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Written by LineStar Fantasy Expert @GP_Landry on Twitter

We've got an interesting, and smaller than usual, nine-game slate to talk about for today. There's quite a bit of high priced pitching talent but all of them come with a lot of uncertainty. Gerrit Cole is priced significantly higher than the next closest player, but I'm not sure I want to pay his salary in a matchup against a team that doesn't strikeout much (he only had five strikeouts against them in a previous meeting). Aaron Nola has been one of the best pitchers in baseball this season, but he's coming off his worst start all year and has to face the Red Sox in Fenway Park today. James Paxton gets a tough matchup with the Astros, and he still has question marks surrounding his back after leaving his last start early and then being a last minute scratch last week. They are claiming he's all systems go now. But who knows what that means? DraftKings is really tempting me to play him though with his price today. Even value pitching has a lot of question marks. Eric Lauer is super cheap against a bad Giants team but they are better against left-handed pitching and Lauer has been really bad recently. Julio Tehran has an awful history against the Miami Marlins but he has more upside than anyone else in that price range. Carlos Martinez has been very inconsistent since coming off the disabled list but he's tempting against a Rockies team that is in their first game after a series in Coors Field. There's a lot of question marks to sort through. The weather is looking like a non-factor, so that's one positive. No threats of rain anywhere, no wind impact, and it's hot in a few places but nothing that really stands out. Let's try to get rid of these Monday morning blues and figure out what to do with this slate tonight.

Power Pitching Options

Kenta Maeda, LAD (vs. MIL) (DK: $10.1K, FD: $9.1K)

Maeda was cruising in his last start through the first six innings allowing just one earned run on three hits with seven strikeouts, but he ran out of gas in the seventh and gave up a two run home run that ultimately led to a no-decision. I was hoping he would be able to stretch his streak of consecutive starts with nine strikeouts to five games but he came up just short. Tonight will be a good night to start a new streak, however, as he faces a Brewers team that strikes out 25.1% of the time to right-handed pitching. The Brewers have some power and the addition of Mike Moustakas only helps to increase that but this is a park downgrade for them and they currently have the lowest implied total on the board at 3.4 runs and it's falling. Maeda is excellent to both sides of the plate. He has a 3.79 xFIP with 24.9% strikeouts against lefties and a 2.85 xFIP with 34% strikeouts to righties. He's had at least 26 DraftKings points in four of his last six starts and, as I said before, he was well on his way to another 26+ fantasy point night in his last outing before giving up that home run at the very end. In the past month, he's allowing only 21.4% hard contact and an excellent 25% soft contact rate. This has resulted in an average exit velocity of 87.8 mph and an average distance of 198.6 feet. He's a comfortable -145 today and, in my opinion, has the best floor/ceiling combo of any pitcher on this slate. He's my SP1 in cash games today and firmly in consideration for tournaments as well.

David Price, BOS (vs. PHI) (DK: $8.6K, FD: $9.3K)

I’m not sure how Price is going to be viewed today. On the one hand, I could see him possibly being popular as most of the high-priced studs today have less than ideal matchups, which makes it difficult to pay their salaries. On the other hand, I could see Price being sneaky because Philadelphia's implied run total is in the middle of the pack and people may get scared off with so many other teams having an implied total below four runs. If he turns out to be chalk, I will run very far away. Price is not consistent enough for me to be willing to roster him at high ownership. If he's going to be sneaky, however, I have interest in him as a tournament option today. Outside of Rhys Hoskins, who is completely terrifying today, the Phillies are way better suited to battle right-handed pitching then left-handed pitching. Santana, Cabrera, and Hernandez are all switch hitters, but Santana is the only one who is better against lefties. The other two are significantly worse. Before the addition of Cabrera, Philadelphia had only a .130 ISO, .201 wOBA and 86 wRC+ against left-handed pitching. They have the lowest hard-hit rate in baseball at only 29.3%. Adding Cabrera actually makes things worse with his .122 ISO and .292 wOBA against lefties. This provides a nice boost to Price’s floor. As far as ceiling is concerned, Price has a solid 24% strikeout rate and the Phillies strikeout 23.2% of the time. He should be able to control the lefties with his .154 xISO, .311 xwOBA, and only 28.6% hard contact. He'll just to figure out how to get around the right-handed bats. He's had 25 DraftKings points in two of his last three starts and he's a solid -141 favorite today. His in play as an SP1 or SP2 in tournaments on this slate.

Value Pitching Options

Tyler Anderson, COL (@STL) (DK: $8.2K, FD: $8.6K)

At first glance I wasn't sure about this one. St. Louis is a right-handed heavy lineup and are among the top ten teams in baseball against left-handed pitching. They have a .173 ISO, .324 wOBA, and 103 wRC+. What's standing out to me about Anderson though is he doesn't have a dramatic difference in splits between right-handed bats and left-handed bats. In fact, this season, you could argue he's a little better against righties in general. He has a 4.20 xFIP, 23.4% strikeouts, and a 1.38 WHIP against lefties and a 4.13 xFIP, 22.5% strikeouts, and a 1.13 WHIP against righties. Pretty similar results but the run prevention is slightly better against right-handed bats. In addition, which is especially the case with Rockies pitchers, we have to factor in the home/road splits as well. Anderson is better, naturally, when pitching away from Coors Field. He has a 3.90 xFIP with 22.4% strikeouts and a solid 1.09 WHIP when on the road. Even more encouraging is his performance against right-handed bats since he'll see so many of them in this Cardinals lineup. When away, and facing righties, Anderson has a 3.87 xFIP, 0.91 WHIP, 21.5% strikeouts and only 5.8% walks. His fly ball rate drops from 40% at home to 37.7% on the road and the HR/FB rate drops from 14.3% to a very comfortable 8.7%. When facing left-handed hitters on the road, he surprisingly sees an increase in xFIP (4.08) and WHIP (1.93) but also strikeouts (25.5%). Over the past month, Anderson has only allowed 11.4% hard contact with 47.7% groundballs and an average exit velocity of 84.1 mph. He's 1-0 (four starts) with a 3.61 xFIP and 27 strikeouts to just four earned runs in 27.1 innings of work during that span. This is more a floor play for me as I think he can eat up some innings, keep the runs down, and get enough strikeouts to reach value. You could consider him for tournaments as well but I'm not as excited about the ceiling in this spot.

Julio Teheran, ATL (vs. MIA) (DK: $7.3K, FD: $7.6K)

Expect the unexpected in baseball. This notion of "Never play pitchers against the Marlins" is getting a little out of hand. I get it. They are feisty, annoying, and have burned all of us on multiple occasions this season. Tehran himself has a poor track record against them. The bottom line, however, is this is a Miami lineup that only has a .126 ISO, .301 wOBA, and 88 wRC+ against right-handed pitching. I'm already seeing Teheran getting the "hate" tag placed on him, so if he's going to be completely overlooked today I'll gladly take some shots in tournaments. SP2 is ugly on this slate and Teheran is one of the few in this price range that has a tournament worthy ceiling. He'll see more right-handed bats than left-handed and he has a really good 3.75 xFIP, 25.9% strikeout rate, and 0.92 WHIP against right-handed hitters. Don't get me wrong, Bour is one of my favorite bats on this slate, especially on FanDuel, but I'm not worried about that for two reasons. First, he's only one batter. There's always going to be at least one bat you aren't comfortable with. Second, I'm not using Teheran on FanDuel when I only need one pitcher anyway, so I can get my Bour exposure over there, where he's dirt cheap, and then plug in Tehran as my SP2 on DraftKings and find another first basemen. Atlanta is a heavy favorite today as Wei-Yen Chen won't be able to hide his massive fly ball rate when he pitches away from Marlins Park. Teheran's not safe, I fully admit that, but when I'm looking for SP2s in tournaments, I only care about ceiling. If people are going to automatically dismiss him today, then I'll definitely have some shares.

#HomeRunWatchList 💥

If you’re new to the article, this is the section where I pick an outfielder, corner infielder, and middle infielder to hit a long ball today. Make sure you are utilizing the LineStar Daily Matchup Tool when looking for hitters with a lot of home run potential.

Ketel Marte, ARI: 2B/SS (DK: $4.4K, FD: $3.2K)

Marte gets a date with Martin Perez who only strikes out 12.5% of the right-handed hitters he faces while allowing a .224 xISO and 87.8 mph average exit velocity. Marte has an impressive .268 ISO and 44.7% hard-hits against left-handed pitching. He also profiles extremely well against Perez, who throws a two-seam fastball and changeup most often to righties. Marte has a .420 xISO and 89.2 mph average exit velocity against two-seamers and a .317 xISO against changeups.

Joc Pederson, LAD: OF (DK: $4.5K, FD: $3.5K)

This one surprised me a bit but Freddy Peralta is allowing a .225 xISO including 44.9% fly balls and 18.2% HR/FB to left-handed bats. Pederson has a .297 ISO and 45.3% hard-hit rate against right-handed pitching this season. He stands out from a pitch type perspective as well. Peralta throws a fastball over 76% of the time to lefties and then a curveball 18%. Pederson has a .337 xISO against fastballs and a .246 xISO against curveballs. This isn't my favorite park for home runs, but I'm okay with it if Pederson is going to see a fastball almost 80% of the time.

Christian Villanueva, SDP: 3B (DK: $3.9K, FD: $2.7K)

He's an absolute beast against left-handed pitching. He has a .430 ISO, hits 45% fly balls, and has a ridiculous 48.1% HR/FB rate. Unfortunately, that also comes with a 33.3% strikeout rate, but I never said he was safe. Holland is giving up 14.7% HR/FB on 43% fly balls with 44.9% hard contact. Opposing right-handed batters have a .242 xISO against him. He throws a sinker, slider, and a knuckle curve. Villanueva has an .876 xISO against sinkers, a .242 xISO against sliders, and a .279 xISO against the knuckle curve. He has to connect with one first, but if he does, forget about it.

Value Bats

Similar to the home run watch list, in this section, I’ll provide an outfielder, corner infielder, and middle infielder who are priced in the value tier. If I can find someone underpriced on both sites, I’ll highlight them. But in some cases it could be site specific.

Tyler Flowers, ATL: C (DK: $3.5K, FD: $2.5K)

Okay fine, he's not a middle infielder, but he's too good of a value to pass up today, so I figured it was worth mentioning. As usual, Flowers is undervalued because he doesn’t play every day. He should be in the lineup tonight against the left-handed Chen. Chen has a 5.69 xFIP with only 14.8% strikeouts and 10.5% walks against right-handed bats. Flowers has a very high 25.9% walk rate and very low 18.5% strikeout rate with a .263 ISO and a massive .537 wOBA against lefties. With those numbers, at this price, it shouldn’t be much of a challenge for him to hit value. He's also likely to be in the middle of the order on an Atlanta team with an implied run total pushing five.

Justin Bour, MIA: 1B (DK: $4K, FD: $2.5K)

Bour’s price on FanDuel today is a joke. He gets a massive park upgrade on the road in Atlanta against Julio Tehran who struggles against left-handed hitters. Tehran has a 5.84 xFIP and nearly as many walks (17.5%) as strikeouts (17.9%) against them. He’s allowing a .230 xISO, .374 xwOBA, and 41.9% hard contact. Bour quietly continues to take care of business despite being stuck on a terrible team. He has a .223 ISO, .357 wOBA, and 42.3% hard-hit rate against right-handed pitching. He’s a cash game lock on FanDuel today.

Jake Cave, MIN: OF (DK: $3.3K, FD: $2.2K)

The thing I don’t like about Cave is he typically bats near the bottom of the order but, regardless, this sets up as a nice matchup and he’s too cheap for his talent. Bieber entered the league on fire but has slowly started to come back to earth over his past few starts. He’s getting smashed by lefties, although he’s due some positive regression, with a .296 xISO, .381 xwOBA, and 52.6% hard contact. Cave has a .209 ISO, .349 wOBA and 37.9% hard-hit rate against right-handed pitchers.

Stacks on Stacks 🥞

Arizona Diamondbacks (vs. Martin Perez)

This is going to be chalk but I can’t bring myself to fade it today. This lineup is so good against left-handed pitching. Perez, as I discussed earlier, only strikes out 12.5% of righties while allowing a .224 xISO and 87.8 mph average exit velocity. Pollock (.333 ISO, .391 wOBA, 45.8% hard-hits) and Goldschmidt (.297 ISO, .427 wOBA, 51.9% hard-hits) are two of the best in baseball against lefties. Both of the Arizona middle infielders, Marte (.268 ISO, .392 wOBA) and Ahmed (.241 ISO, .348 wOBA) have surprising power, and John Ryan Murphy brings a ton of power to the catcher position with his .239 ISO and 50.9% hard-hit rate. It makes stacking this team so easy because you have someone from basically every position you can use and easily pair with another team. Aside from that core group, Steven Souza’s bat is coming around recently. I prefer him against right-handed pitching but he does have a 59.1% hard-hit rate against lefties. If you included him as part of multiple stacks I wouldn’t talk you out of it. He’s very inexpensive. The newest member of the Diamondbacks, Eduardo Escobar, has just a .115 ISO and .311 wOBA against lefties. He makes for an interesting fade from this stack today. He might be popular because he's the "shiny new toy" on this team. Arizona is currently the only team on this slate with an implied run total over five runs.

Toronto Blue Jays (vs. Edwin Jackson)

Since I just discussed the chalk stack, let's see if we can find some less obvious options. We'll start with Toronto. I can’t figure out what’s going on with their implied run total. It seems way too low for a matchup against Edwin Jackson who has a 4.47 xFIP and only 19% strikeouts. He’s bad against both sides of the plate, allowing a .206 xISO and .336 xwOBA to lefties and a .250 xISO and .359 xwOBA to righties. As we know, especially those of you who read the newsletter over the weekend, the Blue Jays are significantly better against right-handed pitching. They add Granderson to the top of the order and his .197 ISO and .340 wOBA. Grichuk has reverse splits and smashes right-handed pitching with a .296 ISO and .350 wOBA. Smoak and Morales are both switch hitters and better as left-handed hitters than right-handed hitters. The only thing that stinks is you can’t play them together on DraftKings but you can on FanDuel with the utility spot (they are also all super cheap on FanDuel). You also have Smith Jr (.286 ISO, .420 wOBA – if he makes the lineup), Hernandez (.207 ISO), and Diaz (.192 ISO). I’ll be watching the line movement on this one as I don’t see it staying this low for long. This team is shaping up to be my favorite low-owned stack for large field tournaments tonight.

Los Angeles Dodgers (vs. Freddy Peralta)

This isn’t the best ballpark for stacking, hence the low 7.5 total, but there’s a lot I like about this matchup for the Dodgers and they should fly well under the radar even on a smaller slate like today. Plus, much of that low total is because the Brewers have to face Maeda. For starters, Peralta's having a rough month, including a 5.36 xFIP and fourteen earned runs in just 20.2 innings worked. He has plenty of upside with his 33.1% strikeout rate but also has a ton of red flags, especially against lefties. He has a 4.38 xFIP and a massive 15.2% walk rate with a 1.50 WHIP. He’s allowing 44.9% fly balls with 18.2% HR/FB. Opposing lefties have a .225 xISO and .362 xwOBA against him. The Dodgers have plenty of power lefties that can exploit this weakness. I talked about Pederson already in the home run watch list. Max Muncy has a .328 ISO, .399 wOBA, and 43.7% hard-hits. Grandal will bat from the left side where he’s a lot better, adding a .267 ISO and .384 wOBA. Bellinger, who's not having a great season, still brings a .227 ISO and .342 wOBA against right-handed pitching. Peralta is definitely better against righties, so I’d focus on the left-handed bats as much as possible, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use them at all. The most glaring thing I’m seeing is how lucky he’s been so far. Right-handed hitters have just a .119 BABIP against him. There’s simply no way that will continue to stay that low. He’s also allowing a crazy high 58.5% fly ball rate and 38.1% hard contact. It’s a miracle he’s yet to give up a home run to a right-handed bat but I don’t see that trend lasting much longer. You can include guys like Hernandez (.255 ISO, .328 wOBA), Puig (.244 ISO, .377 wOBA), Taylor (.195 ISO, .344 wOBA), and Kemp (.349 wOBA). Machado’s numbers as a member of the Dodgers are too small to draw any conclusions, but he has a career .209 ISO and .352 wOBA against righties. Essentially, this entire lineup is in play.

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). Don't forget to sign up for the freeroll!