Weather to Watch
Philadelphia at Baltimore | Oriole Park at Camden Yards | Clear, 87F | Wind: 5 mph WSW
Warm, dry, and pushing out. Camden gets an evening with the breeze angled toward the seats, and that combination lands near a 12% add to home run odds on my read, with left-handed swings collecting a bit more of it than the righties do.
St. Louis at Toronto | Rogers Centre | Overcast, 76F | Wind: 4 mph SE
The roof projects open over mild air with almost nothing moving. Rogers plays close to its listed park factor tonight, a small nudge up and nothing you build around.
Arizona at Cleveland | Progressive Field | Overcast, 82F | Wind: 5 mph NNW
Eighty-two degrees does more for a fly ball here than a soft five-mile headwind takes away. I land on a mild positive, roughly 5% on homers, shared evenly by both dugouts.
Miami at New York Mets | Citi Field | Clear, 84F | Wind: 4 mph NE
Warm night in Queens with the air drifting in from the outfield. The heat wins that argument by a narrow margin, though Citi still grades as one of the tougher power spots on the board.
Washington at Atlanta | Truist Park | Overcast, 89F | Wind: 6 mph WSW
Truist has the second-best hitting air on the slate tonight. Eighty-nine degrees, humidity at 31%, and a breeze pushing toward right come out near a 15% bump.
Kansas City at Colorado | Coors Field | Overcast, 91F | Wind: 8 mph ENE
Coors being Coors. Ninety-one degrees at altitude with humidity down at 16% moves the ball plenty before anyone brings up the crosswind, and righty swings take the larger share since that wind cuts across the lefty pull angle instead of helping it.
Milwaukee at Los Angeles Angels | Angel Stadium | Clear, 88F | Wind: 8 mph WSW
Anaheim almost never earns a mention in this section. Tonight it does, because an 88-degree evening with an eight-mile flow toward the seats grades out around 12% for power.
Detroit at Athletics | Sutter Health Park | Clear, 97F | Wind: 10 mph SW
Ninety-seven degrees, humidity at 16%, and a ten-mile wind running out. My numbers put this at a 23% boost to home runs, the strongest hitting environment anywhere tonight, and both bullpens are going to feel it before the ninth. Nobody is safe here.
San Francisco at San Diego | Petco Park | Mostly Clear, 74F | Wind: 7 mph NW
Heavy marine air at 86% humidity with the breeze angled in. Petco grades a touch below neutral for power, the one game tonight where the conditions side with the arms.
Boston at Los Angeles Dodgers | Dodger Stadium | Clear, 76F | Wind: 6 mph WSW
A pleasant 76 with a soft push toward right field. Worth about 6% for left-handed power, which I file under nice to have rather than roster changing.
Minnesota at Seattle | T-Mobile Park | Clear, 78F | Wind: 5 mph N
The roof projects open and the wind angles in off the water. Close enough to neutral that I would not move a single player up or down over it.
Two closed buildings tonight: Tropicana, and Daikin where the roof projects shut. The parks still matter in both, the forecast does not.
HR Calls
Kyle Schwarber (PHI) $5,900 vs Brandon Young
DraftKings has not priced in what happens to Young when a left-handed bat steps in. His work against righties is good, a 3.04 xFIP with a 24.6% strikeout rate, but flip the side of the plate and it comes apart: a 4.86 xFIP, a walk rate above 10%, and 42.1% hard contact allowed. A pitcher issuing that many free passes to lefties is a pitcher living behind in counts, and the strike he is forced to deliver in those counts is the pitch Schwarber has spent the season punishing, 42% of his fly balls against right-handed pitching clearing the wall with 58% hard contact behind them. Warm Camden air with the wind angled out closes it.
Kyle Stowers (MIA) $4,000 vs Freddy Peralta
Let me put the counterargument up front: Citi Field is not helping, the breeze is angled in, and Miami is implied for under four runs. He is on my card regardless. Peralta has been a different pitcher against left-handed bats this season, surrendering 1.60 HR/9 and a .478 slugging mark, with 21.0% of the fly balls he allows to that side leaving the yard, and an 8.5% walk rate to that side means he pitches from behind often enough to hand out mistakes in the zone. Stowers has answered right-handed pitching with a 130 wRC+, a .506 slugging mark, and hard contact near 59%, and his last 30 days have been louder still. Four thousand buys that. I am not arguing with it.
Spencer Torkelson (DET) $3,800 vs Jeffrey Springs
Of the three names here, this is the one I want most. Springs against right-handed hitters is the softest matchup I have graded in a while: 2.64 HR/9, a .547 slugging mark allowed, 34.7% of contact against him hit in the air, and 25.6% of those fly balls turning into homers. Torkelson has handled southpaws to a 109 wRC+ this year, with more thump in the last 30 days than his season line carries. Now put it in 97-degree Sacramento air with the wind running out. The $3,800 tag stops making sense to me.
Stacks to Target
1. Detroit Tigers vs Jeffrey Springs (L) | Implied Total: 6.21 | ROO Score: 6.7/10 | Cash
Detroit is implied for 6.21 runs, seven tenths of a run clear of every other offense, and the reasons pile on top of each other. Right-handed bats have taken Springs for a .380 wOBA and a .547 slugging mark with 2.64 HR/9, and his last five outings have run only 4.27 innings apiece, which hands the middle of this game to an Athletics relief group carrying a 5.79 xFIP and 2.12 HR/9. The Detroit card is right-handed almost top to bottom, with Torkelson at a 109 wRC+ against southpaws, Vierling at 111 and a 12.6% strikeout rate in the split, and Lee at 101. Dingler is the expensive piece and I want to be straight about it: his damage this year has come against right-handed pitching, so he is a salary decision rather than a matchup one. The weather settles the rest. Yes, this will be the most popular offense on the board, and the pieces are cheap enough that paying that tax still leaves room for two arms.
Core pieces: Dillon Dingler $5,800 (R), Spencer Torkelson $3,800 (R), Matt Vierling $3,300 (R), Hao-Yu Lee $3,000 (R), Javier Baez $2,800 (R)
2. Colorado Rockies vs Michael Wacha (R) | Implied Total: 5.50 | ROO Score: 6.0/10 | Cash
The market has both sides of this Coors game at 5.50 apiece and the field has looked right past it. Wacha is not a bad pitcher, which is the part that keeps ownership down, but his splits tilt the wrong way for tonight: right-handed bats have slugged .459 off him with 1.41 HR/9, 20.9% of their fly balls have left, and 40.4% of their contact has been hard. Goodman is the centerpiece at a 129 wRC+ against righties with 23 homers, Moniak has been even louder in the split at a 158 wRC+ and a .614 slugging mark, and Karros is the cheapest bat in the order while carrying a 121 wRC+ versus right-handed pitching. Whatever Wacha leaves behind goes to a Royals pen at a 5.46 xFIP, so the late innings offer no shelter either. My ownership numbers have Colorado drawing less attention than eight offenses with lower implied totals. Call it the biggest mispricing on the slate.
Core pieces: Hunter Goodman $6,000 (R), Mickey Moniak $5,500 (L), Jake McCarthy $4,600 (L), Willi Castro $3,700 (S), Kyle Karros $3,300 (R)
3. Philadelphia Phillies vs Brandon Young (R) | Implied Total: 4.40 | ROO Score: 4.2/10 | GPP
A 4.40 implied total does not usually earn a spot here, so let me explain. Young owns one of the widest handedness gaps I have looked at this season, a 3.04 xFIP with a 24.6% strikeout rate against righties against a 4.86 xFIP, a 10.1% walk rate, and a 15.7% strikeout rate versus lefties, and Philadelphia runs four left-handed bats through the first six lineup spots. Harper is the best hitter in the matchup by a distance, a 168 wRC+ and a .608 slugging mark against right-handed pitching, with Schwarber a step behind him and Marsh and Stott offering two cheap routes to five-man exposure. Camden's warm night with the wind angled out adds better than 12% to homers, and the Baltimore bullpen at a 4.54 xFIP is ordinary rather than a wall. Philadelphia sits far down the ownership board for an offense with a matchup this clean. That disconnect earned it the third slot.
Core pieces: Kyle Schwarber $5,900 (L), Bryce Harper $4,900 (L), Trea Turner $4,500 (R), Brandon Marsh $3,600 (L), Bryson Stott $3,400 (L)
Pitchers
Dylan Cease (TOR) vs STL | $10,700 | CASH
There is no clever angle here and I am not inventing one. Cease is striking out 36.5% of the hitters he faces with a 2.42 xFIP sitting right beside a 2.47 ERA, which tells me none of this is borrowed. St. Louis is priced for 2.94 runs, the smallest number any offense carries tonight. He will be the highest-owned player on the board by a wide margin tonight, and I cannot put together an argument against him in cash.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto (LAD) vs BOS | $10,200 | CASH
Two arms above ten thousand is a lot to ask on a 13-game slate. This one earns it. Yamamoto's 0.90 WHIP is the lowest among tonight's starters, he walks fewer than 6% of the hitters he sees, and Boston is implied for under four runs. If I am picking at it, a .226 opponent average on contact in play is doing quiet work under that 2.73 ERA, and his xFIP sits half a run higher. Against Boston that is a nitpick.
Nathan Eovaldi (TEX) vs HOU | $9,300 | CASH
The 4.05 ERA is lying to you. Underneath it sit a 2.89 SIERA, a 9.58 K/9 against a 2.14 BB/9, and better than 20% of his fly balls leaving the yard, a figure that climbs past 31% against right-handed bats specifically, which is not a number anyone carries for a full season. Houston is implied for 4.08 runs and the Daikin roof projects closed, which takes the forecast out of it. The field has already found him and he will not be cheap in ownership, but paying for popular is fine when the arm underneath is this much better than the line beside his name.
Bryce Miller (SEA) vs MIN | $9,500 | GPP
Miller is the evaluation I keep going back and forth on. A 26.9% strikeout rate against a 4.2% walk rate is elite by any measure, and only St. Louis is projected for fewer runs than Minnesota's 3.00. What keeps me out of cash is the support underneath: an 82% strand rate and a .242 opponent average on contact in play are both propping up that 2.73 ERA, and both come back down. He is popular enough that I am not being paid for the risk. Tournaments only for me.
Shane Drohan (MIL) vs LAA | $7,700 | GPP
Drohan gets one of the four softest offenses on the board and a price two thousand under the top tier. The Angels are implied for 3.54 runs, his 9.08 K/9 gives him a route to a big score, and a 3.01 FIP says the strikeout and walk profile is real even where his other estimators disagree with each other. The catch is the innings ceiling: six innings has been his recent norm, so a monster line needs the strikeouts to show up early. At moderate ownership I want the shares.
Pitcher Regression to Watch
Nick Martinez (TB), Negative Regression Candidate
A 2.46 ERA usually means something went right. In Martinez's case, almost all of it is one thing. He has stranded 85.8% of the runners who reach him, roughly thirteen points above where pitchers live over a career. Underneath sit a 14.2% strikeout rate, a 5.15 K/9, and an 8.1% swinging strike rate, a contact pitcher whose 4.45 xFIP runs nearly two full runs above that ERA. Chicago's lineup is the one standing there when the bill comes due, in a dome where the conditions neither help nor hurt them, and at a 3.61 implied total nobody is bracing for it.
Nathan Eovaldi (TEX), Positive Regression Candidate
The long version sits above. Compressed: a 4.05 ERA three quarters of a run above his 3.28 xFIP and more than a run above his 2.89 SIERA, a .289 opponent average on contact in play, and a share of fly balls leaving the yard that no starter sustains. His strikeout and walk numbers never moved while the results did, which is usually the tell. A closed roof in Houston against a lineup implied for four runs is a reasonable night for the payback to land.
Final Thoughts
Cash starts with Cease. Yamamoto or Eovaldi goes beside him depending on how the bats price out. The offense comes from Detroit, where Torkelson at $3,800, Vierling at $3,300 and Baez at $2,800 buy three swings in the best hitting weather on the board for under ten thousand combined, with Dingler added at the top when the salary allows. Karros at $3,300 out of the Colorado order is where I go when a roster comes up two or three hundred short.
One thing to revisit before lock: the Philadelphia pitching plan. Brian Keller has thrown three big-league innings this season, so Baltimore builds should be graded against the Phillies relief group rather than against him, which is a different conversation than his salary suggests, and Alonso in the two hole is the Baltimore bat that gains most from it. Out west, Springs has been going a shade over four innings a turn, meaning the Athletics bullpen enters early and the bottom of the Detroit order matters nearly as much as the top.
Colorado is my favorite tournament spot on the board. Both sides of that game sit at 5.50 with the attention pointed elsewhere, which puts the whole 11-run environment on sale from either dugout, and Caglianone at $4,900 against Sugano's 2.64 HR/9 versus lefties is the best Kansas City piece to pair with it. Philadelphia is the cheaper way to separate, and the stack section carries that argument. One more angle if you want it: Milwaukee against Ryan Johnson, who has served up 2.35 HR/9 to left-handed bats, 2.41 HR/9 to right-handed bats, and 56% hard contact overall, in an Angel Stadium giving out a 12% power boost tonight.
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.