Weather to Watch
New York Yankees at Baltimore | Oriole Park at Camden Yards | Clear, 88F | Wind: 7 mph W
Eighty-eight and dry at first pitch, with a crosswind that stays mostly out of the equation. The air alone is worth better than a 10% bump to fly balls here, and the left-handed side of that bump is the larger one, which matters a lot given who is hitting.
St. Louis at Cincinnati | Great American Ball Park | Overcast, 84F | Wind: 4 mph SSW
Four miles an hour of wind is functionally none. Warm and still in a yard that already gives up homers on contact that would die elsewhere.
San Francisco at Cleveland | Progressive Field | Overcast, 76F | Wind: 3 mph N
Nothing happening. Seventy-six, overcast, dead air, and Progressive is a below-average home run park before you add any of that.
Los Angeles Dodgers at Colorado | Coors Field | Clear, 90F | Wind: 9 mph ENE
Ninety degrees a mile up. The crosswind is not pushing anything out, but it does not need to, and this is the environment every builder on the slate is going to look at first.
Athletics at Kansas City | Kauffman Stadium | Clear, 85F | Wind: 8 mph NNW
Warm with a modest crosswind, so the air is helping a little. Kauffman is still Kauffman, meaning doubles and triples get rewarded more than the fly ball that dies on the track.
Seattle at Milwaukee | American Family Field | Mostly Clear, 72F | Wind: 6 mph ENE
The roof is projected open, and at 72 with a light breeze there is no reason to close it. About as neutral an environment as this slate offers.
Three roofs handle the rest of the board: Daikin, Globe Life, and the Trop. Forecast is irrelevant in all three, so grade those games on the park and the arm and nothing else.
HR Calls
Junior Caminero (TB) $6,500 vs Max Scherzer
A future Hall of Famer on the mound is the kind of name that makes you hesitate before you attack him, and I think that hesitation is the mistake tonight. Scherzer has surrendered a homer every 3.7 innings this season, with a 55.4% fly ball rate and a 6.4% swinging strike rate, and against righties he has given up 2.16 HR/9 with a third of the fly balls he allows leaving the yard. Caminero pairs a .282 ISO with 50.2% hard contact and a 46.5% pull rate, which is the swing shape that turns a mistake into a souvenir in this building. He is priced like a stud and he is going to be rostered like an afterthought.
Alec Burleson (STL) $4,900 vs Chase Burns
Nothing about the Cardinals right now says go hunting for their bats, and that neglect is what makes this price usable. Burns has been terrific overall, but the lefty side is the crack in it: 4.2 BB/9, a 19.0% HR/FB rate, and 1.25 HR/9 against that side compared to 0.36 against righties. Walking better than four lefties per nine means he is pitching from behind against them more than his headline numbers suggest, and behind in the count is when a 97 mph fastball becomes a fastball a hitter can time. Burleson brings 52.3% hard contact and a 48.1% pull rate into a park that grades out among the friendliest in baseball for a left-handed swing, though I will concede the Cincinnati bullpen is good, so the window here is the first five or six innings.
Salvador Perez (KC) $3,200 vs Jeffrey Springs
The salary save, and I do not think it is close. Right-handed hitters have hammered Springs for 2.53 HR/9 and a .536 slugging mark, with a 25.3% HR/FB rate against that side, and he walks 3.7 of them per nine on top of that, which is a command profile where you get one flat pitch per at bat and Perez does not miss those. His last logged outing was nearly three weeks ago, so I would expect a limited pitch count and an early exit, and the Athletics bullpen has been the softest part of that roster against righties all year. Perez hits fourth, makes hard contact 51.5% of the time, and costs $3,200. That combination does not usually exist.
Stacks to Target
1. New York Yankees vs Chris Bassitt (R) | Implied Total: 5.0 | ROO Score: 5.0/10 | Cash
Not much has gone right for Bassitt since he came back, and the split that explains it is ugly. Left-handed hitters have posted a .400 wOBA and a .520 slugging mark against him with a 5.68 xFIP, 4.79 BB/9, and 1.51 HR/9, and he is carrying a 1.91 WHIP against that side. New York answers with Trent Grisham, Ben Rice, Spencer Jones, Luis Garcia, Jazz Chisholm, Ryan McMahon, and Austin Wells all swinging from the left side, and you will not find a cleaner directional edge tonight. He has averaged under five innings across his last five turns, so Baltimore's bullpen and its 4.05 xFIP shows up in the sixth whether they want it to or not. Add the warm Camden air and the fact that the boost skews toward left-handed contact, and I have a hard time constructing an argument against this. Everyone will be here. Come anyway.
Core pieces: Ben Rice $5,800 (L), Luis Garcia $4,800 (L), Jazz Chisholm $4,500 (L), Trent Grisham $4,300 (L), Ryan McMahon $2,600 (L)
2. Los Angeles Dodgers vs Kyle Freeland (L) | Implied Total: 7.4 | ROO Score: 6.2/10 | Cash
You already know this is the chalk, so the only real question is which half of the lineup you buy. Freeland has held his own against lefties this year at 3.74 xFIP with 0.79 HR/9, and then come apart against righties, who have hit .302 with a .563 slugging mark, a 20.7% HR/FB rate, 1.99 HR/9, and 46.8% hard contact off him. Build toward Andy Pages, Mookie Betts, Teoscar Hernandez, and Enrique Hernandez rather than the two names at the top of the card that everyone wants to type in first. Ninety degrees at altitude does the rest, and the Colorado bullpen sits at a 4.45 xFIP if the game gets away early. You pay twice here, once in salary and once in ownership, but the implied environment sits a run and a half clear of anything else today.
Core pieces: Andy Pages $5,700 (R), Mookie Betts $5,000 (R), Tommy Edman $4,700 (S), Teoscar Hernandez $4,500 (R), Enrique Hernandez $3,700 (R)
3. Tampa Bay vs Max Scherzer (R) | Implied Total: 4.9 | ROO Score: 4.8/10 | GPP
Tournament money goes here. Scherzer against left-handed hitters this season reads 6.02 xFIP, 5.18 BB/9, 2.59 HR/9, and a .545 slugging mark, and Tampa runs Jonathan Aranda, Liam Hicks, Chandler Simpson, Victor Mesa, Cedric Mullins, and Richie Palacios out there from that side. The walks are the part I keep coming back to, because five free passes per nine against lefties means traffic ahead of the guy who actually punishes mistakes. He has not cleared five innings in a start recently, and the Toronto bullpen behind him carries a 5.32 xFIP, the worst pen any of my three stacks has to beat. The implied total is nothing special and that is the point, because the field is going to price this lineup off the game total instead of off the matchup.
Core pieces: Junior Caminero $6,500 (R), Yandy Diaz $5,500 (R), Jonathan Aranda $5,000 (L), Liam Hicks $4,800 (L), Cedric Mullins $4,500 (L)
Pitchers
Drew Rasmussen (TB) vs TOR | $9,700 | CASH
There is no such thing as a must play in baseball. This is close. The 2.79 ERA and the underlying strikeout and walk profile agree with each other almost exactly, which is the entire reason I trust it rather than treating it as a mirage. He walks 1.60 per nine, runs a 0.91 WHIP, and gets grounders on more than half the balls in play, so the ways this blows up are limited. Toronto carries the lowest implied team total of the nine games, and their top of the order has scored fewer runs than any group on this slate over the past week. I have no interest in being clever about it.
Parker Messick (CLE) vs SF | $9,200 | CASH
Rookie arms come with a caveat attached. I cannot find the one on this guy. Righties have managed a .259 wOBA and a 2.98 xFIP against him, and San Francisco is sending Willy Adames, Osleivis Basabe, Buddy Kennedy, Victor Bericoto, Jonah Cox, and Andrew Knizner up from that side, so the directional matchup lines up. Progressive Field suppresses home runs, the Giants are implied for under three runs, and there is very little in this spot that scares me. The one honest flag is that his ERA has run a touch ahead of the strikeout and walk numbers underneath it, so I would not build expecting a shutout, just a clean six. Expect heavy rostership and do not get cute about it.
Logan Gilbert (SEA) vs MIL | $10,000 | CASH
The rare case where the surface line and everything under it land on the same number. A 3.29 ERA next to a 3.31 xFIP means nothing here is propped up, and a starter posting 9.43 K/9 against 2.05 BB/9, with a swinging strike rate near 13%, is deciding most of his own outcomes. Left-handed hitters have been the group he eats, posting a 2.97 xFIP with 11.2 K/9 against him, and Milwaukee counters with Brice Turang, Jake Bauers, Garrett Mitchell, Christian Yelich, and David Hamilton. This is the lowest total on the entire board. Price is steep but the floor and the ceiling both justify it.
Dustin May (MIL) vs SEA | $7,800 | GPP
Same game, other dugout, much cheaper, and I think the market has the wrong read. A 4.13 ERA reads badly until you notice the 3.67 xFIP and the .311 BABIP sitting under it, which is the shape of a pitcher who has been unlucky rather than bad. Righties have managed a .262 wOBA against him behind a 3.25 xFIP and a 1.26 BB/9, and Seattle sends Taylor Ward, Randy Arozarena, and Julio Rodriguez to that side of the plate. The counterargument is real. He walks better than four lefties per nine, and Cole Young, Dominic Canzone, Josh Naylor, and Brendan Donovan are all in this lineup. Low-rostered, a full salary tier under Gilbert, and attached to the exact same seven-run total.
Chase Burns (CIN) vs STL | $11,000 | GPP
Nobody on this slate costs more, and the raw stuff justifies the tag: 10.37 K/9, a 28.7% strikeout rate, and a 15.4% swinging strike mark that leads every starter here. I cannot get past the 82.7% strand rate and the .268 BABIP propping up that 2.47 ERA. The 3.30 xFIP is the fairer description of the pitcher. St. Louis is implied for a hair over three and a half runs, so the matchup is soft, but paying the top price on the slate for an arm whose results are running ahead of his process is a tournament decision and not a cash one. If you want him, want him in a lineup where the strikeout ceiling matters more than the median.
Pitcher Regression to Watch
Walbert Ureña (LAA), Negative Regression Candidate
No arm on this slate has a bigger gap between his results and his process. The ERA reads 2.69, the xFIP reads 5.15, and none of how he got there repeats. The .246 BABIP and 80.0% strand rate are the obvious culprits, but the underlying issue is a 4.79 BB/9 that has not cost him yet because the home run rate has been an absurd 0.50 HR/9. Houston is implied for better than five runs and hits the ball in the air as hard as anyone here. The Astros are the offense I want on the right side of that correction.
Matthew Liberatore (STL), Positive Regression Candidate
The 5.07 ERA overstates how badly this has gone. A 4.09 xFIP and a .336 BABIP say the contact quality against him has not been as damaging as the results, and 8.77 K/9 works fine for a back-end starter. The problem is timing, because the one thing that is broken is his platoon split, where left-handed hitters have taken him deep every 3.8 innings on a third of their fly balls, albeit in a smaller sample. Great American with a Reds lineup is not the venue where I want to be first in line on the buy-low.
Final Thoughts
Cash builds start with Rasmussen at Tropicana and either Messick or Gilbert next to him, depending on whether you want the discount or the strikeout ceiling. From there I want Ben Rice and Trent Grisham off the Yankee side against Bassitt, then Andy Pages and Mookie Betts as my Coors righties, which gets me the two best environments on the board without doubling up on the same game. Salvador Perez at $3,200 and Ryan McMahon at $2,600 are how you afford all of that, and both of them are attached to real matchups rather than being pure punts.
Two things worth a second look before lock. The Milwaukee roof is currently projected open at 72 degrees, and while a closed roof would not swing much at that temperature, it is the one venue on the board where the setting is not settled. Coors is also the last game to start, which means anything that shakes loose in Denver hits after the rest of your exposure is already locked in.
For tournaments, the Tampa lefties against Scherzer are the play I feel best about relative to how the field will get there, since the general read is that a 7.5-run total means avoid the game entirely. Dustin May is the discounted arm I want next to them. And if you want a fourth angle, the Kansas City righties are staring at a starter whose last logged outing came nearly three weeks ago, which means the Athletics bullpen and its bottom-tier numbers against right-handed hitters get more innings than usual 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.