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

🏈 1st Episode of the PreSnap Podcast is up! Joe and Chris Preview the AFC/NFC East for the upcoming NFL DFS season!

🔊 8/12 On Deck podcast with Joe Pisapia & Chris Meaney

• 9:30 Reds Bats

• 13:06 Yankees Stack

• 15:21 Value in Toronto

• 17:23 Red Sox @ Indians

• 20:52 Greinke @ White Sox

• 22:48 Offense @ Coors

• 24:35 Mitch Keller @ Angels

• 26:36 Joey Lucchesi vs. Rays

• 29:15 Betting Lines & HR Calls

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Hoping you guys had a profitable few days in what was a wild weekend of baseball. We’ll kick the workweek off with what appears to be a very tricky eight game slate. Pitching from top to bottom is downright awful and there’s also a Coors Field game on the docket which carries a huge 14 over/under. On top of that, there is a high probability that we will lose likely the best arm and some of the best hitters on the board tonight due to a major postponement threat out in Chicago (more on that below). “Risky business” is the name of the game today. But remember, everyone staking some coin on this slate is working with the same set of players and circumstances so someone has to take home the dough by night’s end! Let’s get to it!

Match-ups with implied totals and moneylines:

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!

Weather Outlook 🌩️

HOU @ CWS: Our lone weather concern resides in The Windy City tonight. There’s a high likelihood of a complete washout here as rain and thunderstorms are forecasted to be in the Chicago area well before, during, and after this game. I did see that one of the DFS meteorologists (Kevin Roth) believes that there could be a chance the worst of the storms may clear and provide a window long enough for these teams to play. Anything could happen, so definitely check up on this one once we get closer to first pitch (8:10 pm ET). For now, things just don’t look that great so I’m considering the whole situation risky enough to where I will exclude these players for the purposes of this newsletter.

Pitchers to Consider

Joey Lucchesi (DK: $10k, FD: $7.6k) | LHP | SD vs. TB

First off, the pitching pricing varies pretty wildly between DraftKings and FanDuel. DK apparently really wanted to give people headaches today with all of their inflated pitcher salaries and $5k+ Coors bats. Lucchesi is about $1k too expensive on DK and $1k too cheap on FD so he will likely be the chalk arm of the day on the latter site, especially if Zack Greinke doesn’t get a chance to play. But given the dearth of viable options, even at $10k Lucchesi needs to be considered on DraftKings as well. This is a guy who carries some extreme home/road splits and he’ll, of course, be on the positive end of the numbers when he takes the mound at Petco Park this evening. In 12 starts at home this year (69.2 IP), Lucchesi owns a 6-2 record while accounting for a 2.71 ERA, 3.96 xFIP, 23.7% kRate, 1.03 WHIP, 0.78 HR/9 and allows just a .186 AVG/.250 wOBA. One downside here is the fact that he’ll face an extremely righty-heavy Rays lineup. But against RHBs at home, he still only allows a .191 AVG/.259 wOBA and 0.94 HR/9, so I’m not going to hold that against him too much -- just know that this is not an ideal match-up. The Rays rank 8th in the last month against lefties with a 118 wRC+ but they’ve also struck out at the fourth-highest frequency in that time with a 26.1% kRate. All things considered, with the postponement threat looming in Chicago, Lucchesi is about the safest play on the board tonight.

Jose Suarez (DK: $7.9k, FD: $5.7k) | LHP | LAA vs. PIT

Again, another huge pricing discrepancy between the two sites. FanDuel’s salary for Suarez is much more appropriate. Suarez has not been good, and he struggles to really even hit five innings worth of pitches. But on a day where 15 DKFP/25FDFP may end up being a strong score for pitchers, we have to at least consider Suarez. He is at home where the perception on his 5.60 ERA can be ‘dolled up’ a bit when you consider that his 4.33 xFIP sits more than a run lower than that earned run average. Suarez also has a 24.4% kRate at home while striking out just over a batter per inning. The downside here is that he does much of his strikeout damage against LHBs and Pittsburgh may only deploy one or two lefties. Still, Pittsburgh has been awful lately and over the last month they rank second-to-last against LHPs with a poor 72 wRC+ and a .230 AVG/.283 wOBA. The hope for Suarez is that he can rack up 15-18 outs with four or five strikeouts and position himself for the win. Overall, this feels a bit like I’m “putting lipstick on a pig” but that’s just the nature of pitching on this particular slate.

Austin Pruitt (DK: $4k, FD: $5.5k) | RHP | TB @ SD

Pretty much a DraftKings SP2 punt play only here. I feel like if you want any chance of getting some Coors exposure, while not completely spending down for your SP1, you have to give some contemplation towards one of these long relievers today -- whether it be Austin Pruitt or Brian Stewart, who is the current leading candidate to see extended relief innings for Toronto (still TBD). The Yankees will also have a long reliever of their own but no indication as to who that will be as of now (perhaps Nestor Cortes Jr.? He would be worth a look). Pertaining to Pruitt, there’s not much to really break down here. He isn’t exactly a great MLB pitcher and only provides a 17.7% kRate but his 4.09 xFIP on the season is at least very strong in comparison to the rest of these guys. It’s well-known that the Padres have often struggled versus right-handed pitching this year and, over the last month, they have a high 26.2% kRate with a slightly below average 98 wRC+. Setting the bar even lower here, I believe I’d gladly take about 10-12 DKFP from Pruitt (or any other reliever) in hopes of him seeing four, maybe five, innings of work. As is always the case with these guys stuck in long reliever roles, you never really know how much work they’re really in line to get but one positive is that they can often pick up a cheap win under the right circumstances in those middle innings.

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 Disclaimer: The Rockies (7.3 implied runs) and Diamondbacks (6.7 implied runs) are by default two top teams to stack and won’t be mentioned in this section.

New York Yankees vs. Pitcher TBD, Baltimore Orioles

There’s really no confirmation on who starts game two of this doubleheader for Baltimore tonight at the time of this writing. For now, I am just assuming it will be LHP John Means, whose last start came five days ago (also against the Yankees) where he allowed four runs through 3.2 IP. Really, when it comes to the Yankees, does it matter what pitcher they’re facing? If it weren’t for the Astros’ 23 runs against this same Orioles pitching staff a couple nights ago, combined with a lackluster weekend versus Toronto, the Yankees would likely still rank first over the last month in wRC+, wOBA, and ISO ratings. As it stands now, they’re 2nd, 2nd, and 1st respectively. Among the current healthy Yankee bats, Mike Tauchman, Gio Urshela, Cameron Maybin, and Austin Romine all have between a .414 and .529 wOBA as well as a 161 wRC+ or above in the last 30 days. Given the fact that today is a Coors slate and the Yankees combined for just seven runs in their last three games, we should anticipate seeing lowered ownership on these guys. Against the likes of Baltimore pitching, I’ll take it!

Update: LHP Ty Blach will start game two for Baltimore. Play on Yankees, play on.

Los Angeles Angels vs. Mitch Keller (RHP), Pittsburgh Pirates

Keller has put up some pretty nice numbers at the Triple-A level this year but that hasn’t translated over into his three professional starts where he has given up 14 earned runs in 12 innings (10.50 ERA). In his defense, he has fallen victim to an atrociously high .513 BABIP which will 100% regress. However, Keller seems like a pitcher who is heavily reliant on strikeouts and the Angels have a handful of guys who rarely get fanned. Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, and Albert Pujols all have under a 20% kRate versus RHPs and should be considered. Kole Calhoun and Matt Thaiss can also be in play as affordable lefty bats with plenty of power against righties. Lastly, Justin Upton is perhaps a bit too cheap on DraftKings at $3.6k.

Toronto Blue Jays vs. Ariel Jurado (RHP), Texas Rangers

Jurado’s slightly better road splits aren’t much of a factor for me when considering some of these Blue Jay bats today. Toronto has been a top 10 offense versus RHPs over the last month (107 wRC+, ranks 8th) and they have amassed 38 home runs in that time as well, trailing only the Astros and Dodgers. Bo Bichette and Vlad Guerrero Jr. are the two young guns you’d want to aim for while guys like Cavan Biggio, Teoscar Hernandez, and Randall Grichuk stand out as more “boom/bust” secondary options. Vladdy Jr. will be my home run call for today! 💣

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.

Ketel Marte (DK: $5.5k, FD: $4.4k) | 2B/OF | vs. RHP Peter Lambert

It’s tough to pinpoint a favorite one-off play in this Coors Field game today but when drafting Ketel Marte, you know there’s almost always going to be a decent floor with plenty of upside. Marte is a versatile switch hitter who bats .300+ on both sides of the plate. He’s riding an eight game hit streak into tonight with multi-hit performances in half of those games. Lambert allows a massive .420 wOBA and .286 ISO to LHBs on 48.8% Hard Contact. Even if Marte doesn’t go yard tonight, he should be in line for another outing with multiple hits/runs/RBI and perhaps a stolen bag thrown into the mix.

Aristides Aquino (DK: $4.4k, FD: $3.9k) | OF | vs. RHP Erick Fedde

Any surprise here? Probably not. Since starting his MLB career going 0-for-6, in eight games since then Aquino is 14-for-25 (.560) with seven homers and 14 RBI. His .788 wOBA/.880 ISO in that time obviously isn’t sustainable. But you simply don’t ignore a guy who has been absolutely obliterating just about any pitcher he faces while also still maintaining affordable DFS salaries. Erick Fedde along with his 6.10 ERA and 13% kRate at home doesn’t seem to be a likely candidate to slow down the Aquino Express.

Jacob Stallings (DK: $2.6k, FD: $2.2k) | C | vs. LHP Jose Suarez

If you meander your way to LineStar’s Daily Matchup page, select splits from “this season,” sort players by salary, and scroll alllll the way towards the bottom, you will notice Stallings and his match-up with Jose Suarez standing out among just about all other cheap bats. Sure, it may be only a 21 plate appearance sample size, but Stallings has a respectable .286 batting average versus LHPs this season with a .373 wOBA and .333 ISO on 52.9% Hard Contact. Against RHBs, Suarez allows a .349 AVG, .449 wOBA, .287 ISO on 42.2% Hard Contact, 41.4% Fly Balls, and a 26.8% HR/FB Rate. I know I have Suarez written up above but the chances are that some of these Pirate bats will get to him. If you need to purely punt a hitter or two tonight to fit some of these more elite sluggers into your lineups, Stallings feels like a logical option.

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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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