Weather to Watch
Houston at New York Yankees | Yankee Stadium | Clear, 79F | Wind: 12 mph SSE
Twelve miles an hour sounds like plenty until you check the angle, and this one runs across the field instead of out of it. Righties collect about 8% and lefties get almost nothing, which is backwards from the way this building usually pays.
Kansas City at Toronto | Rogers Centre | Partly Cloudy, 77F | Wind: 6 mph W
The roof projects open on a comfortable 77-degree night and the breeze is too soft to matter either way. Roughly a 4% nudge to both sides, so this one comes down to the pitching.
Milwaukee at New York Mets | Citi Field | Clear, 78F | Wind: 13 mph SSE
Now we're talking. Thirteen out of the south-southeast turns Citi into an 11% home run park tonight, and the split is lopsided: right-handed bats collect 17% and lefties around 7%. That's a righty-only door.
Los Angeles Dodgers at Atlanta | Truist Park | Overcast, 73F | Wind: 10 mph E
Seventy-three and grey with the air pushing in off the east side. Truist grades slightly negative tonight and lefties lose about 5%, which makes this the only park on the board taking something away.
Arizona at San Francisco | Oracle Park | Overcast, 73F | Wind: 16 mph WNW
No air on this slate moves harder, and it's pointed at right center. That flips Oracle from the toughest home run park on the board into a 13% boost, and 15% for left-handed bats, a bigger swing than anything the thermometer does today.
Toronto owns the only roof on the board and it's projected open, so every game today gets a forecast.
HR Calls
Yordan Alvarez (HOU) DK $6,500 | FD $4,200 vs Gerrit Cole
Cole is the toughest arm Houston sees this week and I want this one anyway. The damage he allows is almost entirely left-handed: 1.51 HR/9 that way, and 17.9% of the fly balls lefties lift off him clear a fence. Alvarez against right-handed pitching is a .316 ISO, a 202 wRC+, 27 home runs and 57% hard contact, and he bats second, so there's an extra trip in it. He's $4,200 on FanDuel, which is the exact ceiling of the hitter pool there, while $6,500 on DraftKings leaves you far more room around him. I'd take that swing.
Carter Jensen (KC) DK $4,100 | FD $2,800 vs Spencer Arrighetti
He's leading off and DraftKings has him priced like a backup catcher. Arrighetti's flaw is one-sided and severe, 7.25 BB/9 against left-handed hitters and a .391 on-base mark allowed, and a pitcher walking that many is living behind in counts and eventually has to come back over the plate, which is how 22% of the fly balls lefties hit off him have left the yard. Jensen brings a .204 ISO and 14 home runs off right-handed pitching, with 16.5% of his own fly balls gone. His $2,800 sits in the bottom third of a FanDuel pool that runs from $2,000 to $4,200.
Spencer Jones (NYY) DK $3,200 | FD $2,700 vs Hayden Wesneski
This is the dart, so take the ugly half first: he strikes out in 37.9% of his plate appearances against right-handed pitching and his overall line to that side sits below league average. Now the other half. He hits a baseball as hard as anybody on this slate, 62.5% hard contact behind a 76.4 mph bat speed, and Wesneski hands lefties 1.23 HR/9 and lets 16.7% of what they hit in the air get out. He's hitting sixth in the friendliest home run park on the board. At $3,200 and $2,700 you're paying nothing for the upside.
Stacks to Target
1. Kansas City vs Spencer Arrighetti (R) | Implied Total: 4.41 | ROO Score: 4.7/10 | Cash
The Royals don't own the highest total on this board and they're still the group I trust most, because the two things standing behind them are both broken. Arrighetti hasn't started a game in 34 days and the last one he did start lasted a single inning, so Toronto needs relief innings early tonight. That bullpen runs a 5.79 xFIP and 1.63 HR/9, the worst relief group on the board. The starter's own split does the rest: 7.25 BB/9 and 1.63 HR/9 against lefties, and Kansas City sends five left-handed bats plus a switch-hitter at him, a group carrying a 105 wRC+ with 44.7% hard contact versus right-handed pitching. Witt will be everywhere tonight. Roster him anyway.
Core pieces: Bobby Witt $6,300 (R), Jac Caglianone $5,300 (L), Vinnie Pasquantino $4,300 (L), Carter Jensen $4,100 (L), Michael Massey $3,400 (L)
2. Milwaukee vs Sean Manaea (L) | Implied Total: 4.65 | ROO Score: 4.5/10 | Cash
Manaea's two splits look like two different pitchers wearing the same jersey. Lefties are hitting .231 against him and striking out at 10.8 K/9; righties sit at .266 with a .495 slugging mark, 1.65 HR/9 and 43.9% hard contact. Milwaukee can point six right-handed bats at that, and then there's the wind, which is adding 17% to right-handed home runs at Citi tonight. Vaughn carries a 189 wRC+ against southpaws, Chourio a 128, Contreras a 120, and Bauers is the strange lefty who hits them at a 154. My one hesitation is the Mets bullpen at a 3.62 xFIP, so I want the runs on the board before the seventh. Second-highest number on the whole board, and a cheaper build than Kansas City.
Core pieces: Jackson Chourio $5,600 (R), Jake Bauers $4,600 (L), William Contreras $4,000 (R), Gary Sanchez $3,600 (R), Andrew Vaughn $3,500 (R)
3. San Francisco vs Jose Cabrera (R) | Implied Total: 3.93 | ROO Score: 3.2/10 | GPP
The Giants come cheap and lightly rostered because the market only gives them 3.93 runs, and that's most of the appeal. Cabrera hasn't logged a start in 50 days, and an arm gone that long returns on a hard pitch limit, so the Giants only have to solve four or five innings of whoever comes after him. What he showed before the gap was rough enough on its own: a 5.76 ERA, a 4.95 xFIP, 3.66 BB/9, and a .439 slugging mark to left-handed hitters, 28.6% of whose fly balls have cleared a wall. San Francisco's lefty group is a 115 wRC+ against righties and whiffs in only 16.1% of its trips, and Oracle is handing that exact side a 15% bump tonight. Start with Devers, a 156 wRC+ and a .304 ISO against right-handed pitching. Arizona's relief group at 3.51 is the reason this stays a tournament build.
Core pieces: Rafael Devers $4,200 (L), Jung Hoo Lee $3,500 (L), Bryce Eldridge $3,300 (L), Osleivis Basabe $3,000 (R), Buddy Kennedy $2,100 (R)
Pitchers
Jacob Misiorowski (MIL) vs NYM | $12,000 | CASH
Twelve thousand dollars is a serious ask. I don't have a counterargument. A 1.68 ERA with a 1.99 xFIP underneath means there's nothing here to correct, and the strikeout rate is 39.3% at 13.41 K/9. Against left-handed hitters he's holding a .117 batting average and a 15.01 K/9, which is a video game number. The Mets are implied for 2.35, and no other lineup is within a run of them. He'll be the most popular arm of the day and he's earned it.
Chris Sale (ATL) vs LAD | $10,200 | CASH
A 2.20 ERA next to a 2.62 xFIP is what an honest ace season looks like, and there's no luck to give back in either direction. He's at 11.07 K/9 with a 5.2% walk rate, and right-handed hitters have managed a .253 wOBA against him while striking out at 10.84 K/9. The Dodgers are implied for 3.15 in a game the market priced at 6.5, the lowest total on the slate. Ohtani leading off is the obvious way this goes wrong, and it's the only way I see.
Gerrit Cole (NYY) vs HOU | $8,500 | CASH
At $8,500 he's the cheapest of the three arms I'd anchor a cash build to. His ERA and his xFIP land on the same number, so the season is exactly what it looks like, and Houston is implied for 3.44, a bottom-tier number on this board. I argued the other side of this in the home run section above: 56% of everything hit against him goes in the air, and lefties have gotten 1.51 HR/9 off him. In this ballpark that matters more than it would anywhere else. The opponent is soft enough that I'll live with it.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto (LAD) vs ATL | $9,600 | GPP
The 2.62 ERA is prettier than the arm underneath it. His xFIP is 3.22, and the distance between the two is a .225 BABIP next to an 80.2% strand rate. He controls neither. The strikeout rate has also slipped to 24.9%. That combination isn't a cash anchor at $9,600 no matter how clean the surface line reads. What he does have is Atlanta at 3.35 and a much quieter roster share than the arm on the other side. Roster him when you want a different way into this matchup.
Landen Roupp (SF) vs ARI | $7,800 | GPP
This is the buy-low on the board. A 4.36 ERA covers a 3.66 FIP, and the whole gap is a 66.7% strand rate, the lowest of any starter working tonight. Strip the sequencing out and you've got a mid-rotation arm at a back-end price. The cash-tier disqualifier is 4.29 BB/9, because free baserunners against a lineup implied for 4.07 are how one inning eats a start. Take him when you've spent everything on bats.
Pitcher Regression to Watch
Sean Manaea (NYM), Negative Regression Candidate
A 4.31 ERA doesn't look lucky, and that's what makes this one interesting. The xFIP underneath is 5.97, more than a run and a half in the wrong direction, and he's already surrendering 1.46 HR/9 before that correction arrives. Right-handed hitters are the mechanism and it isn't close: a .266 average, a .495 slugging mark, 1.65 HR/9 and 43.9% hard contact. Milwaukee gets to send six righty bats at that in a park adding 17% to their power tonight. That's the whole case for the stack above.
Hayden Wesneski (HOU), Positive Regression Candidate
The 4.30 ERA undersells him. His FIP is 3.63 and the difference is a 68.3% strand rate, the kind of thing that evens itself out over a full year. Two things hold me back. He's thrown 27.2 innings this season, so treat every number here as a small sample rather than a settled read, and tonight he draws the top-scoring lineup on the board inside the one ballpark built to punish his exact flaw, since lefties are already sitting on 1.23 HR/9 against him. Bank this one for a softer park.
Final Thoughts
Misiorowski is the foundation. At $12,000 he swallows most of the pitching budget and points you at a lineup implied for 2.35, which is worth the squeeze, and Cole at $8,500 is the second arm that still fits beside him. Fill the middle with Royals, Witt and Caglianone first and Pasquantino third, with Jensen at $4,100 doing double duty as the leadoff bat and the cheap catcher. Massey at $3,400 makes the money work.
Two starters are back from long layoffs tonight and DraftKings hasn't discounted either one: Arrighetti in Toronto at 34 days and Cabrera in Arizona at 50. A capped pitch count moves the value from the starter to the bullpen in both games, and Toronto's relief group is by far the softer of the two. The other spot I'd check is Okamoto in the five hole against a left-handed starter, where he owns a .240 ISO and a 126 wRC+ at $3,700.
The Giants are my tournament team. The implied total will keep them lightly rostered, but the wind at Oracle is the hardest on the board and it points at left-handed power, and the pitcher standing in front of it hasn't thrown a start in nearly two months. Devers at $4,200 and Eldridge at $3,300 are close to free. Pair the stack with Yamamoto or Roupp if you want the arm to be different too, and if you'd rather not stack at all, Spencer Jones at $3,200 is the standalone dart.
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.