Happy Wednesday! Today’s DFS slate features a 10-game slate starting at 7:05. Keep an eye on the weather as there’s rain in the forecast for the Royals/Red Sox and Padres/Reds games. We only have a handful of attractive pitchers on this slate, so getting our arms correct will be critical to makings some cash money. Let’s take a look at the Implied Run Totals for each game, and then we’ll dive into the slate!
Looking at the chart, there are three offenses that stand out as our stack targets – Blue Jays, Astros, and Red Sox. Pitching, on the other hand, might get a little dicey. Let’s take a look at our starting pitchers for the day.
Starting Pitchers
As I mentioned in the intro, this is a tough day for pitching. If we include Aaron Nola ($10,200 DK, $11,000 FD) against the Marlins, there are four pitchers with matchups that have implied run totals of 4.0 or below – Nola, Luis Garcia ($9,900 DK, $10,500 FD), Max Fried ($8,300 DK, $8,100 FD), and Chris Bassitt ($10,500 DK, $9,800 FD). Let’s take a look at the breakdown of the matchups to see if anyone pops:
The good news is that all of these matchups are relatively safe. None of the opponents are hitting the ball particularly hard, but none of these matchups pops. I was hoping that someone would have a 28% strikeout rate, and we could just lock that pitcher in. Because their pricing is relatively similar, I have no problem with any of these options in cash, but my favorite has to be Fried. He’s by far the cheapest and has the best matchup in all three categories.
Things get pretty thin when I look for a pay-down option for our SP2. Honestly, I’m not a fan of any of the super cheap options on today’s slate, which is why I want to take a look at the matchups for Steven Matz ($8,100 DK, $8,500 FD) and Shohei Ohtani ($8,700 DK, $9,500 FD). While I understand that we usually look just at lower implied totals, I think we can agree that Ohtani is a special player and has to at least be in consideration.
Overall, pretty meh. I like the Tigers’ strikeout rate, but their isolated slugging scares me. Likewise, the Yankees look quite stout. That leads me to believe I’ll be combining two of the pitchers we mentioned earlier.
Hitter Stacks
We actually have three teams on today’s slate that have implied run totals of 6.0 or above – Blue Jays, Red Sox, and Astros. The Padres aren’t too far behind at 5.8, so I’m including them in our main stack conversation as well. Let’s break down the matchups:
Finally, we get the pop we were looking for. Not only are they far and away the best stack on paper, but they also get a matchup with Matt Harvey. You can pick and choose whoever you want from this Astros lineup, but I recommend sticking to the top seven batters. I really like that there’s some value to be had in Abraham Toro ($3,500 DK, $2,800 FD) and Kyle Tucker ($4,300 DK, $3,600 FD), although Michael Brantley ($4,500 DK, $3,700 FD) finally got a price bump.
I don’t hate stacking any of these four teams, but I was surprised to see the Blue Jays have the worst ISO out of the four teams. This might be a day where the chalk is on the Blue Jays due to a high team total, and our simple pivot to the Atros puts us in the position we need to make some cash.
If I end up stacking the Astros as my main stack, I like the idea of rounding out my roster with the value bats of the Red Sox and Padres like Enrique Hernandez ($4,000 DK, $3,400 FD), Alex Verdugo ($3,900 DK, $3,000 FD), Hunter Renfroe ($3,600 DK, $3,200 FD), Wil Myers ($3,900 DK, $2,500 FD), and Victor Caratini ($3,600 DK, $2,200 FD).
Value Hitters
Finally, here are some of the best value hitters not mentioned in the stacks that I noticed when combing through the lineups:
Good luck today!
Design by J.R. Caines (@JRCainesDesign on Twitter and @caines_design on Instagram)