Ryan Humphries | @N1TRO on LineStar | @NitroDFS on Twitter

🔊 7/30 On Deck Podcast with Joe Pisapia and Chris Meaney

• 7:29  Giants @ Philly

• 13:44  Price or Morton?

• 16:04  Bieber vs. Verlander

• 22:11  Texas Stack

• 23:20  Syndergaard @ White Sox

• 25:07  Arm of the Night

• 28:14  Dodgers Stack

• 33:08  Betting Lines & HR Calls

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Today marks the final full day before tomorrow’s 4 pm ET trade deadline hits. We could see some pretty big names making their final appearance with their current team this evening. With the August 31st ‘waiver deadline’ nixed this year (which still made trades possible a month after the July 31st ‘non-waiver deadline’), teams can no longer afford to sit around an extra month to take the “wait and see” approach. The time is now for organizations to make moves in order to push towards either immediate postseason success this year, or strengthening your team for future seasons. Things can be pretty fluid so make sure you’re on top of the latest trade news in case anything major goes down this afternoon. This should get interesting, I hope! Baltimore and San Diego compete in the lone early game today with all remaining 28 teams landing on our monster 14-game main slate. There’s plenty to break down with this one but, fortunately, it doesn’t seem like we’ll have any sizable postponement threats so let’s dive on in!

Match-ups with implied totals and moneylines:

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Pitchers to Consider

Shane Bieber (DK: $10.6k, FD: $10.4k) | RHP | CLE vs. HOU

We could be in store for a good ole fashioned pitchers’ duel here as Bieber and Verlander face off. The tricky part here is both of these teams have had top five offenses versus RHPs in the last month so I would not consider either guy a ‘safe play.’ Still, we know Bieber’s upside is in the CGSO plus 10+ K territory and, being at home, I’ll give him the slightest of nods when considering who to pay up for in GPPs. Bieber has been rocking a 2.79 ERA on the road this season but his 4.19 ERA at home is a little worrisome. However, when you consider he has a 3.12 xFIP at home, I think some concerns should be alleviated. He also has at least a 30% kRate and a sub-.283 wOBA against both sides of the plate while allowing a .208 AVG and 0.99 WHIP. We know this is going to be a tough test for Bieber but he played Houston pretty well earlier in the year, amassing 21 DKFP/40 FDFP, and he’s began pitching some of his best baseball since then.

David Price (DK: $9k, FD: $8.9k) | LHP | BOS vs. TB

Price has been consistently solid this season against his former team. In four starts against the Rays (23 IP), Price has pitched to a 3.13 ERA, 2.39 xFIP, 1.17 WHIP with an outstanding 38% kRate while allowing Tampa Bay to hit for just a .217 AVG/.276 wOBA. Price has also been terrific at home in Fenway where he has a 2.89 ERA, 3.18 xFIP, 31% kRate and allows a .272 wOBA. The Rays are a bit of a boom/bust offense and they could potentially be without a couple routine starters and key contributors in Tommy Pham (hand injury) and Avisail Garcia (illness). They’re also striking out 26.7% of the time against southpaws in the last month so there’s plenty of room for Price to notch 8 to 10 Ks en route to a very strong home outing.

Griffin Canning (DK: $7.8k, FD: $6.7k) | RHP | LAA vs. DET

I can’t quite tell if Canning is set up to be ultra SP2 chalk just yet. He is getting plenty of ‘loves’ on LineStar but the general DFS player base may look at his recent struggles and dismiss him. I can’t blame a young pitcher too much for having bad outings against the Rangers at Globe Life Park, the often highly dangerous Astros, and he also caught the Orioles on the tail-end of their hot streak. Regardless, we know Detroit is terrible and I’m not going to let their seven-run performance in LA last night deter me from attacking them again. It’s obviously very early in his career and, by all means, Canning is simply a pretty ‘average’ MLB pitcher at this point. But he has solid strikeout ability (25.2% kRate) alongside a respectable 1.23 WHIP and 4.32 SIERA. His big bugaboo has just been allowing too many home runs (1.72 HR/9) due to his 41.2% Hard Contact Rate and 46.5% Fly Ball Rate. Still, this is a Detroit team that is devoid of power with a .165 ISO against RHPs in the last month (ranks 27th), a 67 wRC+ (last) and they have been striking out 28.9% of the time. Canning already had a great winning performance against Detroit in just his second professional start back on May 7th (5.1 IP, 86 pitches, 2 ER, 4 H, 7 K) which resulted in 23 DKFP/37 FDFP. I’d say a similar outing is a very reasonable expectation. On DraftKings he’s set to be a solid SP2 and he’s definitely within ‘punt’ consideration on FanDuel with an extremely generous price tag.

Team Stacks to Target

Keep in mind, there’s no rule saying you *have* to roll out four and five man stacks. Sometimes mixing and matching two and three man stacks with some one-off hitters is the better route to take in order to give yourself more exposure to different offenses.

Coors Field Notice: The Dodgers (7.6 implied runs) and Rockies (6.9 implied runs) are top stacks by default and, as usual, will not be highlighted in this section. Though, we saw yesterday how crippling paying up for Coors bats can be, particularly if you went heavy Dodgers. I wasn’t personally a fan of paying a premium on those guys yesterday, but today I feel that the over on the 14.5 O/U is quite likely to hit. Two uninspiring starting pitchers and 90 degree weather? Look out!

New York Yankees vs. Taylor Clarke (RHP), ARI

I realize that the Bronx Bombers are a pretty obvious stack but I’ll get to my approach here in a moment. Clarke often provides a home run haven anywhere he pitches. His 2.26 HR/9 is the second highest mark on the slate and he allows 40.6% Hard Contact on 40.5% Fly Balls. Any time I notice a pitcher allows 40+% on both hard contact and fly balls, I’ll chase some bats after them. Clarke is also giving up essentially a .300 ISO to both sides of the plate, so he doesn’t discriminate on who he lets hit for power against him, and he’s a low strikeout pitcher with just a 16.8% kRate. Clearly it’s going to be tough to pay up for the top of the order guys on the Yankees. My thinking here is to look to take the budget approach and string together some of the much more affordable guys at the back of the order. Mike Tauchman, Gio Urshela, and Austin Romine are all worth a look at their current prices. Gleyber Torres is also reasonably priced on both sites as well and he’s about as big of a home run threat as anyone in the lineup. Urshela will land as my home run call of the night! 💣

Texas Rangers vs. Mike Leake (RHP), SEA

Similar to Coors Field, I normally won’t highlight teams playing in Globe Life Park. But I think that the Rangers have been playing poorly enough that many casual DFS players may overlook their return home from their 11 day road trip. Texas has been the third most prolific offense at home, averaging 5.58 runs/game. Mike Leake has thrown great games in three of his last four, but those were all at home. On the road, he has really struggled, with a 5.60 ERA, 4.89 xFIP, 2.87 HR/9 and allows a .292 AVG/.381 wOBA. In his last start in GLP he allowed seven runs on 11 hits (three HRs) across five innings. Aside from Danny Santana, who may not even play, pretty much every Ranger bat is priced down. I’ll lean towards taking guys like Nomar Mazara, Shin-Soo Choo, and Rougned Odor. It’s going to be right around 100 degrees for this game as well, so expect some bats to pop.

San Francisco Giants vs. Drew Smyly (LHP), PHI

Drew Smyly is definitely worth targeting even though the Giants have seemed to come back down to earth after their offensive run a couple weeks back. Smyly has been terrible at home, en route to a 8.90 ERA, 6.01 xFIP, 3.68 HR/9, 1.94 WHIP while allowing a .314 AVG/.430 wOBA. I’ll happily take a few shots at him with some of these cheap San Fran bats. Preferred options would likely be Donovan Solano, Mike Yastrzemski, and Austin Slater -- all three of those guys have at least a .360 wOBA and 125 wRC+ against southpaw pitchers this year.

One-Off Hitters

Here I’ll highlight players at [roughly] different price points (high, mid, low) that could be used as a ‘one-off’ piece in lineups -- or perhaps part of a two man mini-stack. 

Justin Turner (DK: $5.4k, FD: $4.2k) | 3B | vs. LHP Kyle Freeland

The Dodgers won’t get shut down again in Coors Field tonight. So, if you’re unable to stack them, who should we target as a one-off? For me, I believe it’ll be Turner who will get an excellent opportunity to bat in (and get batted in) multiple runs, as he’ll take third in the order. Turner has owned the BvP battle against Freeland. In 24 plate appearances against him, Turner is hitting .522 with a .737 wOBA+ISO. Turner is also creating 56.4% Hard Contact against LHPs this season and has a .355 AVG and .404 wOBA in eight games at Coors Field this year. He could be worth the price tonight.

Ramon Laureano (DK: $4.5k, FD: $3.1k) | OF | vs. RHP Adrian Houser

You could probably count on one hand how many MLB batters had a better month than Laureano. In the last month he has hit .390 with a ridiculous .505 wOBA, .430 ISO, eight home runs, 20 RBI with a 219 wRC+. On the surface, Adrian Houser is very strong against righties but Laureano has shown signs of reverse splits in his brief career and has hit RHPs better and with more power. Of his 21 home runs this season, 17 have been off of RHPs. Don’t worry about his missed game yesterday. He got the day off, so he should come in fresh tonight as he slots back in (likely) fifth in the order.

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Best of luck today! Don't forget to check out the "On Deck" podcast with Joe Pisapia & Chris Meaney. You can find it linked at the top of the page!

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