Weather to Watch
Chicago Cubs at Washington | Nationals Park | Overcast, 93F | Wind: 9 mph WSW
Ninety-three degrees in Washington with the air pointed at the outfield. Reorganize your board around this one. Lefty swings take the larger share of a very large number, and you will want that in your pocket when you get down to the stack section.
Seattle at New York Yankees | Yankee Stadium | Overcast, 85F | Wind: 10 mph WNW
Ten miles an hour aimed past the fence at 85 degrees, in a building that tilts toward pull-side lefties before anybody checks a forecast. Two readings today can move a projection on their own. This is the other one.
Cleveland at Detroit | Comerica Park | Overcast, 84F | Wind: 4 mph WSW
Warm and still, and the breeze runs sideways instead of doing any work. Take the small bump the thermometer gives you and leave it there.
Boston at Toronto | Rogers Centre | Overcast, 76F | Wind: 7 mph SSW
Toronto is forecast to keep the panels up, with a mild breeze angled toward the outfield. Lefty swings get a bit more of it than righties do, and this is the one reading here that could flip inside an hour.
Cincinnati at Chicago White Sox | Rate Field | Overcast, 76F | Wind: 3 mph SSE
Humidity at 87% and no wind worth the word. This is the yard that takes runs away today, so when I get to the bats in this game I am selling you on the pitcher they face rather than the conditions.
One roof shut this afternoon. Miami closes loanDepot for Pittsburgh, which puts the dimensions in charge and takes the forecast out of it.
HR Calls
Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC) $6,600 vs Cade Cavalli
Crow-Armstrong spent two years as a glove-first center fielder who hit a little, and he now walks into this matchup carrying a 153 wRC+, a .285 ISO, 20 homers, and hard contact on 51.4% of his batted balls against right-handed pitching. Cavalli is a good arm whose only soft edge happens to face this exact side of the plate. Lefties own a .426 slug off him at 1.22 HR/9, and more than 18% of the fly balls they lift off him have landed in the seats. Then you stage it in 93-degree Washington air with a tailwind. He is the priciest bat here. I want him anyway.
Miguel Vargas (CWS) $4,800 vs Andrew Abbott
Left-handed pitching has been feeding Vargas since April, and it is not a small edge. He carries a 149 wRC+ and a .284 ISO in the split with 10 homers in 160 trips, squaring up 55.6% of his contact, a number that clears the elite bar however you scale it. Abbott has issued a 5.04 BB/9 to right-handed hitters in that split while striking out only 5.74 of them, and a pitcher living in three-ball counts stops choosing his spot and starts throwing the fastball he would rather not. Righties have homered on 18.8% of the fly balls they put in play against him. Rate Field does him no favors. This one has to leave off the barrel.
Griffin Conine (MIA) $3,500 vs Braxton Ashcraft
Let me hand you the objection first, since it is a real cost: loanDepot with the roof shut is the least generous power address in use today. I am buying past it because Conine's batted-ball line has gone somewhere absurd, a .331 ISO on the season, a .448 ISO across his last 15 games, barrels on 20.0% of his contact, and 58.8% hard contact. Ashcraft is a fine pitcher who becomes a very different one to left-handed hitters, and they have hung a .435 slug, 1.57 HR/9, 45.2% hard contact, and a 21.3% HR/FB mark on him. For $3,500 I will eat the park. The matchup is worth it.
Stacks to Target
1. Chicago Cubs vs Cade Cavalli (R) | Implied Total: 4.85 | ROO Score: 5.0/10 | Cash
The largest implied total today sits inside the friendliest hitting air today, and that pairing arrives too rarely to overthink. Cavalli deserves better than his 3.58 ERA and his 9.90 K/9 is legitimate, though neither one survives 93 degrees with a tailwind, and his 1.22 HR/9 to lefties points straight at where the Cubs do damage. Cubs lefties have hit for a 122 wRC+ and a .200 ISO versus righties while squaring up 44.7% of their contact, with Crow-Armstrong at 153 and Happ at 132 in front. Washington's relief corps keeps this alive after the sixth, having run a 6.41 xFIP and 2.60 HR/9 against right-handed hitters over the past month, so Suzuki and Bregman collect the soft end of the late innings. Everyone serious will be here. I will not invent a reason to be somewhere else.
Core pieces: Pete Crow-Armstrong $6,600 (L), Seiya Suzuki $5,700 (R), Alex Bregman $4,700 (R), Michael Busch $4,500 (L), Ian Happ $4,400 (S)
2. Boston vs Max Scherzer (R) | Implied Total: 4.71 | ROO Score: 4.6/10 | GPP
Whatever Scherzer had left, hitters have stopped missing it. His swinging-strike rate has collapsed to 6.4%, which is what happens when a lineup starts picking the ball up out of the hand, and the homers came right behind it at 2.75 HR/9 with 19.4% of his fly balls departing. He is also averaging under four innings a start, and I weigh that as heavily as any rate here, because it turns the game over to a Toronto relief group that has allowed a .368 wOBA and 1.64 HR/9 to righties. Boston sends five of them. Contreras leads them at a 150 wRC+ and a .230 ISO in the matchup, with Rutschman switching into the same edge at 122. Interest will pile onto the two Chicago offenses instead, which is the entire appeal of being here.
Core pieces: Wilyer Abreu $5,000 (L), Willson Contreras $4,900 (R), Ceddanne Rafaela $4,500 (R), Adley Rutschman $4,100 (S), Jarren Duran $3,900 (L)
3. Chicago White Sox vs Andrew Abbott (L) | Implied Total: 4.70 | ROO Score: 4.5/10 | Cash
Abbott has been sharp against his own side all year, a 3.43 xFIP with 10.25 K/9, and none of that applies this afternoon. Turn him around and it inverts: a 5.01 xFIP to righties, 5.74 K/9, 5.04 BB/9, and nearly 19% of their fly balls reaching the seats. Call it a run and a half of daylight, pointed directly at the side of the plate Chicago is built on, and the White Sox run six righties through this order. That unit sits at a 107 wRC+ with a .191 ISO opposite southpaws, and Meidroth paces it at a 159 wRC+ with Vargas right behind at 149. Two things keep me honest. Rate Field is damp and windless, and Cincinnati's relievers have been the better half of this game behind a 3.35 ERA, so the runs need to show up before he leaves.
Core pieces: Munetaka Murakami $5,300 (L), Miguel Vargas $4,800 (R), Colson Montgomery $4,300 (L), Chase Meidroth $3,500 (R), Randal Grichuk $3,000 (R)
Pitchers
Payton Tolle (BOS) vs TOR | $9,500 | CASH
Nothing on this board earns more of my trust. Tolle sits at a 10.4 K/9 on a 13.7% swinging-strike rate, and his ERA and his xFIP land within two hundredths of each other, meaning he has borrowed none of the run prevention. The opponent is why I am paying up. Righties have managed a 3.01 xFIP against him with a 12.0 K/9, and Toronto fills seven of nine spots with righties out of a lineup carrying an 84 wRC+ against southpaws. My one hesitation is a 50.4% fly-ball rate under an open roof with the breeze out, which is a real if minor tax on a very good arm.
Max Fried (NYY) vs SEA | $8,500 | CASH
Seattle carries the lowest implied total of the six games and the weakest right-handed platoon group on this board, a 72 wRC+ against southpaws, and Fried draws four of those bats. His 0.97 WHIP is the cleanest number in this section. The 0.11 HR/9 on a 1.8% HR/FB rate is the part I would call pretty unsustainable, and it barely matters against an offense priced at 3.27. Workload is what I would flag: he has averaged 4.5 innings over his last five outings, and the Seattle pen that follows him has leaked its own share. The matchup is elite and the leash is short. I will still take him.
Braxton Ashcraft (PIT) vs MIA | $8,200 | CASH
DraftKings is billing for a 4.09 ERA and handing you a 3.20 xFIP and a 2.84 SIERA, the widest spread between price and skill in this section. Ashcraft posts a 9.9 K/9 against a 2.18 BB/9, backed by a 13.7% swinging-strike rate, and a .298 average on contact next to a 71.2% strand rate covers the entire difference between his ERA and his talent. His flaw is the long ball to left-handed hitters at 1.57 HR/9, and Miami does deploy four of them. Then you remember the roof is shut in the stingiest power yard here, against a lineup priced at 3.74. That is what carries him over the cash bar.
Parker Messick (CLE) vs DET | $8,700 | GPP
Messick has the prettiest surface line of any arm in this section and I believe about two-thirds of it. A .259 average on contact and an 80.1% strand rate are doing the propping, his 3.09 xFIP is a half-run less flattering, and that keeps him out of my cash tier even in a good spot. The spot itself is genuine. Detroit fields six right-handed bats and that is his stronger side by a wide margin, where a 2.90 xFIP and 9.2 K/9 have produced a .255 wOBA allowed. Comerica is warm with a crosswind doing nothing at all. I am happy to take the swing in a tournament. I am not building a cash lineup on it.
Davis Martin (CWS) vs CIN | $6,700 | GPP
Hardly anybody is going to roster him, and the 4.17 ERA is why. It also sells him short by about half a run, since a 3.71 xFIP and a .324 average on contact describe a better pitcher than the record does, and 0.73 HR/9 in a park that swallows fly balls is the shape I want in this weather. Cincinnati checks in under four runs, the Rate Field air is heavy and dead, and the Reds send only two lefty bats at the split where Martin leaks, a 3.64 BB/9 and a 4.01 xFIP to that side. He is cheap innings, which is how the top of your roster stays expensive.
Pitcher Regression to Watch
Keider Montero (DET), Negative Regression Candidate
Detroit has been getting away with something here all season. Montero carries a 3.39 ERA sitting more than two full runs beneath a 5.56 xFIP, and there is nothing in the profile to justify the gap. He has run a .234 average on balls in play, roughly sixty points below where a pitcher lives across a full season, and he got there on a 6.34 K/9 with a 7.3% swinging-strike rate, so no swing-and-miss cushion sits under the good luck. Better than half of what he allows goes airborne. That is the last ingredient you want under a batted-ball number that low. Cleveland is the offense that collects when this snaps back, and the lefty half of that order is where the money sits, since his xFIP against left-handed hitters is 4.85 next to 3.09 to righties. Kwan, DeLauter, and Nathaniel Lowe are the swings I would aim at it.
Kevin Gausman (CHC), Positive Regression Candidate
Nobody here has been served worse by an ERA than Gausman. His 3.48 xFIP and 3.37 SIERA describe an arm most of a run better than 4.30, a .309 average on contact has trailed him since April, and his 67.8% strand rate is the lowest of any starter working today. He is still whiffing hitters at an 8.8 K/9 clip behind a 12.3% swinging-strike rate, so the arm has not gone anywhere. So why am I fading him? Because 93 degrees at Nationals Park with the wind out is the worst place on this board to put a fly-ball arm, and no amount of underlying skill outpitches a building. Bookmark him for a cool night somewhere that does not inflate fly balls and the price becomes a gift.
Final Thoughts
Cash builds start at Tolle. Ashcraft at $8,200 covers the second slot without draining what the bats need. From there I want Crow-Armstrong plus one more Cub, Vargas handling the White Sox piece, and Grichuk at $3,000 doing the work at the bottom of the salary math. Edgar Quero at $2,200 is the near-minimum catcher that makes it all close, and I would burn that slot before touching anything I actually want up top.
Two situations deserve a look near lock. Toronto is projected to leave the panels up with a mild breeze toward the outfield, and closing them erases that help in the game where I have tournament money on Boston bats. The other one sits in the Washington order, where Abimelec Ortiz is slotted second at $2,200 on a .409 ISO over his last 15 games, and a card that drops him to seventh or eighth decides whether that price is a gift or a trap.
Boston is my differentiation. Scherzer is giving up 2.75 HR/9 while lasting under four innings a start, the Toronto pen behind him has been worse than he has against right-handed bats, and the field will spend its exposure on the two Chicago offenses. Martin is the same idea applied to the mound, an ignored arm working in a park that takes runs away, and he pays for the Crow-Armstrong slot you otherwise could not fit. One more differentiating move, if you want it: take Conine and a second Marlin over a fifth Cub, since Ashcraft gives up more to left-handed hitters than anyone else pitching here and nobody is shopping that game.
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.