Weather to Watch
Tampa Bay at Colorado | Coors Field | Overcast, 94F | Wind: 9 mph SSE
Ninety-four degrees, humidity down at 11%, and the wind drifting out to left at altitude. All four of those variables pull the same direction at once, which almost never happens, and nothing else tonight comes close.
St. Louis at New York Yankees | Yankee Stadium | Clear, 77F | Wind: 8 mph NW
Warm night in the Bronx with the air moving sideways instead of helping anybody. The short porch in right does not require a tailwind. It requires left-handed bats standing in there, and this game has a pile of them.
Pittsburgh at Milwaukee | American Family Field | Clear, 76F | Wind: 8 mph SE
Milwaukee looks like it plays uncovered tonight, and the wind comes back over the infield rather than helping anything out. Mild evening, slight drag, in a yard that already holds baseballs.
Los Angeles Dodgers at Chicago Cubs | Wrigley Field | Clear, 71F | Wind: 6 mph E
Six miles per hour is close to nothing, but the angle is enough to trim what carries. Wrigley without help off the lake is just an ordinary ballpark, and this total says the market knows it.
Three roofs shut tonight, in Phoenix, Houston, and Arlington. Nothing but the dimensions matters in those three buildings.
HR Calls
Yordan Alvarez (HOU) $6,500 vs Shane Bieber
Sometimes paying up feels less like a decision and more like an obligation. Bieber is issuing free passes to left-handed hitters at a 6.62 BB/9 clip with a 16.9% walk rate, and a command profile that shaky lives in three-ball counts. Whatever he has to throw to escape ball three is what gets destroyed. Alvarez has been the best bat in the sport versus right-handed pitching this season, running a 206 wRC+ with a .690 slugging mark and 56.8% hard contact, and the roof will be closed so nothing outside gets a say in either direction.
Victor Mesa (TB) $4,300 vs Michael Lorenzen
Coors gets sold as a Rockies story every single night, and tonight the visitors are the ones built to use it. Left-handed bats have shredded Lorenzen: a .610 slugging mark, 2.01 HR/9, and better than a fifth of the fly balls they put up on him leave the yard, with a 4.53 BB/9 attached to that same split. Walking lefties at that rate means pitching from behind and then having to come back over the heart of the plate with something straight. Mesa has been hammering exactly that pitch, carrying a .364 ISO across his last 30 days, hitting sixth in the largest implied total anywhere.
Spencer Jones (NYY) $3,100 vs Michael McGreevy
DraftKings has him at thirty-one hundred dollars and the batted-ball profile says that is a miss. McGreevy runs a 5.02 K/9 versus lefty bats and gives up a 14.3% HR/FB rate inside that split, which means the ball ends up in play on nearly every trip and a real share of it travels. Jones hits the ball harder than anybody else in this lineup, 71.8% hard contact off righties with a 76.5 mph bat speed, and the swing-and-miss riding along with that is the entire explanation for the price. Fifth in the order, left-handed, in the Bronx. I would take that swing.
Stacks to Target
1. Tampa Bay Rays vs Michael Lorenzen (R) | Implied Total: 6.99 | ROO Score: 6.5/10 | Cash
Just under seven implied runs is the biggest number I have seen on a main slate in weeks, and the market is not being subtle about why. Lorenzen carries a 6.56 ERA that a 6.52 xFIP endorses, so there is no better pitcher hiding underneath, and left-handed bats have hung a .431 wOBA and a .610 slugging mark on him. Jonathan Aranda sits at a 141 wRC+ versus righties while Junior Caminero has slugged .547 with nearly two of every five balls he lifts going out, so the front of this order handles both handedness questions unassisted. Lorenzen has also averaged 4.6 innings across his last five turns, which drops the middle of the game onto a Colorado relief group at a 5.37 xFIP and a 5.00 ERA. Everybody lands here and I have no interest in fighting that in cash. One caution: Cedric Mullins will draw far more roster share than an 86 wRC+ against righties deserves, so I would spend that slot on Aranda or Mesa.
Core pieces: Junior Caminero $6,800 (R), Yandy Diaz $5,800 (R), Jonathan Aranda $4,800 (L), Victor Mesa $4,300 (L), Richie Palacios $3,900 (L)
2. Houston Astros vs Shane Bieber (R) | Implied Total: 4.91 | ROO Score: 5.3/10 | Cash
The name on the marquee is doing all the work here and it stopped earning that quite a while ago. Right-handed hitters have slugged .627 off Bieber with a 2.63 HR/9 and two of every five fly balls clearing, while the left side draws walks at a 16.9% rate, so both halves of the Houston card get a clean route. Alvarez anchors the obvious way, with Isaac Paredes at a 128 wRC+ versus righties and Christian Walker at 26.6% HR/FB in the same split as the two cheaper bats beside him. The complication is worth stating outright: Toronto's relief corps at a 4.18 xFIP is the better part of that staff, so this is a wager on four and a half innings rather than on a full night. The roof will be shut, so weather never enters into it.
Core pieces: Yordan Alvarez $6,500 (L), Jeremy Pena $5,000 (R), Isaac Paredes $4,200 (R), Christian Walker $4,000 (R), Yainer Diaz $3,700 (R)
3. New York Yankees vs Michael McGreevy (R) | Implied Total: 5.19 | ROO Score: 5.2/10 | GPP
Second-largest implied number tonight, in the friendliest yard in baseball for the handedness this roster is stacked with, and hardly anyone shows up. McGreevy is the softest assignment nobody mentions: a 5.02 K/9 versus lefty bats, a 4.65 xFIP, 1.13 HR/9, and 42.7% hard contact surrendered inside that split. An arm that cannot miss bats has to survive on where the contact lands, and he has not been surviving on it. Ben Rice is the one I want above all the rest, at a 168 wRC+ with a .607 slugging mark and a 34.4% HR/FB rate versus right-handed pitching. Grisham, Dominguez, Jones, Chisholm, and Wells stack five more left-handed swings behind him. St. Louis relief has been ordinary at a 4.60 xFIP, so nothing about the back half of this game bails the Cardinals out either. If I am picking one place to be different tonight, it is here.
Core pieces: Ben Rice $5,900 (L), Jazz Chisholm $4,800 (L), Trent Grisham $4,300 (L), Jasson Dominguez $3,800 (S), Spencer Jones $3,100 (L)
Pitchers
Cam Schlittler (NYY) vs STL | $11,500 | CASH
He is the priciest arm on the board and I cannot put together an argument against him. St. Louis is priced for 2.81 runs, the smallest implied number tonight and not by a narrow margin, while Schlittler has put away 30.7% of everybody he has faced against a 4.8% walk rate. Where I would push back: a .264 batting average on balls in play plus an 81.3% strand rate are both flattering, so the 2.05 ERA overstates him. A 2.78 xFIP and a 2.24 SIERA do not, and both of those still lead the slate by a distance. He will be the chalk and he ought to be.
Logan Webb (SF) vs TEX | $9,500 | CASH
His box scores read meaner than he has pitched. Webb has stranded just 66.5% of the runners who reach him, the sort of figure that repairs itself, and both a 3.62 xFIP and a 3.52 SIERA land under his 3.93 ERA. He generates grounders on 57.7% of contact, a shape that travels into a closed roof against an offense priced for four runs. What he does not do is miss bats at a 7.03 K/9, which caps the ceiling and makes this a floor purchase. At the price I am comfortable with that trade.
Matthew Boyd (CHC) vs LAD | $8,300 | GPP
Park and platoon both break toward him and the salary registered neither. Left-handed hitters have mustered a .237 slugging mark versus Boyd with a 3.05 xFIP in that split, and Los Angeles puts Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and Kyle Tucker into the box from that side. Wrigley with the air crossing instead of carrying pulls a few points out of the power environment on a night the Cubs are priced at 3.74 runs. A 14.2% swinging strike rate is legitimate, and his 3.41 ERA and 3.76 xFIP agree with one another, so neither number is lying to me. Almost no one will have him at this price, which is the part I like most.
Brandon Sproat (MIL) vs PIT | $8,000 | GPP
Pittsburgh at 3.62 implied runs is the entire reason to look this direction. Sproat misses bats at a 9.37 K/9 and a 3.54 SIERA insists the raw stuff plays up here, though a 4.49 BB/9 and 1.66 HR/9 mean he can gift a weak offense a rally they never earned. The breeze coming back in at American Family at least addresses half of that problem. I would fire him in a tournament and I would hate watching it in cash.
Michael King (SD) vs ARI | $7,500 | GPP
That 3.38 ERA is the trap tonight. A .254 batting average on balls in play plus a 78.4% strand rate both sit at the outer edge of what anybody holds across a full season, and a 4.23 xFIP is the version of this arm I believe in. The stuff is good; a 3.60 BB/9 is what stops him short of genuinely good. Arizona is priced for 4.60 runs behind a closed roof, which is nothing like the soft landing the salary implies. Tournaments only, where his strikeout upside can pay for the risk you take on.
Pitcher Regression to Watch
Michael McGreevy (STL), Negative Regression Candidate
On the surface this reads as a young starter putting together a solid season, and the 3.57 ERA supports that story right up until you check the engine. His xFIP and FIP both land at 4.22, a .272 batting average on balls in play is helping, and a 78.0% strand rate has kept most of the traffic from scoring. The mechanism is not complicated. A 5.90 K/9 is the lowest rate among tonight's starters, meaning almost everything gets put in play and he is at the mercy of where it lands. Left-handed hitters already cracked the code, taking a .415 slugging mark and 14.3% HR/FB out of him. The Yankees collect on that bill tonight, and Ben Rice at $5,900 is how I would go get it.
Bubba Chandler (PIT), Positive Regression Candidate
A 4.58 ERA gets nobody excited, which is more or less the point of putting him here. Chandler has stranded only 64.3% of the runners who reach him, among the lowest rates of any starter on this board, and a 4.34 FIP reads the arm as unremarkable instead of bad. He is not fixed. A 4.92 BB/9 is a real, unsolved problem and I am not pretending otherwise. Still, the distance between how he has thrown and how the line looks is wide enough that I would knock the Milwaukee bats down a peg, especially the right-handed ones, since he has limited that side to a .288 slugging mark and 0.36 HR/9.
Final Thoughts
Schlittler anchors and Webb slots in beside him, because one slot buys you the lowest implied total on the board and the other buys a run of rotten strand-rate luck at a discount. Tampa Bay supplies the offense. Caminero and Aranda are the two I would surrender last, and Victor Mesa at $4,300 from the six hole is the discount that squeezes both arms onto the same roster. Ryan McMahon at $2,500 hitting seventh in the Bronx is the other route to salary relief that leaves the middle of a roster intact.
Milwaukee is the spot I would study twice and then decline. A 4.88 implied total reads fine on its own, but Chandler has pitched considerably better than his ERA and the wind is coming back in, and that pairing is worse than the number lets on. Houston's ninth spot is worth one look too, since LaMonte Wade at $2,900 only pays off if that slot survives to first pitch.
The Yankees are the differentiating move. Second-largest implied total, the lowest-strikeout starter available, and left-handed bats top to bottom, all of it sitting at a fraction of the roster share Tampa Bay will carry. If you want both sides of one game, Coors is where to take it: Ian Seymour returns tonight from a multi-week gap between starts, so I would plan on a short leash and fewer innings than usual, which pulls a Tampa Bay bullpen at a 4.80 xFIP into the picture early and hands Colorado bats a path of their own. Hunter Goodman at $6,200 and Cole Carrigg at $4,700 are how I would construct that half.
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.