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

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I hope all the football fans enjoyed the first Sunday of NFL action! It was a pretty wild one for sure. On the baseball scene, we kick our Monday off with a pretty modest eight game slate. Even though this is a shorter slate, it currently stands out as one of the less offensively-centric sets of games I’ve seen in a while. There isn’t a single game with a double digit total and only three clubs have an implied team total at five runs or higher (HOU, NYY, MIN). It makes sense considering the amount of arm talent taking the mound tonight, but temperatures are also dropping across the country as we near closer and closer to fall, so a little less pop off the bats is to be expected as well. Skies should remain clear in every park tonight and there are no impactful winds or temperatures anywhere that should significantly affect either pitching or hitting -- aside from the cooler temperatures slightly favoring pitchers. So, with all that said, let’s get right down to business!

Match-ups with implied totals and moneylines:

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Pitchers to Consider

Aaron Nola | DK: $10.4k, FD: $9.8k | RHP | vs. ATL

Despite the amount of arm talent that this slate offers, there are a lot of tricky match-ups that these guys have to contend with. In Nola’s case, he’s had a pretty solid track record against the Braves this season. He has a 3-0 record in four starts against Atlanta (25 IP) with a 3.60 ERA (4.72 xFIP), 1.28 WHIP, 26.9% kRate, and a .211 opponent average. Not the most spectacular stat line but it’s good enough to have averaged 21.1 DKFP/38.8 FDFP per start. Despite how dangerous the Braves order can be, in 279 plate appearances against RHPs on the road in the last month they are hitting just .209 with a 76 wRC+ and a very high 29% kRate. I don’t expect Nola to be many people’s first choice among the stud pitchers tonight but he tends to post much better numbers at home. If the Braves continue to struggle against righties away from SunTrust Park, then we could get a strong return on our investment here at lower ownership than guys like Bieber or deGrom will possess.

Madison Bumgarner | DK: $9.2k, FD: $9k | LHP | vs. PIT

When it comes to highlighting a secondary option, I won’t typically go with someone in the $9k range but MadBum has a solid match-up at home tonight. In 16 home starts (101.2 IP) Bumgarner is 6-2 with a 2.83 ERA (3.73 xFIP), 0.92 WHIP, 26.4% kRate, and a .213 opponent average. These positive home splits amounts to him scoring an additional +7.4 DKFP per game. As a team, Pittsburgh ranks 29th in the league with a 76 wRC+ versus LHPs in the last month and they are hitting just .242 with a .290 wOBA and .142 ISO. They haven’t been striking out a ton (18.5% kRate) but Bumgarner should still be capable of fanning six or seven Pirates while pitching relatively deep into the game.

Jordan Lyles | DK: $8.2k, FD: $8.4k | RHP | @ MIA

You’re playing with fire if you go too deep into the pitcher pricing hierarchy so Lyles with the (mostly) tried-and-true Miami match-up is about as low as I could comfortably recommend going tonight. Lyles has allowed two earned runs or fewer in six of his last seven starts. In that span (38.2 IP) he has a 2.56 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, 22.2% kRate, and .197 opponent average. His 5.06 xFIP in that time is definitely unsettling but, again, he gets Miami this evening. We have seen Miami ruin plenty of pitchers’ nights this year but that’s simply how things go in baseball. Even the worst teams are going to pop off on occasion. If you’re entering several lineups, feel free to run some Marlins bats against Lyles because he’s pretty likely to carry quite a bit of ownership. But the numbers and odds all say that he limits the damage tonight and works out to be a strong, affordable DFS option. 

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.

Milwaukee Brewers vs. Robert Dugger (RHP), MIA

Dugger only has an 18.0 IP sample size to go off of but his 6.15 xFIP is easily the worst mark on this slate. In 10 Triple-A starts this season (53.1 IP) he also posted a very poor 6.05 xFIP (with a 7.59 ERA) so I feel like we just have to consider his August 29th performance against Cincinnati to be a fluke. Behind Dugger, the Brewers will get some innings against a Marlins bullpen that has been perhaps the worst in the league lately. In the last month, Miami relievers have a 6.93 ERA (6.20 xFIP), 1.75 WHIP, and are allowing 2.61 HR/9. This clearly isn’t a great park for hitters but Christian Yelich, Eric Thames, and Yasmani Grandal are a few Brewers who have some really strong upside tonight. Cory Spangenberg makes for an intriguing flier.

Oakland Athletics vs. Zack Greinke (RHP), HOU

I’m not sure what’s up with Greinke but he’s looked pretty average since donning the Astros uniform post-trade deadline. In six starts with Houston, going back to August 6th, Greinke has a 3.86 ERA (4.46 xFIP), 1.31 WHIP, 17.2% kRate, and a .281 opponent average. He’ll have to contend with an A’s squad that has a 132 wRC+ and .364 wOBA versus RHPs in the last month -- numbers good enough to rank third in the league in both categories. This isn’t a safe stack to roll out but the upside is definitely there. Matt Olson, Seth Brown, and Mark Canha all have above a 200 wRC+ versus RHPs in the last 30 days. Marcus Semien and Matt Chapman could be considered as well, with Jurickson Profar being a boom/bust option.

New York Mets vs. Merrill Kelly (RHP), ARI

The Mets are in desperate need of some late season wins in their push for a wild card bid. They’ve scored at least six runs in six of their last nine games so we should probably expect them to outdo their 4.3 implied run total tonight. Merrill Kelly will take the mound on the road where he has struggled to a 6.00 ERA (5.73 xFIP) this season while striking out just 15% of batters and allowing 1.80 HR/9 with a 1.56 WHIP. There are several Mets bats that intrigue me here. If I had to pick specific guys that I like the most, they’d have to be Pete Alonso, Wilson Ramos, and Robinson Cano. 

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 Mookie Betts (RHB) | DK: $4.9k, FD: $4.4k | vs. James Paxton (LHP), NYY

Mookie has been beating up lefty pitchers lately to the tune of a .444 AVG with a .948 wOBA+ISO in his last 20 games against them (31 plate appearances). In Paxton’s only start at Fenway Park this year, in just four innings of work he gave up seven earned runs on nine hits which included four home runs. Mookie Betts was responsible for three of those home runs that day. That sort of memory can certainly linger in a pitcher’s mind. It’ll be interesting to see how Paxton looks to handle Betts tonight.

OF Michael Brantley (LHB) | DK: $4.2k, FD: $3.9k | vs. Mike Fiers (RHP), OAK

Brantley got a day off yesterday, which may have been sorely needed considering he had gone 3-for-26 in his previous six games. Truthfully, he’s been swinging a cold bat for the better part of two weeks now, yet he still has a .320 AVG over the last month. I would definitely bank on Brantley righting the ship sooner rather than later but much of this player recommendation comes down to the BvP narrative. In 31 plate appearances versus Mike Fiers, Brantley is batting .387 with a home run and a .404 wOBA. Assuming he is back in the order, he should slot in batting second or third for an Astros team with the highest implied run total of the day (5.2 runs). We’ll see if he can bust out the slump tonight.

3B Abraham Toro (SH) | DK: $2.9k, FD: $3k | vs. Mike Fiers (RHP), OAK

Going back to another Astros bat, we have Toro who remains just a bit too cheap -- especially on DraftKings. Assuming you’re looking to pay up for pitching tonight, some value bats are a necessity. Abraham Toro isn’t exactly making the sort of splash early in his MLB career that guys like Austin Riley or Aristides Aquino did in their initial stretch of games this year but in ‘Moneyball’ fashion, he is getting on base quite a bit (.345 OBP) and is an above average offensive contributor (115 wRC+). He fares better against righties and has a .273 AVG with a .701 wOBA+ISO against them in 38 plate appearances with a pair of homers to boot. Despite the fact that he’ll likely bat sixth or seventh in the order, getting any piece of this Astros lineup for such a low price tag can end up paying off nicely.

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