Well, that was a wild night, to say the least. All of those stud pitchers and Kyle Gibson, Jameson Taillon, and David Price were your top three scoring starters on both sites. Brings a whole new meaning to fade the chalk. Nobody could have seen that coming and this is exactly why I stress bankroll management so often in these articles. No matter how confident you think you are in a slate, you should always expect the unexpected. Find a dollar amount that makes sense for you to risk each night based on your total bankroll and stick to it. That way, when stuff like yesterday happens, you can just laugh it off and start focusing on the next day. I thought for a while I was shaping up to have a very good night. I rolled the dice and stuck with Snell despite the weather issues and, around 9 pm, with Scherzer, Kluber, and Severino all already having poor nights, my Yankees stacks and Rendon had me well inside the money with Snell (at 8% ownership) still left to go. Snell just didn’t have it last night. It was a great matchup, and given the opportunity to play that slate again, I would have done the exact same thing. It just didn’t work out. I’m throwing out the game film from yesterday and moving on. Let’s talk about tonight.

Public Service Announcement: This slate is awful. This is the most trouble I’ve ever had writing a slate breakdown. There is just nothing from a pitching standpoint that I feel good about. I guess we should have seen it coming after last night’s slate being completely loaded. I’ll say it right now; do not play cash games tonight. This is 100% a tournament only slate. Surprisingly, even offense is a bit strange today. There are plenty of bats I want to use, don’t get me wrong, but from a stacking standpoint, we have a lot of pitchers today with drastic splits between lefties and righties, which makes it difficult to roll out full stacks (besides Coors Field of course). I think that’s going to lead me to more mini stacks in tournaments tonight where I can string together a small group of left or right-handed batters from a team with a massive platoon advantage and then fill in the rest of the spots with one-offs. Taking a quick look at the weather, Atlanta appears to be the only place with a threat of rain, but it’s pretty low at the moment. There are several hot weather games including St. Louis (90 degrees), Colorado (85 degrees), Chicago (90 degrees), Atlanta (83 degrees with 71% humidity), Pittsburgh (87 degrees), and Baltimore (85 degrees). The weekend is here, let’s start it off right and win some money today.

Power Pitching Options

Madison Bumgarner, SFG (vs. OAK) (DK: $11.4K, FD: $9.4K)

Bumgarner isn’t jumping off the page at me but there are a few reasons to be optimistic about him today. For starters, Oakland is worse against left-handed pitching. They do have a .170 ISO and 40.6% hard-hit rate but they also strikeout 23.4% of the time with a very low .303 wOBA and 93 wRC+. In addition to that, they are traveling to a National League park today, which means they will lose the DH and add the pitcher. That will add to the strikeout upside. Finally, it’s a park downgrade for the Oakland bats, so even all that power they have will be decreased in this spot. Since Bumgarner hasn’t pitched a ton yet this season, I’m going to look at last season plus this season stats to give us a better picture. Against lefties, he has a 3.78 xFIP with 21.6% strikeouts and just a 0.86 WHIP. The LOB% is excellent at 89.4% and he’s only giving up 26.3% hard contact, a .049 xISO, and a .206 xwOBA. Against righties, the xFIP increases to 4.20, not good but not bad, with the exact same strikeout rate at 21.6%. He does give up more power here with a .196 xISO but only a .324 xwOBA. Basically, as is typically the case with Oakland, they are going to hit a bomb or do nothing at all. Since returning from the disabled list, his statcast numbers have been pretty solid. He’s allowed 81 batted balls of which 22.2% have been soft contact with an average exit velocity of just 87.1 mph and an average distance of only 201.2 feet. He’s a comfortable -140 favorite today and Oakland has the third lowest implied total on the board at just 3.67. With Oakland already having a high strikeout rate and having to add the pitcher into the lineup on top of that, there should be enough strikeout upside here for DFS purposes. The ballpark should help him limit any damage. My only concern here is ownership. On a slate like this where I have very little interest in anyone, if it looks like Bumgarner is going to be chalk I’ll gladly pivot away. Still, he’s on the radar as a cash game (if you dare) and tournament arm today.

Rick Porcello, BOS (vs. TOR) (DK: $9.8K, FD: $9.6K)

The Blue Jays are a fairly right-handed heavy team, which plays right into Porcello’s strengths. They’ll likely have six right-handed bats in the lineup today plus Morales, Smoak (both switch hitters), and Granderson batting from the left-side. Porcello has been very good this season against righties, with a 3.98 xFIP, only 5% walks, and only 25.5% hard contact. He’s getting 53.4% groundballs and opposing righties have just a .110 xISO and .291 xwOBA against him. The lefties do concern me, but beggars can’t be choosers on this slate today. If there are only three of them, I’d be willing to roll the dice. The xFIP is solid at 3.54 and the strikeout rate actually increases to 26.9%, which are both positives. But his groundball rate plummets as he gives up a lot of fly balls (43%) and hard contact (39.3%). Opposing left-handed batters have a .211 xISO and .331 xwOBA against him this season. One of the more encouraging things about this matchup is the pitch type profiling. Porcello is a slider guy and the Blue Jays really struggle with sliders. Only two players (Hernandez and Morales) have an above average xISO and xwOBA against the slider this season. If Porcello goes a bit heavier with that pitch today, it should really help him out. There’s a lot of history here, which is also encouraging. This will be the third time he’s pitched against Toronto this season. In their first meeting, he went seven innings allowing three hits and three earned runs with nine strikeouts and the quality start. In their next meeting, he went 6.2 innings allowing five hits, two earned runs, and five strikeouts with a quality start. The current Toronto lineup is batting just .190 against Porcello in 124 at-bats. That’s more than enough sample size to convince me. He’s the second largest favorite on the board today at -210 and I think he makes plenty of sense today for both cash games (if you really play them) and tournaments. Again, the only issue being with so few quality options, I think he’s another pitcher who could carry significant ownership.

Value Pitching Options

Anibal Sanchez, ATL (vs ARI) (DK: $7.8K, FD: $7.3K)

Originally, I said no way to Sanchez against an Arizona team that can roll out a bunch of left-handed batters. Upon further review, however, I’m warming up to this idea. For starters, despite being super left-handed heavy when they need to be, Arizona only has a .158 wOBA, .296 ISO, and 83 wRC+ against right-handed pitching this season. They are significantly better against lefties. Plus, Sanchez’s numbers against lefties this season really aren’t bad. In fact, they are pretty good. He has a 3.91 xFIP with 26.9% strikeouts. The WHIP is low at 1.15, he gets a pretty good amount of groundballs at 47%, and he’s only giving up 28.8% hard contact. The one scary part is opposing lefties have a .195 xISO against him, which isn’t ideal, especially in this ballpark. But again, we’ve got to plant our flag somewhere. I’m going to roll the dice that despite the high expected ISO he allows, Arizona’s struggles with right-handed pitching are enough to cancel that out. Against righties, Sanchez has a 4.32 xFIP with 20.5% strikeouts so the upside disappears a little here. But, the WHIP is excellent at 0.95, with an 83.9% LOB% while only allowing 24% hard contact. Opposing right-handed batters have a below average .156 xISO and .277 xwOBA against him this season. In the past month, Sanchez has allowed 73 batted balls, of which only 26% have been hard contact and 19.2% have been soft contact, so a good ratio there. He’s also only allowing an 86.3 mph average exit velocity and just one barreled ball during that span. Arizona strikes out 24.4% of the time to right-handed pitching, which is the fifth most on this slate. He’s a -128 favorite and I don’t think anyone else is going here today. I really like him for tournaments today.

Edwin Jackson, OAK (@SF) (DK: $6.1K, FD: $7.5K)

This is strictly about the matchup and the price tag. The Giants are just not good right now (or possibly at all). They have a 23.6% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching with a very low .145 ISO, .313 wOBA, and 98 wRC+. The majority of the threats on this team are left-handed (Belt and Crawford) yet they play in a ballpark that completely kills all left-handed power. Posey is hurt and I doubt he even plays tonight. Longoria is on the disabled list. McCutchen has just a .143 ISO and .326 wOBA against righties this season. Who’s left? The Panda? His numbers are much improved this year but is he really going to keep you from rostering a pitcher against him? Gorkys Hernandez, I suppose, is a threat with a .181 ISO and .348 wOBA. There’s just really nothing here that makes me nervous. Especially in this park. Don’t be fooled by Jackson’s surface numbers. He’s not a good pitcher. He has a 2.45 ERA at the moment through three starts but his 4.18 xFIP and .212 BABIP suggest plenty of regression is on the way. He's given up a ton of fly balls (46.2%) but I don’t care about that in this park and he’s only allowed 24.1% hard contact with an 8.3% HR/FB, so those fly balls aren’t really going anywhere. I’m just having a hard time seeing a scenario where he gets completely crushed. This game is tied for the lowest total of the night with an over/under of just eight runs. At this price tag we only need 12-15 DraftKings points for him to reach value. We are asking him to eat up some innings, get a few strikeouts (he does have a 21.4% strikeout rate this season which should get a boost tonight), and not give up a ton of runs, which the ballpark will help him with. I realize this is far from a ringing endorsement, but this is the quality of pitcher we are dealing with tonight. I can absolutely see myself having some shares in tournaments today.

#HomeRunWatchList 💥

Make sure you are utilizing the LineStar Daily Matchup Tool when looking for hitters with a lot of home run potential.

I’m excluding Coors Field from this list but you’re going to want exposure tonight.

Manny Machado, BAL (vs. Cole Hamels): Hamels does have some strikeout ability against right-handed pitching but he allows a huge 23.3% HR/FB rate on 34.7% fly balls with a 47% hard contact rate. This has resulted in 2.04 HR/9 against right-handed batters. They have a .241 xISO against him this year. Machado has a .223 ISO and 34.8% hard-hits versus left-handed pitching this season. He profiles well against the cutter, changeup, and fastball, which are Hamels most used pitches to righties. Machado has a .196 xISO against the cutter, a .202 xISO against the changeup, and a .349 xISO against fastballs.

Yasmani Grandal, LAD (vs. Felix Pena): Pena has drastic splits where he’s very solid against right-handed batters but really poor against lefties. His xFIP is significantly higher than his ERA, he has a low 16.3% strikeout rate, and he’s allowing a .279 xISO and 42.4% hard contact. Grandal has a .242 ISO and 40% hard-hits against right-handed pitching this season. He happens to match up very well with Pena’s pitch types as well. Pena throws a fastball, slider, and two-seam fastball most often. Grandal has a .302 xISO against fastballs, a .354 xISO against sliders, and a .455 xISO against two-seam fastballs.

Eduardo Escobar, MIN (vs. Nathan Eovaldi): Despite some success since joining the Rays rotation, Eovaldi is struggling with left-handed batters. He allows the highest HR/FB rate on the slate at 26.9% on 36.1% fly balls which have led to a 2.42 HR/9 (also the highest on the slate). Opposing lefties have a .216 xISO against him at this point in the season. Escobar has a .301 ISO with 39.9% hard contact when he bats left-handed against right-handed pitching (he’s a switch-hitter). Eovaldi has a fastball, cutter, and split-fingered fastball. Escobar has a .190 xISO against fastballs, a .277 xISO against cutters, and a huge .681 xISO against split-fingered fastballs.

Christian Yelich, MIL (vs. Nick Kingham): This isn’t the best ballpark for home runs but I don’t see that making a difference in this spot. One of the many unwritten laws of MLB DFS is groundball hitters, in this case, Yelich (51.9% groundball rate vs. RHP), hit fly ball pitchers, Kingham (44.4% fly balls vs. LHB), very well. That’s exactly the situation we have here. Kingham is also allowing 15.6% of his fly balls to leave the yard which is resulting in a 2.11 HR/9 against left-handed hitters, who have a .248 xISO against him. Yelich has a .189 ISO and 46.9% hard-hit rate against righties this season. He also has a .281 xISO against fastballs, a .239 xISO against changeups, and a .322 xISO against two-seam fastballs, which are Kingham’s pitch types.

Sneaky Home Run Call of the Day:

Daniel Robertson, TB (vs. Jake Odorizzi): Robertson doesn’t have great power numbers with just a .119 ISO against right-handed pitching this year. But he does have a very respectable 35.5% hard-hit rate and he happens hit each of Odorizzi’s pitch types very well. Odorizzi is allowing 46.6% fly balls, 33.3% hard contact, and a .201 xISO against right-handed batters. His three pitch types are a fastball, split-fingered fastball, and slider. Robertson has a .218 xISO against fastballs, a .215 xISO against split-fingered fastballs, and a .216 xISO against sliders.

Stacks on Stacks 🥞

I will exclude Coors Field per usual. Just know that the Rockies are a big-time priority for me today. I pulled three years of data on Christian Bergman, who will start for Seattle tonight, and he’s allowing a .271 xISO and .410 xwOBA to lefties and a .238 xISO and .369 xwOBA against righties. I’ll be eating my fair share of Rockies chalk this evening and finding other places to make my lineups different (which should be easy). I like Seattle too. The Rockies are just standing out.

Texas Rangers (vs. Alex Cobb): This is a great matchup for the Texas bats. One of their biggest pitfalls is a high strikeout rate (25.4%) to right-handed pitching. That should be greatly reduced against Cobb who has only 18.3% strikeouts to lefties and 12.3% strikeouts to righties. He also has a high 1.62 WHIP and a very low 61.4% LOB%. A perfect candidate for us to stack against. Opposing left-handed hitters have a .228 xISO and .368 xwOBA while opposing right-handed batters have a .202 xISO and .351 xwOBA against him this season. My favorite of the group today is Choo, who has a .254 ISO, .411 wOBA, and 49.7% hard-hits against right-handed pitching. After him, we have Gallo (who is the person that should benefit most from Cobb’s inability to strike people out) with a .244 ISO and 49.2% hard-hits. Odor (.180 ISO, 40.4% hard-hits), Profar (.175 ISO, 34.1% hard-hits), and Mazara (.345 wOBA, 39.1% hard-hits) are all standing out from that side of the plate. When we look at some right-handed bats, Chirinos (.216 ISO, 49.5% hard-hits) and Beltre (43.6% hard-hits) are both on the radar. This is very boom or bust because all the wOBAs (except Choo) are average or below average, but the ISO and hard-hits are very high. They are either going to strikeout a bunch or hit a ton of home runs. Since they are facing Cobb, I’m leaning toward more home runs today.

Los Angeles Dodgers (vs. Felix Pena): I’m hoping, with the limited pitching options we have today, that Pena gains popularity. On paper, he’s a very talented young pitcher with a bunch of strikeout upside (28.1%, 12.9% swinging strikes) and he’s dominant against right-handed batters. But he’s awful against lefties, which is not good when you’re taking on a team like the Dodgers. Pena’s strikeout rate drops to 16.3% with a 4.71 xFIP, 1.67 WHIP, and 42.4% hard contact. Opposing lefties have a .279 xISO and .410 xwOBA against him. Assuming the Dodgers roll out a similar lineup to what they did last night when facing a right-handed pitcher we should get Pederson (.310 ISO, .390 wOBA vs RHP), Muncy (.331 ISO, .414 wOBA vs RHP), Bellinger (.249 ISO, .352 wOBA vs RHP), Grandal (.242 ISO, .359 wOBA), and Toles (.200 ISO, .426 wOBA) all stacked up pretty close together in this lineup. I would try really hard to only play the lefties if possible, but if you did need to include a right-handed bat to make your stack work, you should feel good about the fact that Pena is allowing 48.3% hard contact to righties.

Minnesota Twins (vs. Nathan Eovaldi): On a day like today, with so much uncertainty, I want to say as far away from the chalk as I can (besides the Rockies). I can see Eovaldi gaining popularity today. He has a solid 3.80 xFIP and 22.2% strikeouts against lefties and a 3.00 xFIP and 26% strikeout to righties. But, there are several red flags here. I’m seeing a lot of numbers that indicate regression. He’s allowing just a .204 BABIP, which means it’s been pretty lucky so far, with a .216 xISO, and .340 xwOBA against left-handed batters, which the Twins happen to have several of. Against right-handed batters, he has another low .217 BABIP with a .218 xISO and .307 xwOBA. Because of that high expected ISO and high expected wOBA, I like the lefties here as the priority. This is also a massive park downgrade going from Tropicana Field to Target Field for Eovaldi. I already talked about Escobar in the home run watch list, so he’s my favorite here. Eddie Rosario is next with a .267 ISO and .398 wOBA. Dozier is obviously not a lefty, but he has solid numbers against right-handed pitching with a .204 ISO and 40% hard-hits. Unfortunately, Logan Morrison landed on the 10-day DL yesterday, otherwise he’d be a very big part of this stack. Still, Escobar, Rosario, and Dozier make for a nice 2,3,4 stack. Watch the lineup here, this game went very late last night so it’s possible some of these guys could get the day off. If that happens, I will pivot elsewhere.

Baltimore Orioles (vs. Cole Hamels): I think the Orioles are sneaky today because 1) they are not a good team and 2) Hamels has some upside and I believe he's another candidate to get some ownership today. The problem for Hamels is he's a left-handed pitcher taking on an entirely right-handed team. He allows a massive .241 xISO and .356 xwOBA to right-handed hitting this season including 2.04 HR/9 and 47% hard contact. The Orioles, despite all their flaws, do have some power that can take advantage of those bad numbers from Hamels. I talked about Machado who is one of my favorite players on the entire slate today. I'm hoping Chance Sisco makes the lineup as he has a .273 ISO and .358 wOBA against left-handed pitching this season (limited plate appearances). Valencia (.250 ISO, .373 wOBA), Rickard (.196 ISO), Trumbo (.183 ISO), and Tim Beckham (.384 wOBA) are all looking like solid plays today as part of a stack. Jonathan Schoop is not having a good season overall but he's heating up recently so I'm fine with including him. This makes for a cheap stack you could pair with the Rockies today.

Sneaky Stack of the Day:

Tampa Bay Rays (vs. Jake Odorizzi): Odorizzi is another pitcher that I think could be popular today because he has some solid strikeout upside and the Rays strikeout quite a bit. Again, with so much uncertainty on this slate, I want to leverage as much of the chalk as I can and hope things fall in my direction. Outside of Colorado, because I simply don't see myself avoiding them tonight, I will be literally doing whatever the opposite is of the field today. This is a huge park upgrade for the Rays going from Tropicana Field to Target Field. Odorizzi allows a .261 xISO and .379 xwOBA to lefties and a .201 xISO and .338 xwOBA to righties. The other key thing here is Tampa Bay hits a lot of groundballs (45.1%) and they are facing an extreme fly ball pitcher in Odorizzi (47.9% fly balls). Just like I talked about earlier with Yelich, groundball hitters hit fly ball pitchers well. All stacks on this team start with Cron and Bauers. Cron has a .219 ISO and Bauers has a .205 ISO and .363 wOBA. Wilson Ramos hits left-handed pitching much better but he does have a respectable .337 wOBA versus righties. There's always a chance he gets a lefty out of the bullpen (the Twins bullpen is terrible). I talked about Daniel Robertson in the home run watchlist so, obviously, I like him today. Matt Duffy has a .356 wOBA against right-handed pitching this season. It's not pretty, but I think you can piece this together today and it will be very low owned.

The Bullpen

Good luck today! Tag me in the LineStar Chat @glandry if you have any questions or feedback on the daily newsletters and hit me up on Twitter (@GP_Landry).

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