Tastefully curated M-F by LineStar fantasy expert @GLandry

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We’ve got a nine-game slate tonight that features plenty of pitching and stack options so it should be a great tournament slate. We have a Coors game, a Chris Tillman game, and a potential pitcher’s duel between two young guns out in Los Angeles. As far as weather, we have mostly mild temperatures. Ironically enough, the warmest weather game is at Coors today where it will be 80 degrees at first pitch. New York has a chance of some rain during the game so I would anticipate the PPD risk to creep up on that one a little bit but right now I’d say it’s more likely to be a delay or potential stoppage mid-game for a bit. Keep an eye on that. No winds we need to worry about anywhere. I’m excited about this slate so let’s get to it!

Power Pitching Targets ⚾️

Walker Buehler, LAD (vs. CIN) (DK: $10.5K, FD: $8.6K)

For the third time in four starts, the top prospect will face off with a last place team. This time he gets the Reds. I’ve been using the Reds bats a lot for the past week while they were at home but they go on the road now and take a big negative park shift at Dodger Stadium. This is a great time to jump off the bats and jump back on the pitchers against them. Buehler is the largest favorite on the board today at -200. He brings a 3.55 ERA which is only slightly below his respectable 3.73 SIERA. He has a 29% strikeout rate with an incredible 65% groundball rate while only allowing 27.9% hard contact. Honestly, the only knock on Buehler right now is the 14% walk rate but that’s pretty common for rookie pitchers. Against left-handed batters, Buehler has a 36.2% strikeout rate while forcing 60.9% groundballs and only allowing a .201 wOBA. Joey Votto is always dangerous but this is a bad spot for him today. Against right-handed batting the strikeout rate drops to 20.3% with a very high 15% walk rate and allowing a poor .361 wOBA. But, he still forces 67.6% groundballs to that side of the plate which helps limit any major damage. The Reds have been swinging some hot bats recently, but you have to remember that Great American Ballpark is one of the best hitter’s parks in baseball. They also had some incredibly easy matchups against guys like Jason Vargas, PJ Conlon, Wade Miley, and Dan Straily to name a few. This is a huge let down spot for their bats which makes Buehler my favorite pitcher on the board today. He’s my cash game arm for sure. Tournaments will depend on ownership which I expect to be high.  

I got some good feedback from some of you when I did the side by side comparison of Aaron Nola and James Paxton in this article earlier in the week. Today, we have another spot where there are three pitchers where I could honestly make a case for each, with similar price points on both sites. Let’s do another side by side and see if we can narrow our choice down:

This is a tough one. Pitcher #1 has the lowest strikeout rate but also the best SIERA, walk rate and groundball rate of the group. Pitcher #3 has the best strikeout and swinging strike rate but allows the hardest contact. Pitcher #2 has pretty solid numbers across the board. At this point, I’m likely to eliminate Pitcher #1 just because the lower strikeout rate lowers his ceiling. But, here’s the opponent data:

Just to make our lives more difficult, Pitcher #1 is facing the team with the highest strikeout rate today. Not only of this group but actually on the entire slate. They also have the worst ISO, wOBA and wRC+ by a pretty big margin. Pitcher #2 is facing a team with below average strikeouts, and a respectable team ISO, wOBA, and wRC+. Pitcher #3 is facing a team with average strikeouts, a high walk rate, and strong ISO and wRC+ numbers. At this point, you probably have an idea of where you are leaning. Let’s consider a couple more factors.  

I think it’s pretty clear now. Hopefully, you agree. I love the matchup for Pitcher #1 and the fact he has the lowest strikeout rate of the group is completely washed out by the opponent strikeout rate. He also has the best SIERA, groundball, and walk rate, he’s a comfortable favorite, he’s the cheapest (tied for the cheapest on DK), and he’s in a pitcher’s park. He’s my top choice here. Figure it out? Pitcher #1 is Miles Mikolas who is facing the Padres today. Pitcher #2 is J.A Happ against the Mariners today. Pitcher #3 is Zack Greinke against the Nationals today. I’m going with Mikolas if forced to choose but you could really make a case for any one of these guys. My hope is that because J.A. Happ and especially Zack Greinke carry at least some name familiarity, they will be the higher owned players in the group. If Mikolas somehow appears to be flying under the radar throughout the day with Buhler, Happ, and Greinke all priced in a similar range he’ll become my highest owned pitcher in tournaments.

Value Pitchers

Mike Foltynewicz, ATL (@MIA) (DK: $9.5K, FD: $7.5K)

If you read my NBA articles at all I had an unwritten rule that I referred to a lot about always targeting centers against the Milwaukee Bucks. Well, in baseball, one of my unwritten rules throughout the season (it’s an obvious one) will be to always target right-handed pitchers against the Miami Marlins. The Marlins have actually done better than expected so far this season but they are still a very weak lineup and over the course of the long season we’ll see this play out. More times than not they are going to struggle to put up hits and runs. They have a 24.4% strikeout rate with just a .098 ISO, .265 wOBA, and 66 wRC+ to right-handed pitching. Foltynewicz is interesting cause I think he’s a bit overpriced on DraftKings but he’s too cheap on FanDuel. I feel like somewhere in the $8K range on both sites would be a fair price for him in this spot. He’s pitching well this season with a 3.65 ERA and a 3.93 SIERA, an impressive 26.9% strikeout rate and a 9.8% swinging strike rate. The swinging strike rate is a pretty good indicator that his overall strikeout rate will start to come down a little but I’m not worried about that against the Marlins. Honestly, the only knock on him today is the high 10.7% walk rate but Miami has the lowest team walk rate on the slate today at just 6.7%. This game is also in pitcher-friendly Marlins Park. Everything lines up for this to be a phenomenal spot for Folty today.  He's on the radar as an SP2 in cash and he's firmly in play for tournaments.  

Tyler Mahle, CIN (@LAD) (DK: $7.6K, FD: $7.2K)

Here’s my wildcard of the day. With Walker Buehler getting all the attention on today’s slate Mahle should go completely under the radar. If I asked you which 23 and under prospect led the majors in strikeouts this season what would your answer be? It would be Buehler right? That would have been my guess. The answer is actually Mahle. He has a very respectable 25.9% strikeout rate and a 10.7% swinging strike rate to go with his 4.35 ERA but an excellent 3.57 SIERA. Against right-handed batters he has a 25.3% swinging strike with 46.4% groundballs and allowing only a .303 wOBA. Left-handed batters give him some issues with a 4.27 xFIP, only 30.6% groundballs and allowing an uncomfortable .382 wOBA. But, he still strikes out 26.5% of left-handed batters. I’ve been targeting pitchers against the Dodgers recently with success as they are missing some key pieces of their lineup right now and are not playing up to expectations at the moment. As the season goes on I imagine they’ll become a team I want to stay away from but for now I like this spot for Mahle. Looks like I’ll be playing more than my typical daily budget today cause there’s a lot of pitchers I want to have some exposure to.  

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Stacks on Stacks 🥞

• Kansas City Royals (vs Chris Tillman): LOL. If you’re not stacking against Tillman today please feel free to take all my head to heads in the lobby tonight. It’s a joke this guy is still starting in the majors. He has an ERA of 8.14 and a SIERA of 5.81 with a 13.3% strikeout rate, 11.4% walk rate and has allowed nearly 40% hard contact over the last two seasons. This game is at Camden Yards and the Royals bats are hot right now. I like the Royals better than either team at Coors today. If this is chalk I'm eating it but I'm hoping they go a little under-owned today because of Coors.  

• Colorado Rockies (vs. Jhoulys Chacin): We have to talk about Coors. The Rockies have the highest implied total on the slate today at 6.04. Over the past two seasons, Chacin has a 4.79 SIERA with a below average 18.8% strikeout rate and just 7.8% swinging strikes. The only thing he really has going for him is his 48% groundball rate. It’s worse so far this season with a 5.52 SIERA and just a 13.5% strikeout rate. The groundball rate has even come down to just 43.4%. Everyone is in play but the left-handed batters are the priority. Chacin has a pathetic 3% swinging strike rate against left-handed batters.

• Milwaukee Brewers (vs. German Marquez): The Brewers, naturally, have the second highest implied total today at 5.46. This season, Marquez has respectable numbers with a 4.26 SIERA that is below his 4.76 ERA and 22.7% strikeouts. Not horrible. Where he gets into trouble is his 10.4% walk rate and his 1.47 WHIP. I’ve said this before but I love stacking against pitchers with high walk rates and a high WHIP. It’s a recipe for disaster that is only magnified in this park. Milwaukee should put some runs on the board tonight.

• Toronto Blue Jays (vs. Mike Leake): Leake is another guy that really shouldn’t be in the majors anymore. He has a 5.07 SIERA and a super low 14.9% strikeout rate. He has the second highest WHIP on the slate (behind Chris Tillman of course) at 1.60 and he allows 38.6% hard contact. To right-handed batters, he allows a .389 wOBA with just an 18% strikeout rate and to left-handed batters he allows a .366 wOBA with just a 12% strikeout rate. It’s also a ballpark downgrade for Leake going from Seattle to Toronto. You can stack the Jays pretty much any way you want today.

• Baltimore Orioles (vs. Ian Kennedy): Kennedy has some talent and solid strikeout stuff with a 21.7% strikeout rate. He has a nasty curve when it’s working and that happens to be a pitch the Orioles struggle with. But, the knock on Kennedy is he’s a fly ball pitcher that allows over 40% hard contact. This can get him into trouble especially against a team like Baltimore who has some big power bats and in a power-friendly park like Camden Yards. The Orioles have been bad this season but there is plenty of upside in this lineup if you catch them on the right night. They should be low owned today and I’ll likely have exposure in tournaments.

• New York Yankees (vs. Eduardo Rodriguez): With Coors and Chris Tillman on the slate I think the Yankees could get overlooked today. Anytime the Yankees are facing a left-handed pitcher I have interest even if it’s a bad matchup. Eduardo Rodriguez is a high strikeout pitcher with a 28.1% strikeout rate and 13.3% swinging strike rate this season and the Yankees strikeout 23.5% of the time against left-handed pitching. But, Rodriguez can sometimes struggle with his command and get into trouble and we know the Yankees have some serious lefty killers. They have an insane .212 ISO with a .336 wOBA and a 110 wRC+ against left-handed pitching. They are also patient at the plate and walk 11% of the time to lefties. Rodriguez, as evidenced in his last outing, can get into trouble with walks. With the masses focused on Coors and plenty of value pitchers to choose from today, it should be pretty easy to fit in the Bronx Bombers in what is shaping up to be a great spot.      

I think my approach tonight is going to be pretty straightforward. I’m going to load up on Rockies and Royals even though I expect them to be chalk. It’s possible the Royals are less owned than they should be if Coors gets all the attention. We’ll have to wait and see. There are several pitchers I like tonight so I’ll mix up my stacks by getting exposure to many of them. I’ll probably plan to mix in the Yankees in tournaments as well. The Royals have some cheaper bats that should make it easy to build some nice stacks with the Rockies and Yankees and some mid-range pitching.  As always, feel free to tag me in the LineStar chat rooms @glandry or you can find me on twitter @GP_Landry.  Thanks for reading!

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