HR/9 across a small sample. From the left side Bleday has a .393 ISO this season and gets the platoon edge, while Suarez, Stewart, and Steer all crush four-seamers from right-handers. Great American Ball Park is a launching pad and Lowe in the five hole is a cheap leverage piece in any build.
Core pieces: JJ Bleday $5,400 (L), Eugenio Suarez $4,700 (R), Nathaniel Lowe $3,600 (L), Spencer Steer $3,800 (R), Sal Stewart $3,400 (R)
3. LAA vs Michael Lorenzen (R) | Implied Total: 4.93 | ROO Score: 6.5/10
Lorenzen carries a 7.25 ERA into June and the underlying is not much better at 4.44 xFIP. He gives up a 1.58 HR/9, his BABIP is north of .380, and his strand rate is in the basement. Against right-handed bats he is more functional, but against lefties he is a disaster with a 9.88 ERA and a 3.04 HR/9. The Angels are not loaded with lefties, but Neto and Trout at the top both have plus splits in this matchup and the back end has Soler ready to punish a hanger. Angel Stadium with the wind blowing out at +3.5 percent gives this stack a real boost. The bullpen behind Lorenzen also ranks bottom third by xFIP, so the late innings can cash too.
Core pieces: Zach Neto $5,000 (R), Mike Trout $6,200 (R), Vaughn Grissom $3,400 (R), Jorge Soler $3,900 (R), Logan O'Hoppe $3,600 (R)
Pitchers
The top of the board has two studs. After that the menu thins out fast. I want to be selective at SP today, not creative.
Paul Skenes (PIT) vs HOU | $11,200 | CASH
Skenes is the safest pitcher play of the season and tonight he draws a Houston lineup with a 3.14 implied total. He carries a 2.90 ERA, a 2.97 xFIP, a 29 percent K rate, and a 4.7 percent walk rate. Daikin Park is a dome and the Astros offense without their full top half is not the matchup it used to be. I run him in every cash lineup and a big chunk of my GPP exposure.
Chase Burns (CIN) vs KC | $10,400 | CASH
The strikeout upside is unmatched at this price tier. Burns has 64 innings with a 1.97 ERA, a 3.18 xFIP, a 29 percent K rate, and an elite swing-and-miss profile. Kansas City walks to the plate with a 3.48 implied total against him, which tells you what Vegas thinks of this matchup. I am fine doubling up Skenes and Burns in cash and calling it a day.
MacKenzie Gore (TEX) vs STL | $9,600 | GPP
Gore is the leverage SP I want to find in tournaments. The Cardinals run a soft right-handed heavy lineup and Gore carries a 25% K rate with a 3.98 ERA against average competition. The walk rate is a concern at 10.5 percent, but in tourneys that is the kind of variance that produces a 30-point line. I take that swing in GPPs.
Gavin Williams (CLE) vs NYY | $8,800 | GPP
Williams in Yankee Stadium against Judge is not where I want to be in cash, but the strikeout upside is real. He carries a 29% K rate and a 3.07 ERA, and Cleveland has been giving him run support all year. This is a small GPP dart with strikeout floor and HR-implosion ceiling.
Logan Webb (SFG) vs MIL | $8,400 | GPP
Webb's surface stats look ugly with a 4.84 ERA, but his xFIP is 3.48 and his BABIP is sky high at .329. The matchup is at American Family Field, a dome, against a Brewers lineup that strikes out at a fair clip versus righties. Value lives here for those who can stomach the volatility.
Pitcher Regression to Watch
Sample sizes are getting meaningful, but plenty of starters are still riding fluke lines. I trust xFIP vs ERA with a BABIP check more than any other quick read this time of year.
Spencer Arrighetti (HOU), Negative Regression Candidate
This one jumps off the page. Arrighetti has a 1.34 ERA but an xFIP of 4.98, a .210 BABIP, and an 89.3 percent left-on-base rate. He walks 13 percent of hitters and his 0.38 HR/9 has nowhere to go but up given his contact profile. The Pirates are the lineup standing in tonight at a 4.36 implied total, and that number probably understates the cliff dive. Brandon Lowe and Oneil Cruz from the left side both have elite ISO numbers vs right-handed pitching over the last 30 days, and Bryan Reynolds is in there for good measure. I think Pittsburgh is live to push 5 or 6 runs here, even though the market hasn't caught up.
Final Thoughts
My cash lineup goes Skenes plus Burns at the top, a Betts or Judge anchor, a Brandon Lowe leverage piece from the Pirates stack, and Nathaniel Lowe in the five hole at $3,600 to free up cap. That keeps me with three to four pieces in either the Dodgers or Reds offense without going overboard. Pages and Freeman are easy to roster on the LAD side at fair salary.
Rosters are still just projected and not confirmed for several of the bigger spots, with the Angels and Pirates lineups my main worry because LAA tends to shuffle the bottom half late. No verified scratches yet, but the timing is always tight. Weather should hold by first pitch with no precip flags worth re-routing for.
GPP construction wants the contrarian angle on this slate. The Reds will run lighter than the Dodgers in tournaments because the price tags are hefty at the top, so a full 5-stack of Cincinnati righties paired with a Skenes anchor is where I build leverage. The Pirates as a secondary stack against Arrighetti is a tournament pivot the field is going to miss, because everyone will stare at Houston as the implied-total favorite and skip past Arrighetti's regression case.
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.