Weather to Watch
Miami at Kansas City | Kauffman Stadium | Clear, 99.7F | Wind: 9.7 mph SW
Almost 100 degrees, and the wind is blowing straight out to center. Best hitting environment of the night, and nothing else is close. It's the only reason a game between two ordinary offenses belongs in your player pool.
Milwaukee at Chicago Cubs | Wrigley Field | Partly Cloudy, 92.1F | Wind: 4.3 mph WSW
Low 90s at Wrigley with the breeze headed out. It's a soft wind, only 4.3 mph, but this yard doesn't ask for much when it's this warm and the lefty bats get the bigger share of it.
Detroit at Minnesota | Target Field | Clear, 87F | Wind: 1.6 mph SSE
87 degrees and no wind to speak of. Target Field gives some of the heat back, so call it a modest bump and move on.
New York Yankees at Los Angeles Angels | Angel Stadium | Clear, 77F | Wind: 8.4 mph SW
Comfortable night in Anaheim with a light breeze out toward center. Helps both dugouts a little. That's it.
St. Louis at Los Angeles Dodgers | Dodger Stadium | Clear, 71.1F | Wind: 6.2 mph WSW
Coolest first pitch on the board at 71. If Los Angeles hangs five or six on this game, the air had nothing to do with it.
One roof tonight, Daikin Park in Houston, and it's closed. The park still plays how it plays; the forecast is beside the point.
Model Bets
St. Louis +1.5 (-108) | St. Louis at Los Angeles Dodgers | Edge: +3.1%
The simulation puts the Cardinals at 52.7% to keep this within a run and a half, and the market says 49.6%. That argues against the Dodgers stack I'm recommending below, and I'd rather flag the disagreement than paper over it.
Over 8.5 (-118) | Miami at Kansas City | Edge: +2.4%
54.1% to the over versus 51.7% priced in, and the heat at Kauffman is why. Eury Perez has command problems, Noah Cameron's ERA is hiding an uglier profile, and the wind is out.
These come off the game simulation and are posted for tracking only. Nothing here is a wagering recommendation.
HR Calls
Bobby Witt (KC) DK $6,100 | FD $3,800 vs Eury Perez
There's no mystery to Witt, so the only real question is whether tonight's price makes sense. It does, because Perez runs a 3.87 BB/9 and that command profile means falling behind hitters and leaving a fastball middle once a night, and that's how a baseball leaves a park playing roughly 30% hotter for home runs. Witt hits the ball hard 48.1% of the time, and this is the park to do it in. He's $6,100 on DraftKings against $3,800 on FanDuel, where bats top out at $4,200, so he costs you a lot more of an FD roster than that smaller number looks like.
Heriberto Hernandez (MIA) DK $4,000 | FD $3,100 vs Noah Cameron
A leadoff man on a Marlins team almost nobody wants is a strange place to find the best power spot of the night. Hernandez: .300 ISO, 43.3% hard contact, 14.4% barrel rate, 47.3% pull. He's a righty facing a lefty in 99-degree air, and Cameron carries a 5.47 xFIP behind that 3.98 ERA, which means he's been getting away with things all year. Batting first buys an extra trip to the plate on top of it.
Taylor Trammell (HOU) DK $2,900 | FD $2,600 vs Davis Martin
Eighth in the order is normally where you punt, not where you shop for power. Trammell barrels 14.3% of his batted balls and pulls 46.3% of them. That's a home run swing, and DraftKings isn't charging you for one. Martin hasn't started a game in three weeks, so I'd plan on a short outing, and the Chicago relief group waiting behind him carries a 5.34 xFIP. Houston lefties have a 124 wRC+ and a .205 ISO against righties.
Stacks to Target
1. Los Angeles Dodgers vs Brycen Mautz (L) | Implied Total: 5.45 | ROO Score: 5.4/10 | Cash
The Dodgers are the only team on this board over five runs. Mautz is a rookie left-hander with six big-league innings and a 4.50 BB/9 inside that sample, which tells you almost nothing except that there's no scouting report to hide behind. Los Angeles handles left-handed pitching from both sides, 108 wRC+ for the lefty bats and 104 for the righties, so you don't need to get clever with construction. St. Louis relievers sit at a 4.54 xFIP, so the bullpen doesn't slow this down either. This is the chalk and I'm comfortable being on it; a 5.45 implied total forgives a lot.
Core pieces: Shohei Ohtani $6,500 (L), Freddie Freeman $5,000 (L), Mookie Betts $4,200 (R), Will Smith $3,800 (R), Teoscar Hernandez $3,700 (R)
2. Milwaukee vs David Peterson (L) | Implied Total: 5.03 | ROO Score: 5.1/10 | Cash
Peterson is left-handed, which usually argues against stacking right-handed bats. Not here. Righties have hit .289/.370/.416 off him this season with a 6.54 K/9 and a 4.82 BB/9, and the 1.70 WHIP tells you how much traffic he creates before anyone even squares one up. Add Wrigley at 92 degrees with the wind out and I'm done deliberating. The Cubs bullpen sits at a 5.21 xFIP, so the middle innings don't repair anything. Contreras is the piece the field lands on and I'm happy to pay around him.
Core pieces: Jackson Chourio $5,500 (R), Jake Bauers $4,500 (L), William Contreras $4,200 (R), Gary Sanchez $4,100 (R), Andrew Vaughn $3,600 (R)
3. Minnesota vs Drew Anderson (R) | Implied Total: 4.66 | ROO Score: 4.3/10 | GPP
This is where I'd separate from the room. Anderson has thrown 85 innings across 45 appearances and his last five outings have averaged 4.5 innings, so the Twins reach a Detroit bullpen carrying a 5.29 xFIP earlier than they would against most starters. Right-handed hitters have taken him for a 1.66 HR/9 with a 29.2% HR/FB, and Minnesota's righties own a 112 wRC+ and a .175 ISO against right-handed pitching. Target Field at 87 degrees helps a little. It's the only spot here that pairs a real implied total with a lighter crowd.
Core pieces: Ryan Jeffers $4,900 (R), Kody Clemens $4,800 (L), Luke Keaschall $4,400 (R), Brooks Lee $4,200 (S), Trevor Larnach $3,600 (L)
Pitchers
Jacob Misiorowski (MIL) vs CHC | DK $12,000 | FD $10,600 | CASH
I cannot construct an argument against him. The 1.73 ERA sits on top of a 2.06 xFIP and a 1.48 SIERA, so the run prevention is earned rather than borrowed, and he's generating swinging strikes on 17.3% of his pitches. Left-handed hitters are batting .116 with a 44.6% strikeout rate against him, which is the number that matters given how the Cubs are built. Most expensive arm on the board, both sites. Pay up anyway.
Cam Schlittler (NYY) vs LAA | DK $11,000 | FD $9,900 | CASH
A year ago Schlittler was a name you had to look up; now he's 163 innings into a season with an 11.08 K/9 and a 6.5% walk rate. The Angels are implied for 2.79 runs, the lowest team number on the slate, and their righties have managed an 87 wRC+ with a 27.1% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching. One honest caveat: the 2.10 ERA is out in front of a 2.82 xFIP, and an 82.5% strand rate is part of why. Against this lineup I'll take the risk.
Reid Detmers (LAA) vs NYY | DK $7,800 | FD $8,900 | GPP
DraftKings is underrating what he's pitched to. A 3.54 ERA reads ordinary next to a 3.32 xFIP and a 2.82 SIERA, and a 72.5% strand rate explains most of that gap. Detmers against right-handed hitters: .209/.264/.355, 10.53 K/9. The Yankees righties do handle lefties, a 112 wRC+ says so, and that keeps him out of my cash builds. But he's $7,800 on DraftKings against $8,900 on FanDuel, where arms climb to $10,600, so the discount is real on the DK side. Cheap strikeouts in the lowest-total game on the slate.
Hayden Wesneski (HOU) vs CWS | DK $7,000 | FD $7,800 | GPP
I'm not sure how long Houston lets him work. He's 32 innings into the season with a 3.91 ERA and a 3.92 xFIP. No mystery there. The matchup carries him: Chicago is implied for 3.77 under a closed roof, and their right-handed bats have posted a 92 wRC+ against righties. The 4.40 BB/9 he's run against righties is exactly the thing that torches a cash lineup, so I'd keep him in tournaments only.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto (LAD) vs STL | DK $10,500 | FD $9,700 | GPP
Yamamoto is excellent, no argument there, but the surface line is prettier than the pitching underneath it. A 2.56 ERA against a 3.18 xFIP, a .225 BABIP and an 81.1% strand rate is how a pitcher ends up giving some of it back. He also draws the easiest assignment on the slate, since St. Louis is implied for 2.55 and their righties have hit to an 85 wRC+ against right-handed pitching. I'll roster him. I just won't call him the safe play at $10,500.
Pitcher Regression to Watch
Noah Cameron (KC), Negative Regression Candidate
A 3.98 ERA next to a 5.47 xFIP is not a gap anybody keeps. He isn't missing bats, 7.91 K/9 and a 21.0% strikeout rate, so he needs balls in play to keep finding gloves, and tonight the ball travels: 99 degrees, wind out, his own ballpark. Miami's right-handed hitters carry a 109 wRC+ against left-handed pitching, and 18.1% of their fly balls leave the yard. I think this is the night it lands on him.
Davis Martin (CWS), Positive Regression Candidate
The 4.32 ERA is worse than the pitcher. He carries a 3.78 xFIP and a 3.69 SIERA, with a .321 BABIP doing the separating, which is the standard fingerprint of a pitcher who's been unlucky rather than bad. The catch is that he hasn't started a game in three weeks, so I'd expect a limited pitch count and a quick hook tonight and I'm not rostering him into that. Write the name down for his next turn.
Final Thoughts
Misiorowski is the arm I want in everything, and the build question is whether Schlittler comes with him. That's $23,000 of your $50,000 on two pitchers, and it forces punts you may not want. My preference is Misiorowski plus Wesneski at $7,000, which leaves room for the Dodgers pieces that actually swing the score. Ohtani at $6,500 and Freeman at $5,000 anchor it, Contreras at $4,200 is the Milwaukee bat I'd pair with them, and Trammell at $2,900 is the salary save that keeps the whole thing legal.
Davis Martin's workload is the swing factor in Houston before lock, because a two-inning start puts a 5.34-xFIP bullpen in the game by the third and every Astros bat gets better. And the Kauffman wind is the biggest variable on the board, currently 9.7 mph out to center; if that number drops in the afternoon update, the Kansas City and Miami bats lose most of what makes them interesting.
Minnesota is where I'd get different in tournaments. Anderson doesn't go deep, the Detroit bullpen sits at a 5.29 xFIP, and the Twins righties get the platoon side of it without the crowd that follows the Dodgers and Brewers. Detmers is the pitching version of the same idea, an arm whose ERA is worse than his pitching in a game with a total of 7. And if you want one bat almost nobody else will have, Heriberto Hernandez leads off in 99-degree air against a pitcher whose strikeout rate can't protect him.
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.