Weather to Watch
St. Louis at Cincinnati | Great American Ball Park | Mostly Clear, 74F | Wind: 5 mph NW
Five miles an hour of breeze would be background noise anywhere else, but it points almost straight at center field and this yard multiplies what it gets. Mild at 74, too. Of the six games, this is the one where I want the air on my side.
San Francisco at Cleveland | Progressive Field | Overcast, 76F | Wind: 6 mph NW
The breeze comes back in off the outfield and eats most of what a warm afternoon was handing over. Right-handed contact grades a shade under a neutral day here, which is the wrong direction if you came looking for power.
Athletics at Kansas City | Kauffman Stadium | Clear, 78F | Wind: 4 mph NNE
Warmest first pitch on the board. The temperature does real work at 78, though a light inbound breeze takes most of it back, and Kauffman being Kauffman, I would rather own the gaps than the fences here.
Atlanta at Chicago White Sox | Rate Field | Clear, 73F | Wind: 10 mph NNE
Ten miles an hour is the strongest air today, and it crosses the diamond at an angle that splits the two sides of the plate. Left-handed bats collect a real bump on anything they lift. Right-handed bats collect nothing, and I will come back to what that opens up.
Seattle at Milwaukee | American Family Field | Clear, 75F | Wind: 5 mph ENE
Panels are forecast open at a comfortable 75 with a soft crosswind. Nothing in that changes how I grade the game.
One roof today, the Trop, where I would have ignored the forecast anyway.
HR Calls
Munetaka Murakami (CWS) $5,700 vs Grant Holmes
The White Sox have been unwatchable most of the summer and the bat in the two hole is not why. Murakami carries a .358 ISO with barrels on 22.4% of his contact, and across his last 30 days that mark has climbed rather than settled. Holmes has been living on borrowed time against left-handed hitters: 4.50 BB/9 to that side, a .245 mark on balls in play, and better than 87% of his baserunners stranded, so he works from behind and keeps getting rescued by sequencing. Falling behind means he has to find the zone, and he has already given up 1.54 HR/9 to lefties with a fifth of their fly balls carrying out. The Rate Field wind helps one side of the plate today. It happens to be his.
JJ Bleday (CIN) $4,100 vs Michael McGreevy
Air moving out at Great American was the first thing I checked this morning, and the three hole is the most affordable way into that game. McGreevy's 3.48 ERA has nothing underneath it. Left-handed hitters have slugged .435 off him with 1.31 HR/9 and 44.5% hard contact while his strikeout rate against them sits at 5.66 K/9, and he has stranded better than 87% of the lefties who reach base, which no pitcher holds. Bleday brings a .223 ISO and pulls 45.8% of what he lifts, in the only yard today where the breeze points his way.
Kazuma Okamoto (TOR) $3,800 vs Ian Seymour
The honest part first: Toronto has the second-lowest implied total on this slate and I am not dressing that up. The at-bat shape pulls me back in anyway. Seymour surrenders fly balls on 58% of the contact against him and hands right-handed hitters 3.59 BB/9, so Okamoto sees plenty of counts where a strike has to arrive, and he answers with a 50.3% pull rate and barrels on 13.9% of his swings. Seymour has averaged 4.87 innings across his last five starts, and the Tampa relievers behind him give up 1.75 HR/9, the softest bullpen any hitter on this board gets to see late.
Stacks to Target
1. Kansas City vs Gage Jump (L) | Implied Total: 4.78 | ROO Score: 4.7/10 | Cash
No team is implied for more runs today, the most popular bat in the pool hits second here, and I still like this matchup less than that combination suggests. Jump misses bats against right-handed hitters at 10.05 K/9 and a 25.7% strikeout rate, so the strikeout risk in this stack is real and you should know it before you buy. He also walks 4.08 BB/9 against righties while they hit .338 on balls in play, which keeps traffic on the bases even when the swings come up empty. Kansas City righties handle left-handed pitching fine, and the Athletics relief corps behind Jump is the worst group any of these three stacks has to solve, sitting between a 4.35 and 5.40 xFIP with 1.65 HR/9. Witt will be the most-rostered bat on the slate and I am fine paying that tax.
Core pieces: Bobby Witt $6,300 (R), Maikel Garcia $4,000 (R), Salvador Perez $3,400 (R), Tyler Tolbert $3,400 (R), Nick Loftin $3,200 (R)
2. St. Louis vs Brady Singer (R) | Implied Total: 4.65 | ROO Score: 4.6/10 | Cash
Singer has spent the season pitching competently to right-handed hitters and leaving the door open for everyone else. Lefties have hit .304 off him with a .512 slugging mark and a .378 wOBA, 2.07 HR/9, 22.8% of their fly balls out of the park, and 41.8% of their contact struck hard. St. Louis answers with JJ Wetherholt leading off, Alec Burleson third, Nathan Church sixth and Jimmy Crooks ninth, all from that side, in the ballpark where the air is doing the most for a fly ball today. The right-handed half is not dead either, since Singer manages 5.67 K/9 against them. My one caution is the Cincinnati bullpen, the best group on the board, so plan on damage before the sixth and nothing after it. Get in early.
Core pieces: Alec Burleson $4,700 (L), JJ Wetherholt $4,200 (L), Jordan Walker $5,200 (R), Ivan Herrera $4,100 (R), Nathan Church $3,000 (L)
3. Chicago White Sox vs Grant Holmes (R) | Implied Total: 4.22 | ROO Score: 4.2/10 | GPP
DraftKings priced this lineup off the standings instead of the matchup. Holmes has a 3.84 ERA that his walk rate and his home run rate both reject, and left-handed hitters are where it comes apart: 4.50 BB/9, 1.54 HR/9, 46.3% hard contact, and 20% of those fly balls gone. Five left-handed bats run through this order, the White Sox have hit right-handed pitching at a league-average clip all year with .180 isolated power, and the crosswind hands that exact side of the plate a bump nobody else on the slate gets. Atlanta's relief corps sits north of a 4.25 xFIP if Holmes exits early, and he has averaged just over five innings across his last five starts. Barely anyone will type these names in. I will.
Core pieces: Munetaka Murakami $5,700 (L), Colson Montgomery $4,400 (L), Sam Antonacci $4,100 (L), Andrew Benintendi $3,600 (L), Tristan Peters $3,200 (L)
Pitchers
Gavin Williams (CLE) vs SF | $9,800 | CASH
I cannot build an argument against him. The 3.74 ERA is the least impressive number on his page, and everything under it grades a full run better, including a 2.72 xFIP, 11.48 K/9, and a 13.9% swinging strike rate that leads every arm working today. He costs more than any pitcher here and the gap between him and the field is wider than the gap in price. San Francisco is implied for the fewest runs of any team on this slate and is running Victor Bericoto, Osleivis Basabe, Drew Cavanaugh and Christian Koss through the bottom half of the order. Progressive Field with the air pushing back in also removes the one way this start goes wrong, since 39.3% of the fly balls right-handed hitters lift off him have left the yard. He will be everywhere today, and I have no clever alternative to offer you.
Ian Seymour (TB) vs TOR | $8,800 | CASH
Seymour opened the year as a swingman and has outgrown the job description. A 28.8% strikeout rate, 10.85 K/9, and a 13.5% swinging strike mark hold up no matter what his role was in May. Against right-handed hitters, the side Toronto leans hard, he has held opponents to a .196 average, a .270 wOBA and a 3.46 xFIP, and those Blue Jays righties have been a below-average group against left-handed pitching all season. Toronto also carries the second-lowest implied total today. My worry is the batted-ball shape, because 58% of the contact against him goes in the air and that shape only needs one swing to ruin an afternoon. At $8,800 against this order, I will live with it.
Landen Roupp (SF) vs CLE | $8,000 | GPP
Start with the bad news. His team is a heavy underdog and the win is off the table for practical purposes. Now the good news: a 4.32 ERA sitting on a 3.62 FIP and a 3.81 xFIP is a spread you rarely see, and the culprit is not hiding. He has stranded 67.3% of the runners who reach him, the lowest such mark of anybody starting today and not close. The stuff has not gone anywhere either, with 9.22 K/9 and a 3.43 xFIP against right-handed hitters, and he has surrendered 0.70 HR/9 in a park that suppresses the long ball. What I cannot talk myself out of is the walks, because he hands left-handed hitters 4.90 BB/9 and Cleveland sends Steven Kwan, Chase DeLauter, Nathaniel Lowe and Travis Bazzana up from that side. Low-rostered, real strikeout ceiling, and a WHIP that could wreck the whole thing.
George Kirby (SEA) vs MIL | $8,500 | GPP
The name and the control profile will get him into cash lineups and I think that is the mistake of the slate. His 2.05 BB/9 is elite, no argument, but the strikeout rate has slid to 7.53 K/9 and this opponent is aimed at his weak half. Against lefties he gives up a .336 wOBA and a .446 slugging mark behind a 4.46 xFIP and 1.27 HR/9, and the Brewers are built out of them. Turang, Bauers, Mitchell, Yelich and Hamilton all swing from that side, and that half of the roster has outproduced league average against right-handed pitching all season. Milwaukee is also implied for more runs than any team Williams or Seymour has to face. Use him in tournaments, where the innings and the walk avoidance carry a lineup even if the swings and misses never arrive.
Pitcher Regression to Watch
Randy Dobnak (KC), Negative Regression Candidate
No pitcher on this board is further out over his skis. A 1.75 ERA looks like an ace, and the arm underneath it posts 5.46 K/9 against 3.50 BB/9 with a 5.60 xFIP. That is a fifth starter. One number explains the whole distance: he has stranded 89.8% of the runners who reached against him, and nobody else starting today sits above 82%. Home runs have not been the issue at 0.44 HR/9, so hard contact is not hiding here, the sequencing has simply broken his way for eight straight turns. The Athletics are implied for under four runs and almost nobody will bother with them, so those bats are close to free in a tournament.
Gage Jump (ATH), Positive Regression Candidate
The rookie has the widest gap on this slate in the other direction. His 4.50 ERA sits on a 3.89 xFIP and a 3.59 SIERA, he sends a quarter of the batters he meets back on strikes, and opponents have hit .332 on balls in play against him, which is more balls falling in than any starter today has dealt with. Only 71.6% of his baserunners have been stranded. The walks are a genuine flaw, and at 4.27 BB/9 they will keep him from ever being clean, but the arm is better than the line and the market has not moved. I already explained why Kansas City still gets the nod as a stack; both things can be true.
Final Thoughts
Cash rosters run through Williams and Seymour, a heavy investment at the position, though the two cleanest matchups on a six-game board earn it. From there I want Bobby Witt and Maikel Garcia against Jump, Alec Burleson and JJ Wetherholt in Cincinnati, and Salvador Perez at $3,400 to make the money work. Perez, Nick Loftin at $3,200 and Nathan Church at $3,000 are the three cheapest bats I actually want, and none of them are punts.
Three things I want eyes on before the first lock. Cincinnati starts at 11:40 CT, well ahead of everything else, so your Cardinals and Reds exposure is decided before you see a pitch from the other five games. Milwaukee is the second, where the panels are projected to stay open and closing them erases what little the crosswind was adding. Cal Raleigh sitting seventh in the Seattle order is the third, because their best bat does not usually hit there.
For tournaments I want the White Sox lefties. A crosswind pointed at their half of the plate against a starter whose results have run far ahead of his walk and home run rates is the cleanest contrarian angle today, and the field has written this lineup off because of the record. Tampa Bay against Shane Bieber is close behind if you want a second one, since right-handed hitters have hit .333 with a .511 slugging mark off him and the Rays righties have been the most productive platoon group on this slate all year. Junior Caminero and Yandy Diaz are the way in there.
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.