We have a full slate for Friday night, with first pitch occurring at 7:05 p.m. ET. If you plan to play DFS tonight, you need to be paying attention to the moves at the trade deadline. There could be numerous players swapping teams today. Frequently check our Lineups page throughout the day to ensure whoever you are rostering for tonight is actually playing.
Pitchers
The long awaited debut of Carlos Carrasco for the New York Mets will come tonight. He has been on the IL for the entire season up to this point. He is the favorite on DraftKings in the Bales Model.
I think this play comes with some risk. Carrasco threw three innings in his last rehab start and it looks like the plan is to have him throw four to five innings tonight. The Bales Model has him projected for 93 pitches, but I would think that he does not quite get to that level. The limit severely limits his ability to record a win.
In terms of the match-up, it’s the Cincinnati Reds. They are one of the best offenses in the league, with the hottest hitter in the league in Joey Votto. If there is a saving grace, the Reds are a much more average offense when on the road – and Citi Field is a very pitcher friendly ballpark.
I would be cautious of going after Carrasco.
On FanDuel, the favorite is Jameson Taillon – that has to be a first for this season. It really looks like Taillon might have figured something out of late. He was downright dreadful to start this season for the New York Yankees. Both April and June featured month-long ERA’s above 6.00.
However, in the month of July he has a 1.42 ERA. That includes two starts against the Boston Red Sox and one against the Houston Astros. Both of whom are much better offenses than the Miami Marlins will feature tonight.
Taillon has recorded a win in five of his last six starts and the Marlins are fifth-worst in K% and fourth-worst in runs per game. Not to mention, the Marlins have gotten worse over the past few days as they trade away talent – and could continue to do so today.
Again, we have Taillon pitching in a great pitchers’ ballpark here.
With a price point at only $7,900 – this play makes strong sense to me.
Out of the “studs” on this slate, I tend to like Lance Lynn the most. Lynn leads the league in ERA. He has given up more than three earned runs once all season. He has a 1.44 ERA in July, with exactly one earned run in every start – a model of consistency.
Tonight, Lynn gets to face the Cleveland Indians – who just got worse yesterday as they forked over their lead-off hitter Cesar Hernandez to the Chicago White Sox…Lynn’s own team. The Indians’ offense did not really scare me to begin, and they just got objectively worse.
Lynn has faced them twice already, earlier on in the season. He went a combined 11 innings on five earned runs with 12 strikeouts. One start featured ten K’s and the other only featured two.
If you are willing to pay up, you want consistency and I think we get that from Lynn tonight.
For the other studs, you can use Corbin Burnes if you so choose. His price range is so high, that it begins to really impact your bats. I would not be afraid of his ability to work over the Atlanta Braves lineup though. I would avoid Kevin Gausman for tonight. He is coming off arguably his worst start of the season and draws the Houston Astros. The Astros are elite at avoiding striking out and are one of the most compete lineups from top to bottom in the MLB.
I could see using Jose Berrios, maybe more of a GPP play. Berrios has had more an up and down season than he is used to. He has not recorded a win since June 12th.
Tonight, he sees the St. Louis Cardinals who are 26th in the league in runs per game. The Minnesota Twins, despite having a worse record are slight favorites in this game, due to the lack of confidence in Wade LeBlanc.
Berrios is coming off of one of his best performances of the year, with seven innings of no earned run baseball against the Los Angeles Angels. His strikeouts have been inconsistent as well, with starts of ten, eight, and eight in July but also zero and four.
I think this sets him up well for a GPP play. He is a better play on DraftKings, where is cheaper than Carrasco and Taillon.
Hitters
Notable Stacks
The top stack of the night belongs to the Toronto Blue Jays:
- 2. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (41%+)
- 4. Bo Bichetter (R – 13-16%)
- 1. George Springer (R – 13-16%)
- 5. Teoscar Hernandez (R – 13-16%)
This group is projected for 53.1 FanDuel points on a salary of $16,200. This will be the Blue Jays’ long awaited return to Toronto after a year and a half of living out of suitcases. It looks like they are primed to bring some fireworks for their home fans. They just put up 13 runs on the Boston Red Sox last night. Tonight, they get to face Daniel Lynch of the Kansas City Royals. Lynch made three starts in May to the tune of a 15.75 ERA, but just came back last Sunday and posted eight shutout innings against the Detroit Tigers. The bad news for Lynch is that the Blue Jays are top five or so in wOBA, OPS, and ISO against left-handed pitching.
Other Hitters
Eduardo Escobar will be making his Milwaukee Brewers debut tonight and is a 99% Bargain on the Bales Model. Escobar could provide some extra to punch to the Brewers’ lineup and will probably not continue to go as unnoticed as he was in Arizona. He gets Touki Toussaint tonight.
The highest rated hitter is Adam Frazier another name who has changed teams in the last few days. He should get some more run scoring opportunities in this San Diego Padres lineup. He hits for five ProTrends tonight, and it has actually been better to pull Jon Gray out of Coors Field this year. The Padres have 5.1 implied runs for tonight.
How do we think Juan Soto feels this morning? He is the last real piece remaining on this Washington Nationals team. He is all over the Lineup Optimizer for tonight. The Nats will suffer as an offense overall and that will just put more in the hands of Soto. He reached base six times yesterday in a double header.
John Nogowski has been a fun watch since he came to the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was getting essentially zero playing time with the Cardinals – and it was forcing him to struggle at the plate at the big league level. Since coming to the Pirates at the beginning of July, he is hitting .347. I could see some runs being scored on both sides in this one and Nogowski is a very cheap option.
Pictured above: Pitcher Carlos Carrasco #59 of the New York Mets
Photo Credit: Rich Schultz/Getty Images
