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

🔊 7/31 On Deck Podcast with Joe Pisapia and Chris Meaney

• 10:42  Early Games

• 17:43  Giants @ Philly

• 18:57  Berrios @ Miami

• 19:48  Boston Bats

• 20:15  Jose Urquidy @ Cleveland

• 25:32  Fading deGrom

• 26:24  Oakland Bats

• 30:07  Betting Lines & HR Calls

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Quite an interesting night in baseball yesterday, huh? Tuesday night featured a pretty big and unexpected trade along with some legitimate basebrawl action -- fun stuff! We’ll see if teams continue to make any notable moves going forward as we head into the eleventh hour of the 4 pm ET MLB trade deadline (which will probably have passed by the time you’re reading this). For this evening, we’ll have eight games to break down. The Rockies/Dodgers game is delegated to a single game/two game slate, depending on what site you play on, so no pressure to force in Coors bats this evening -- fine by me! It’s a pretty solid set of games here but pitching seems a bit tricky aside from two or three more obvious guys. I will be highlighting some arms who would fall more in line with a GPP pivot approach so keep that in mind. We will also have to keep an eye on a couple problematic areas when it comes to potential for delays/postponements. So here we go!

Match-ups with implied totals and moneylines:

Weather Outlook 🌩️

SF @ PHI: Storms are projected to develop in the afternoon and carry on into the evening. They may be more of the scattered variety as opposed to blanketing so there’s a chance rain could miss the stadium entirely. If anything, it seems more likely for a possible delay than a postponement threat right now, but do pay attention to this one as we get closer to first pitch.

TB @ BOS: Another area that seems tough to predict at the moment. There’s about a 30% chance of rain moving over Boston throughout the 7:00-10:00 pm ET window (aka, when this game should be played). Perhaps an in game delay is more of a threat or maybe they just play through some wetness. Once again, check closer to first pitch when we’ll have a better idea of how things will shake out. For now, I won’t be avoiding either game mentioned here.

Stay up to date on all weather conditions and confirmed lineups as soon as they are released over in LineStar chat & on the Daily Dashboard!

Pitchers to Consider

Mike Minor (DK: $9.9k, FD: 9.5k) | LHP | TEX vs. SEA

If you want more safety, clearly spend up for deGrom or Berrios, who are both in strong spots. Nothing wrong with either of those guys. For a lower owned GPP pivot, Minor seems to have some potential. Many people will probably look at his recent game logs and just automatically skip over him, especially since he is playing Seattle again back-to-back, who he didn’t have a great start against in his last time out. But now that he is pitching at home, I feel a bit better about his situation, even though Globe Life Park is obviously a very hitter friendly environment. I believe we can give him a bit of a pass on his previous two home games against the Astros and Angels -- two really good offenses. In 62.2 innings pitched at home, Minor has an exceptionally strong 2.73 ERA (4.26 xFIP, kinda not great), 1.21 WHIP, and he allows a .232 AVG/.277 wOBA and just 0.43 HR/9 (very impressive considering where he’s pitching). A big thing with his appeal today is the fact that his strikeouts go up to a 26.1% kRate at home. And this Seattle team provides a lot of K upside. Against LHPs over the last month, Seattle is striking out 29.6% of the time. In their current projected lineup, they have seven guys with kRates above 25% against lefties. In Minor’s initial two starts against Seattle this year, he fanned 13 batters in the first game, 11 in the second. That strikeout potential combined with the fact that Minor has been so good at limiting home runs at GLP this year will have me taking him in some tournament builds. The Rangers are also strong -165 home favorites.

Miles Mikolas (DK: $7.7k, FD: $7.4k) | RHP | STL vs. CHC

I’d imagine Vince Velasquez may end up being the chalk arm in this price range. My interest in him is more or less summarized as “apathetic” but I suppose if you want to take the “safer” route, feel free to use him against a Giants team that made Drew Smyly look like an ace level pitcher yesterday. The case for Mikolas: he’s getting a chance to pitch just his second game at home in over a month, and in 10 home games this season, he’s been a really viable DFS pitcher. At home he is posting a 2.15 ERA, 4.03 xFIP (meh), 0.96 WHIP, 0.67 HR/9 and is allowing a .226 AVG/.256 wOBA. He’s a control pitcher that doesn’t notch many punchouts -- just a 17.5% kRate overall. But at home he forces 53.1% ground balls, which is very solid, and typically he is able to make up for some lost strikeout upside by going at least seven innings (as he has done in five of his last seven home games). The Cubs haven’t exactly been lighting it up lately either, scoring four runs or fewer in seven of their last eight games (2-6 record). They’ve been merely average against RHPs over the last month, with a 101 wRC+ (15th), .254 AVG (16th), and .328 wOBA (15th) while striking out 26.1% of the time. In Mikolas’ first start against the Cubs this season (which was at home), he allowed just one run through seven innings (104 pitches) but only struck out three batters, so the fantasy result wasn’t eye-popping (15 DKFP/31 FDFP). I could see a similar performance but perhaps he’ll be able to notch two or three more strikeouts which would result in nice value here. Not a slam dunk play by any means, but a strong mid-range pivot in tournaments.

Jordan Lyles (DK: $6.1k, FD: $6.7k) | RHP | MIL @ OAK

If you really want to get weird, you could throw out Lyles as a complete punt as he looks to make his first start for the Brewers just a couple days after being traded from the Pirates. Lyles has not been putting up very strong results ever since around mid-May but at least we know he’s capable of huge fantasy numbers with that 10+ K upside that he showed earlier in the season. Perhaps a change of scenery will reinvigorate something in him. The Athletics have some good hitters sprinkled throughout the order but, as a whole, they have rarely been blowing opposing teams up. Over their last 12 games, they’re averaging 3.75 runs/game while maxing out at six runs scored (twice). They’ll also be without one of their hottest hitters, Ramon Laureano, who got placed on the 10-day IL yesterday -- a somewhat quiet, but potentially very impactful loss. In Lyles’ only start against Oakland this year he held them to just five hits and one run across 6.2 innings on 100 pitches. Oakland Coliseum is rated as the third most pitcher-friendly park so, for these prices, it won’t take a Herculean effort from Lyles to return value.

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.

Texas Rangers vs. Wade LeBlanc (LHP), SEA

Smaller slate so, to hell with it, I’ll take some (possibly) low-hanging fruit and highlight the Rangers as they take home field at GLP. LeBlanc was just announced as being tonight’s starter (as opposed to long reliever), which is nice to know well ahead of time. He’s been pretty generous with giving up home runs this year, particularly on the road, where he has given up eight bombs in just 28.2 innings resulting in a 2.51 HR/9. On the road he is also allowing a .325 AVG/.388 wOBA, 1.57 WHIP, along with 43.3% Hard Contact on 39.2% Fly Balls. In that 95+ degree Texas heat, I think we could see some Rangers blast two or three off of him. Danny Santana, Nomar Mazara, and Willie Calhoun are a few of the preferred bats I would consider -- all as legitimate home run threats.

Tampa Bay Rays vs. Rick Porcello (RHP), BOS

Hmm, Porcello actually wasn’t terrible in his last start and it was against the Yankees. Ehh, I’ll fall back on the larger sample size that have shown his immense struggles as of late. Going back to June 23rd, Porcello has started six games, pitched 29 innings, and has posted a 9.31 ERA, 6.03 xFIP, 2.20 HR/9, 12.6% kRate and is allowing a .351 AVG/.421 wOBA. Unfortunately, for this stack’s purposes, Porcello hasn’t been quite as horrendous against right-handed hitters, and the Rays lineup is loaded with RHBs. But that will make Austin Meadows one of my favorite one-off plays of the day and I’m doubling down and making him my home run call as well. 💣 For some other options, Travis d’Arnaud has been on a scorcher, and both Avisail Garcia and Matt Duffy are hitting above .400 against Porcello in a 20+ at bat sample size.

Cleveland Indians vs. Jose Urquidy (RHP), HOU

I really do like Urquidy’s talent and he could definitely have a somewhat surprisingly strong performance against Cleveland here. However, Urquidy relies pretty heavily on churning through innings via strikeouts (even going back through his minor league numbers). The projected one through five hitters for Cleveland all carry a sub-19% kRate versus RHPs this season. Though it’s a small sample size, Urquidy has allowed two home runs to LHBs in 9.1 innings against them, alongside a .200 ISO. And the top half of the Indians order features a load of switch-hitting lefties. Francisco Lindor, Carlos Santana, and Jose Ramirez would easily be the preferred targets. Jason Kipnis is also perpetually affordable, will (likely) bat clean-up, and has put up some solid games as of late.

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. 

Rafael Devers (DK: $5.3k, FD: $4.3k) | 3B | vs. RHP Andrew Kittredge/LHP Ryan Yarbrough

Boston will see a righty opener and a lefty long reliever so you’ll probably want to look for versatile hitters when targeting some Red Sox bats. If you haven’t noticed lately, Rafael Devers is pretty good no matter who he faces. Over the last month (min. 60 at-bats), Devers ranks top 10 in (.470) wOBA, (.390) ISO, and (195) wRC+ categories. He’s knocked out nine homers with 32 RBI while striking out only 16 times in 115 plate appearance (13.9% kRate). Despite the high price tags, he’s been a pretty reliable bat to spend up on and I’d have no issue going back to him tonight.

Bryce Harper (DK: $4.3k, FD: $4.2k) | OF | vs. RHP Jeff Samardzija

Not in love with the FanDuel price on Harper but he’s definitely a bit underpriced on DraftKings. Harper’s hitting righties well as of late, with a .304 AVG, .426 wOBA, and .250 ISO against them in his last 20 games (71 plate appearances). Samardzija has been having a solid season and even pitched a damn good game at Coors Field a couple weeks ago. But his worst splits, pretty easily, have come on the road against left-handed hitters where he has a 5.21 xFIP while allowing a .349 wOBA and 2.42 HR/9 on 42.3% Hard Contact. Harper is a better hitter at home and could easily get ahold of one off of the Shark this evening.

Donovan Solano (DK: $4k, FD: $2.5k) | 2B/SS | vs. RHP Vince Velasquez

If VV is going to be a bit chalky, I definitely don’t mind getting some exposure to a San Fran bat here and there in case they tag him up. Velasquez has pretty neutral splits and allows about a .355 wOBA and .255 ISO to all hitters so I’m not worried about the righty-on-righty match-up with Solano here. Solano has been hitting RHPs well anyhow, with a .372 AVG, .412 wOBA, and .209 ISO against them in his last 20 games (46 plate appearances). If the Giants give him the lead-off spot once again, I’ll definitely consider rolling Solano out as a cheap one-off.

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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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