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

🚨 4th Episode of the PreSnap Podcast is up! Joe and Chris Preview the AFC/NFC West for the upcoming NFL DFS season! 🚨

Hopefully everyone enjoyed the long weekend and had a great Labor Day. The NFL regular season kickoff inches closer and closer but we’ve still got plenty of baseball action to attend to! We’ll get back to business as usual with a healthy 12 game main slate for this evening. When it comes to pitching selection, you’ve got several aces to mull over and some intriguing mid/low level options as well. There are also some really mediocre hurlers taking the mound today so we shouldn’t be too shocked by half of today’s offenses carrying an implied run total of five runs or above. Let’s go crush this one today!

Match-ups with implied totals & 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 ⛅️

No significant postponement threats across the board today. The only real weather aspect of note are the 15 mph winds blowing out in both Chicago and Cleveland. If those wind forecasts hold true later into the day, consider giving a slight bump to bats in those games.

Pitchers to Consider

Mike Clevinger | DK: $12.2k, FD: $12k | RHP | vs. Chicago White Sox

Yes, it can be a tough task finding cheap batters to fill out lineups where you’re paying for a $12k+ stud pitcher but on a slate this size, you can typically make it work while not sacrificing too much upside with your bats. Also, plenty of underpriced September call-ups are making their way into some potent offenses so that will have me giving Clevinger a long look tonight. He shut down the White Sox in his first start of the year back on April 1st (7 IP, 1 H, 3 BB, 0 ER, 12 K -- 106 pitches) en route to 37 DKFP/61 FDFP. Clevinger has been routinely blowing through opposing lineups with ease and boasts a slate leading 36.3% kRate alongside a 2.72 ERA (2.63 xFIP). The 15 mph winds blowing out to center is really the only concern here. However, considering the White Sox have only a .133 team ISO versus RHPs in the last month (ranks 28th) and Clevinger has allowed just two home runs in 39.2 IP at home this year (0.45 HR/9), those concerns are pretty limited. The Indians are the heaviest favorites of the day (-320) and I’ll certainly be looking to jam in the Cleveland ace in all formats.

Jon Lester | DK: $8.4k, FD: $7.1k | LHP | vs. Seattle Mariners

The upside with Lester is pretty questionable but the match-up is good enough to where we should reasonably expect a 20 DKFP/35 FDFP performance. Lester’s best performance of the season came against Seattle back on May 1st (7 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 0 ER, 8 K -- 97 pitches) and resulted in 35 DKFP/55 FDFP. We shouldn’t be looking for a perfectly identical game but the Mariner offense was much stronger at that point in the season. Seattle has only managed to score more than three runs in just three of their last nine games -- which included a four game series at Globe Life Park. It doesn’t quite stand out in some of the basic pitching stats like ERA, WHIP, and opponent batting average but many of Lester’s peripheral stats improve when he is at home (kRate, xFIP, BB%, Hard Contact Rate). What has been detrimental for Lester when pitching at Wrigley Field is the .369 BABIP he has against him, which is much higher than his .290 BABIP in 2018 and his .300 BABIP on the road this year. The wind blowing out in Chicago is a bit worrisome but given the general ineptitude of the Mariner offense lately, I think Lester can make for a fine mid-range pivot this evening.

Mike Montgomery | DK: $4.3k, FD: $7.3k | LHP | @ Detroit Tigers

The $4,300 DraftKings price tag on Montgomery is still too low to ignore, so expect him to likely be the highest owned SP2 on DK tonight. He had the hiccup at Baltimore but he’s still been pitching very well lately. Over his last five starts (29.2 IP) he’s running strong with a 2.45 ERA (3.76 xFIP), 25.8% kRate, 1.30 WHIP, and an opponent .271 AVG. Also, how can you ignore that ridiculous 41 DKFP/67 FDFP performance against this same Detroit team three weeks ago where Monty fanned 12 Tiger hitters across seven shutout innings. I understand if you’d want to go elsewhere on FanDuel but on DraftKings, this may be some SP2 chalk you just wanna eat -- at least in cash builds. You can end up affording a strong set of hitters along with an elite SP1 via this continued DK mispricing on Montgomery.

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.

Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Chi Chi Gonzalez (RHP), Colorado Rockies

Chi Chi has not been having a good time this year en route to an 8.07 ERA, 1.82 WHIP, and a slate worst 6.10 xFIP. He’s throwing just 11.8% strikeouts this year compared to 12.9% walks. You know what doesn’t bode well for a starting MLB pitcher? To walk more batters than you strike out. Also, even outside of Coors Field, the Rockies bullpen has had its own struggles lately so we should see these Dodger bats produce nicely once again. While we shouldn’t expect anything like that 16 run outing yesterday, which included seven Dodger home runs, you can’t help but predict that those bats will stay hot given this juicy match-up. Consider nearly anyone in this order to fall squarely in play.

Toronto Blue Jays vs. Mike Foltynewicz (RHP), Atlanta Braves

I doubt many people will look to land on Toronto bats now that they’ve cooled off and their young sluggers don’t quite carry as much appeal as they did a few weeks ago. Despite pitching pretty decently since being called back up to the big club a month ago, I still don’t buy into Folty’s ability to completely shut down an offense. He has also struggled more at home this season where he has a 6.00 ERA (5.28 xFIP) with a 1.50 WHIP and 2.57 HR/9. He’s also allowing 40% Hard Contact and 44% Fly Balls at SunTrust Park -- a combination that has led to such a high HR/9 number. This is more of a risky stack to consider but I’d still have interest in guys like Vlad Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, and Reese McGuire. Consider Teoscar Hernandez and Rowdy Tellez a couple of “home run or bust” options.

Oakland Athletics vs. Jaime Barria (RHP), Los Angeles Angels

Going back out to another west coast match-up here with the A’s stack. Oakland has been one of the best offenses in baseball as of late. Versus right-handed pitching over the last two weeks (347 plate appearances) they are boasting a league-leading 149 wRC+ with a .391 wOBA, .233 IS0 while striking out just 17.9% of the time. Barria can be serviceable at time for the Angels but he’s shown significant struggles on the road (8.24 ERA, 5.60 xFIP, .404 opponent wOBA). He’s also shown poor reverse splits in his brief career so I wouldn’t mind slightly favoring the righty A’s bats. Still, Barria hasn’t pitched beyond the fifth inning all season, so expect the A’s to see several innings against an Angels bullpen that has a 5.34 ERA over the last month. Matt Chapman, Mark Canha, and Marcus Semien would be my preferred targets. With a righty on the mound, I imagine there’s a strong chance Seth Brown lands in the starting lineup. If so, he could be an excellent punt play (DK: $3k, FD: $2.6k).

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.

OF JD Martinez (RHB) | DK: $5.1k, FD: $4.5k | vs. Randy Dobnak (RHP)

Talk about swinging a hot bat -- JD is 14-for-31 (.452 AVG) across his last eight games with six homers, 18 RBI, and a 1.258 wOBA+ISO. In that span he has earned a monstrous 293 wRC+. He’ll get to face off with the Twins rookie Randy Dobnak who will be making his first career MLB start. Dobnak has posted some strong minor league numbers this year but in limited work in the big leagues (three relief appearances, 8.0 IP) he hasn’t quite translated things over after allowing a .351 opponent average. Expect Martinez to keep the momentum going tonight.

OF Nicholas Castellanos (RHB) | DK: $4.3k, FD: $3.3k | vs. Felix Hernandez (RHP)

With that wind blowing out at Wrigley and King Felix on the mound (who is allowing 2.19 HR/9 this year), keeping some Cub bats in play seems like a wise approach. Since joining Chicago on August 1st, Castellanos has been batting .339 in those 30 games with a .779 wOBA+ISO. He also has 11 home runs, 10 doubles, and 20 RBI in that stretch. Don’t be surprised if he launches another one over the ivy wall yet again.

2B/SS Gavin Lux (LHB) | DK: $3.5k, FD: $2k | vs. Chi Chi Gonzalez (RHP)

I don’t typically double up by mentioning one off hitters for teams that I highlighted as a stack option but Lux is one of the intriguing call-ups that can be had for cheap tonight. Lux made his MLB debut in yesterday’s game, which was a success after going 2-for-5 with three runs scored. Manager Dave Roberts has expressed that Lux will be the typical starter at second base over Kike Hernandez whenever there is an opposing righty on the mound. That will be the case tonight so I’d expect the rookie to get his second start in as many days. He’s considered one of the top overall prospects in the Dodgers organization and in 49 Triple-A games this year he hit .392 with a stout .490 wOBA, .327 ISO, 13 HRs, and 39 RBI -- ultimately earning a 188 wRC+ rating. Plenty of upside with a cheap price tag here.

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