Weather to Watch
Happy Sunday. The flags at Yankee Stadium are doing the most interesting work on the board, and the rest of the card is mostly warm air and minor nudges.
Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees | Yankee Stadium | Mostly Clear, 84F | Wind: 13.5 mph WNW
A 13 mph breeze pushing toward the seats in the Bronx is the best power weather of the day, worth roughly a 9% bump on homers. The short porch was not exactly starving before the help arrived.
Chicago White Sox at Philadelphia Phillies | Citizens Bank Park | Mostly Clear, 86F | Wind: 13.5 mph WNW
The wind cuts across rather than out here, so the heat is what matters. At 86 degrees, Citizens Bank gets a real temperature assist, and this little yard never needs much.
Pittsburgh Pirates at Atlanta Braves | Truist Park | Overcast, 84F | Wind: 6.8 mph SSW
Warm, and the breeze angles toward center. Call it a modest plus for the bats, maybe 6% on homers, and nothing that changes how I build.
Cincinnati Reds at St. Louis Cardinals | Busch Stadium | Overcast, 87F | Wind: 8.7 mph SSE
Mostly a heat story again. Busch plays closer to neutral than people think in June, and 87 degrees tilts it gently toward the hitters.
Seattle Mariners at Detroit Tigers | Comerica Park | Clear, 81F | Wind: 6.7 mph NNW
A small outward breeze in a big park. It helps the bats a little, and I wouldn't build a thesis on it.
Kansas City Royals at Minnesota Twins | Target Field | Overcast, 87F | Wind: 12.4 mph SE
The one yard where the wind is blowing in, and the 87-degree heat roughly cancels it out. I'm treating this game as weather-neutral.
Toronto, Miami, Houston, and Arlington all close the roof and end the conversation there.
HR Calls
Matt Olson (ATL) $5,100 vs Bubba Chandler
Olson has spent two months punishing right-handed pitching, a .298 ISO with homers on more than 30% of his fly balls, and somehow still costs just $5,100. Chandler is the right arm to pick on. Lefties have hung a 7.39 ERA and a .481 slug on him, and he walks six per nine, which means he's pitching behind in counts and coming into the zone when he'd rather not. Olson in 84-degree Atlanta heat only needs one of those forced strikes.
Nick Kurtz (ATH) $5,600 vs Mike Burrows
Burrows against lefties might be the single worst split on this slate: a .606 slug allowed, 2.68 HR/9, and nearly a third of their fly balls leaving the yard. Kurtz happens to be the exact hitter you want pointed at that, an 18% barrel rate and a 182 wRC+ against right-handed pitching. The Daikin roof means no weather help, and he probably doesn't need any. My only hesitation is that the price already reflects some of this.
Luke Raley (SEA) $4,100 vs Jack Flaherty
Raley has been one of the best per-dollar power bets in baseball for a month, slugging .569 against righties with a 19% barrel rate and a .344 ISO over his last 30 days. Flaherty misses bats, but he walks 6.4 lefties per nine, and a pitcher who keeps falling behind left-handed hitters eventually has to throw something hittable over the plate. That's the at-bat I'm buying at this price. Detroit's outward breeze is a small cherry on top.
Stacks to Target
The top of the stack board is three National League offenses against three righties with very different problems. Two of them give the at-bat away with walks; the third might not see the fourth inning.
1. STL vs Rhett Lowder (R) | Implied Total: 5.24 | ROO Score: 5.6/10
I'll concede upfront that St. Louis has been quiet, averaging fewer than three runs across their past seven games. Lowder is how a cold lineup warms back up. He strikes out barely six per nine with a 7.4% swinging-strike rate, and his line against lefties is far worse: a 5.88 xFIP with nearly six walks per nine to that side. Wetherholt, Burleson, and the lefty middle of this order should spend the afternoon in hitter's counts. Burleson in particular owns a 159 wRC+ against righties, and Walker brings the thump from the right side at a 154 mark of his own. The real prize is what comes after Lowder leaves, because he rarely completes five and left-handed bats have torched the Cincinnati bullpen all year, a 6.35 xFIP that keeps this stack live into the late innings.
Core pieces: JJ Wetherholt $4,600 (L), Alec Burleson $4,200 (L), Jordan Walker $5,100 (R), Lars Nootbaar $3,600 (L), Nolan Gorman $2,900 (L)
2. ATL vs Bubba Chandler (R) | Implied Total: 5.36 | ROO Score: 5.2/10
Atlanta's lefty group against right-handed pitching is one of the better platoon units in the sport, a 123 wRC+ with a .190 ISO, and Chandler hands that group six free passes per nine. Walks plus Atlanta heat plus a .481 slug allowed to lefties is a clean recipe. His 4.89 ERA undersells the trouble, since a .255 batted-ball average and a 66% strand rate have both been doing him favors. Harris, Olson, and Smith line up on the side he can't handle, while Acuna doesn't care about splits because he's Acuna. Pittsburgh's bullpen offers little relief either, sitting near a 5.19 xFIP versus left-handed bats, which keeps the Atlanta lefties relevant deep into the game.
Core pieces: Ronald Acuna $5,800 (R), Michael Harris $4,400 (L), Matt Olson $5,100 (L), Ozzie Albies $4,800 (S), Dominic Smith $3,700 (L)
3. PHI vs Tyler Gilbert (L) | Implied Total: 5.42 | ROO Score: 4.9/10
It's a strange one: the highest implied total on the slate belongs to a lineup facing a lefty, and I still want the left-handed Phillies. Gilbert has thrown all of 2.2 big-league innings this season and has walked more than a batter per inning in them, so whatever Chicago's pitching plan looks like, it almost certainly involves a parade of relievers at the hottest hitting environment on the card. Philadelphia's lefty bats don't need the platoon excuse anyway; that group carries a 119 wRC+ against southpaws, and Schwarber alone is at 178 with a .329 ISO when a lefty is foolish enough to challenge him. The White Sox relief corps has handled left-handed hitters reasonably well this year, so this is more about the first time through the order and the 86-degree air than a six-inning feast. Turner and Bohm give you the righty exposure if you'd rather not test it.
Core pieces: Kyle Schwarber $6,300 (L), Bryce Harper $5,400 (L), Trea Turner $5,000 (R), Brandon Marsh $3,800 (L), Alec Bohm $3,100 (R)
Pitchers
Sunday gives us a legitimate ace tier and a couple of mid-priced arms with louder skills than their ERAs. I'd rather pay up today than get cute.
Cam Schlittler (NYY) vs BOS | $10,700 | CASH
You can stop looking for reasons to avoid him, because I tried and came up empty. Schlittler pairs a 9.93 K/9 with a 1.54 BB/9, the ERA estimators all sit in the 2s, and Boston walks in carrying the lowest implied total on the board at 3.19. He tops today's pitcher pricing and earns every dollar of it in cash. The wind blowing out behind him is the only blemish, and he's allowed all of four homers in 76 innings.
Jacob deGrom (TEX) vs CLE | $9,600 | CASH
The strikeouts haven't gone anywhere: 10.93 per nine, fewer than two walks against them, and a 17.5% swinging-strike rate that says hitters still can't find the ball. Cleveland at a 3.2 implied total inside a roof is about as soft as a matchup gets. I'll note the homer rate is up this year and an 85.5% strand rate will sag eventually, but probably not against this lineup. Lock him in next to Schlittler if you can afford the pair.
Kevin Gausman (TOR) vs BAL | $9,000 | CASH
Gausman is the quiet third option while the two names above soak up attention. A 3.03 xFIP with a 1.68 BB/9, a closed roof in Toronto, and Baltimore implied at just 3.51 runs. The strikeout ceiling is a notch below the aces, which caps the tournament appeal, but the floor is sturdy enough that I'd use him as the cash pivot without a second thought if you need the extra $1,700.
Aaron Nola (PHI) vs CWS | $8,000 | GPP
DraftKings is pricing the 5.59 ERA instead of the pitcher, and that's the opening. Nola's xFIP and SIERA both sit at 3.24, his strikeouts are intact, and right-handed hitters have managed almost nothing against him: a 2.35 xFIP with one walk every sixteen innings or so to that side. Vegas hung a 3.58 on Chicago for a reason. I'll make the fuller regression argument below, but the short version is that this is the best price-to-skill gap on the slate.
Jack Flaherty (DET) vs SEA | $7,700 | GPP
Flaherty is the arm whose surface line lies the loudest. He punches out eleven per nine, the SIERA reads 3.62 against a 5.35 ERA, and the price has sagged to $7,700, presumably a tax on the walks. Fair enough: five free passes per nine is scary, Seattle's implied total is a healthy 4.42, and I literally just told you to play Raley against him. I'm fine holding both positions in different tournament builds. If Flaherty's command shows up, he hits his ceiling; if it doesn't, the Raley side cashes instead.
Pitcher Regression to Watch
Two months of season is enough for the estimators to mean something, and two Sunday starters occupy the extremes of the luck spectrum.
Aaron Nola (PHI), Positive Regression Candidate
Everything underneath Nola's ugly 5.59 ERA points the other way. The xFIP and SIERA agree at 3.24, opponents are hitting .335 on balls in play against him, and only 68% of his runners have been stranded, both numbers well on the wrong side of normal for a pitcher with his stuff. His one real flaw is the lefty matchup, where 28.6% of fly balls have left the yard, and a White Sox lineup implied at 3.58 runs is not the group to make him pay for it. Sunday looks like the day the line starts correcting.
Michael McGreevy (STL), Negative Regression Candidate
McGreevy's 3.00 ERA is doing a lot of work that his skills aren't. He strikes out under six per nine with an 8.2% swinging-strike rate, and the shine comes from a .249 batted-ball average plus an 82.5% strand rate that no contact pitcher holds all summer. His xFIP says he's been a 4.00 pitcher wearing a 3.00 costume. Cincinnati gets the first crack at the correction, and a few Reds bats at thin rostership make a sneaky pairing with the St. Louis stack on the other side of the same game.
Final Thoughts
My cash builds start with two of the three expensive arms, and Schlittler is the one I refuse to cut. From there the bats follow the walks: Wetherholt and Burleson from the St. Louis side, Olson if the salary works, and Gorman at $2,900 or Yastrzemski at $3,200 as the releases that make the math fit. That skeleton leaves enough for one more mid-priced bat, and Raley is usually who I land on.
One housekeeping note for an early card: first pitch arrives just after midday, so the batting orders here are projections until the teams post them. Philadelphia and St. Louis are the two I'd confirm before you lock anything, since both stacks lean on specific lefties sitting in specific slots. Check your lineups against the late news and you're done.
For tournaments, my favorite move is treating the Cardinals game as a two-way pool: the STL lefty stack as the base, with a Reds bat or two against McGreevy layered into a share of builds. Kurtz and the Athletics give you a quieter path since Houston's roof keeps that game out of the weather conversation, and Schwarber at $6,300 against a left-handed starter is exactly the sort of matchup label that creates a discount on the best bat of the day. Enjoy the early lock, and may your five-run innings land in the right stack.
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.