Weather to Watch
Toronto at Kansas City | Kauffman Stadium | Overcast, 98F | Wind: 6 mph ENE
Ninety-eight degrees, and nothing else on the board is within twenty of it. The forecast has the breeze coming in, but six miles an hour barely dents air that hot, and righty bats pick up a slightly bigger cut of it than lefties do.
Boston at Baltimore | Oriole Park at Camden Yards | Mostly Clear, 81F | Wind: 7 mph NNE
Eighty-one and a soft push from center field. Those two cancel out, so you are left with the ballpark by itself, and Camden is still a fine place to hit.
Detroit at Cleveland | Progressive Field | Mostly Clear, 75F | Wind: 9 mph NNE
Nine miles an hour in from center is the stiffest wind today and it's pointed the wrong way for hitters. Stack that on a 7-run total and I want nobody out of this game.
Los Angeles Angels at Pittsburgh | PNC Park | Clear, 73F | Wind: 7 mph NE
A crosswind off the river and mild air, so call it a wash. PNC plays like PNC, which means doubles into the gaps more often than balls over the wall.
Atlanta at Philadelphia | Citizens Bank Park | Mostly Clear, 76F | Wind: 7 mph N
On paper this is one of the friendlier yards on the slate, and today's breeze shaves a chunk off it. I'd still hit here. Just don't pay for the park factor you'd usually get.
San Francisco at New York Mets | Citi Field | Mostly Clear, 73F | Wind: 6 mph NNE
Same wind problem as Philadelphia without the ballpark to fall back on. Citi is the least appealing outdoor spot today.
Three roofs will be shut: loanDepot, Daikin, and Globe Life. Nothing in the forecast touches those three, so grade them on the ballpark alone.
Model Bets
San Francisco +1.5 (-162) | San Francisco at New York Mets | Edge: +2.2%
The simulation puts the Giants inside a run 61% of the time. Strip the vig out of the market and it lands at 59%. I've got Christian Scott as a tournament arm below and those two takes rub against each other. Scott can hand San Francisco five quiet innings and this still cashes, because the Mets bats are the ones facing a patched-together bullpen day and four runs is a likelier outcome than seven.
These come off the game simulation and are posted for tracking only. Nothing here is a wagering recommendation.
HR Calls
Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC) DK $6,700 | FD $4,300 vs Tyler Phillips
I'll concede the ballpark before anybody else raises it. loanDepot with the roof shut is one of the worst home run venues in the sport and that's a real strike against this call. Everything else lines up. Phillips hands out 4.81 BB/9 to left-handed hitters, and a righty who falls behind that often has to come back over the plate with something straight. That is how he has surrendered 1.09 HR/9 and a 14.6% HR/FB to lefties, with hard contact on 45.9% of what they hit. Crow-Armstrong sits at a .305 ISO and pulls half of everything. He barrels 14.7% of it too. He's the top price on both sheets today, $6,700 here and the maximum $4,300 on a FanDuel hitter board that stops right there.
Coby Mayo (BAL) DK $3,800 | FD $2,900 vs Payton Tolle
Tolle is good and I won't pretend he isn't: 3.23 ERA, 3.25 xFIP, 10.10 K/9. The soft spot is shape. He puts 50.4% of the contact he allows into the air and only 5.0% of those fly balls have left the yard, and nobody holds a number like that across a full season. Mayo is the righty built to collect when it corrects. A .417 ISO, barrels on 23.3% of contact, 49.8% of it pulled, and Camden plays above neutral for righty power. Value-tier money for a batted-ball profile that belongs at twice the price.
Nelson Velazquez (HOU) DK $2,400 | FD $2,600 vs Eduardo Rodriguez
Hitting ninth, hitting the ball hard 64.4% of the time. That's the pitch, and it's a good one at this price. Rodriguez owns a 2.59 ERA that his 4.34 xFIP wants no part of, he's down to 6.57 K/9, and a lefty who can't miss bats against a righty who lofts 42.2% of what he hits, under a closed roof, is a swing I'll take for two thousand four hundred dollars. He's the bat that pays for Crow-Armstrong.
Stacks to Target
1. Kansas City vs Spencer Arrighetti (R) | Implied Total: 4.54 | ROO Score: 4.4/10 | GPP
Arrighetti's season reads 4.82 ERA, 6.53 xFIP, 5.00 BB/9, and against left-handed hitters every column gets uglier: 6.91 BB/9, 1.77 HR/9, 23.4% HR/FB, a .381 on-base allowed. Five of the nine Royals hit left-handed, and that group takes right-handers for a 109 wRC+ while squaring up 44.8% of its contact. Jensen, Caglianone, Pasquantino and Massey are the four who matter. He's also ten days removed from his last start and has averaged four innings across his last five, so Toronto's pen arrives early, and it sits at a 4.91 xFIP against lefties. Drop all of that into 98-degree air and you have the best pairing of matchup and environment today. Medium ownership in the highest-totaled game is the part I like most.
Core pieces: Jac Caglianone $5,500 (L), Carter Jensen $4,600 (L), Vinnie Pasquantino $4,200 (L), Salvador Perez $3,700 (R), Michael Massey $3,600 (L)
2. Toronto vs Randy Dobnak (R) | Implied Total: 4.96 | ROO Score: 4.2/10 | Cash
Top implied total of the nine, and the Blue Jays get there against a 2.67 ERA nobody should believe. Dobnak's xFIP is 5.49, he's stranded 86.3% of his baserunners, and he strikes out 5.4 per nine against left-handed hitters. Toronto is a contact club, only a 16.9% strikeout rate versus right-handed pitching, so they'll put forty balls in play and let a 98-degree afternoon decide where they land. Kauffman runs a 116 index for right-handed power today with the heat tacking on close to 14%, which pushes Guerrero, Kirk, Springer and Okamoto ahead of the lefties for once. The knock is that the Kansas City bullpen sits at a 3.56 xFIP against righties and is a clear upgrade on Dobnak, so the damage has to land in the first five. This is the popular side. I have no problem sharing it.
Core pieces: George Springer $4,600 (R), Vladimir Guerrero $4,200 (R), Kazuma Okamoto $4,000 (R), Alejandro Kirk $3,800 (R), Jesus Sanchez $3,000 (L)
3. Chicago Cubs vs Tyler Phillips (R) | Implied Total: 4.58 | ROO Score: 4.4/10 | Cash
Different kind of stack. Roof closed, loanDepot smothers power, so chase traffic here and let the home runs happen by accident. Phillips is carrying a 3.46 ERA on a 6.18 xFIP with 80.1% of runners stranded, and against lefties he's at 4.81 BB/9 while allowing hard contact on 45.9%. The Cubs' left-handed hitters are the strongest platoon group of my three stacks, a 121 wRC+ against right-handers with a 12.1% walk rate, and against a starter with no command in a yard that eats fly balls, getting on base is the whole game. The Marlins pen carries a 4.87 xFIP, so the middle innings never get harder. Crow-Armstrong, Busch and Conforto are the ones I want most.
Core pieces: Pete Crow-Armstrong $6,700 (L), Alex Bregman $5,900 (R), Michael Busch $4,400 (L), Ian Happ $4,100 (S), Michael Conforto $3,000 (L)
Pitchers
Gavin Williams (CLE) vs DET | DK $10,200 | FD $11,000 | CASH
Detroit is implied for 2.78 runs and Williams is the arm you point at a number like that. He's fanning 11.98 per nine at a 33.0% rate behind a 2.63 xFIP and a 2.28 SIERA, and the 3.81 ERA sitting above both is the tell that his run prevention has lagged the pitching. Progressive with a nine-mile-an-hour wind coming in also caps his one weakness, the pull-side fly ball. He tops both sheets, $10,200 here and $11,000 on a FanDuel pitcher board whose floor is $5,500, and he'll be the most popular arm of the afternoon. Pay up anyway.
Paul Skenes (PIT) vs LAA | DK $9,500 | FD $8,900 | CASH
A 3.98 ERA on a 2.90 xFIP is a gap built out of things a pitcher doesn't control. Skenes has stranded only 67.1% of his baserunners with a .310 BABIP, and the profile underneath is 10.80 K/9 against 2.65 BB/9. The Angels are implied for 2.72, Pittsburgh is close to a two-to-one favorite, and he costs $600 less on FanDuel than on DraftKings, which is a strange discount for an arm this good. If you're running two starters, he's the half I'd lock first.
Ian Seymour (TB) vs TEX | DK $9,000 | FD $9,900 | GPP
Seymour misses bats, 10.98 K/9 with a 13.5% swinging-strike rate, and the closed roof at Globe Life removes the wind from the one thing that beats him. The thing itself is real, though. He lets 58.5% of contact go airborne and has already surrendered 1.59 HR/9 at a 16.8% HR/FB, which is why his 4.71 xFIP sits above his 4.22 ERA instead of below it. Texas is implied for 3.75. He'll either punch out nine or give up two homers, and that's a tournament profile.
MacKenzie Gore (TEX) vs TB | DK $8,600 | FD $9,100 | GPP
Other side of the same game, and the projections have almost nobody on him. Gore's 4.32 ERA has a 3.67 xFIP and a 3.35 SIERA under it, he's at 9.86 K/9, and Tampa Bay is implied for the same 3.75 in the same closed dome. The 3.50 BB/9 is why I stop short of calling him a cash arm, since the walks cost him innings. You're buying strikeout upside in a neutral building at light ownership, and I'd rather have that than another two thousand dollars of chalk.
Christian Scott (NYM) vs SF | DK $7,000 | FD $8,400 | GPP
San Francisco is running a bullpen day and the Mets are a solid favorite, which is the setup where a $7,000 arm posts a win and eight strikeouts. Scott: 3.82 ERA, 3.78 xFIP, 3.28 SIERA, 10.80 K/9. The 4.20 BB/9 is genuine and it's why he averages barely over five innings a night. Check both boards before you write him in, because $7,000 on DraftKings is bargain territory while $8,400 on FanDuel is a mid-board price on a sheet that bottoms out at $5,500. Cheap in one build, merely reasonable in the other.
Pitcher Regression to Watch
Aaron Nola (PHI), Positive Regression Candidate
Nola's 4.93 ERA and his 3.61 xFIP tell two different stories, and the home runs are the whole argument. He's given up 32 of them across 148 innings, but against right-handed hitters his HR/FB rate is 34.2%, roughly triple what any pitcher sustains, and to that same side he walks 1.24 per nine while striking out 10.40. That's a very good pitcher with a fluke bolted onto him. The wind is blowing in at Citizens Bank today and Atlanta is implied for four. If you've been waiting for a day to use him, this is it.
Eduardo Rodriguez (ARI), Negative Regression Candidate
A 2.59 ERA that a 4.34 xFIP wants nothing to do with. Rodriguez has stranded 82.3% of his runners on a .272 BABIP while striking out 6.57 per nine, and a starter missing that few bats is living on defense and sequencing. Houston is the offense positioned to collect, under a closed roof at Daikin that runs a 118 index for right-handed power.
Final Thoughts
Cash starts with Gavin Williams and Paul Skenes, and the two of them fit because the Toronto stack is cheap. Springer at $4,600 is the priciest piece of it and Jesus Sanchez costs three thousand. Add Coby Mayo at $3,800 and you've bought two aces without punting a spot. Down to one starter, keep Williams and push the savings into Crow-Armstrong.
Arrighetti's workload is the one thing I'd check again before lock. Ten days between starts and four innings a night before that means Kansas City probably sees the Toronto bullpen by the fifth, and that pen handles left-handed hitters worse than he does. A short leash helps the Royals lefties rather than hurting them.
In tournaments I want the lower-owned half of the best game today, which is Kansas City, and Gore is the arm the room will skip. Pair a five-man Royals stack with Gore or Christian Scott and neither of the two pitchers everybody else anchors to is on your card. Nelson Velazquez at $2,400 is the other way to get different. He hits ninth, he squares the ball up as well as anyone at that price, and the 4.34 xFIP behind Rodriguez says that 2.59 ERA is about to stop protecting 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.