You think you have a nice full main slate at night, but no . . . some teams just have to play during the day like they’re all cool. I’m looking at you, Cubs and Mariners. I guess we’ll include them in our analysis for people playing the all-day slate, but the other 14 games are in the 7:07 pm ET main slate.
Pitchers
In a slate with Max Scherzer and Jon Lester, it is actually Dodgers righty Kenta Maeda who is implied to allow the fewest runs (2.9 currently) and is the highest-rated FanDuel pitcher in the Bales Model. On top of that, Maeda — despite having a lower SO/9 rate at 9.316 than guys like Scherzer and Vincent Velasquez — boasts the top K Prediction of 7.8, tied with Lester. Maeda does have concerning advanced stats recently, as highlighted by his 38 percent hard-hit rate allowed, but every other metric — including his currently massive -240 moneyline — makes him an excellent play in any format.
Per our Trends tool:
Lester takes the top DraftKings spot in the Bales Model currently. As mentioned, he’s tied with Maeda for the highest K Prediction at 7.8, and has much better advanced stats: He has allowed an exit velocity of 88 miles per hour and hard-hit rate of 20 percent in his last two starts. He’s in that early Cubs-Mariners game — which has a current 55 percent chance of rain, by the way — so he might be a tournament-only play in the all-day slate given the ability to pivot to Maeda or Steven Matz.
Speaking of Matz: he is facing the Rockies today, who are implied to score only 3.1 runs currently, the second-worst mark in the slate. This is likely no surprise, but the Rockies have a much worse Plus/Minus on the road versus at home:
Matz had been a bit up and down lately, but he posted a solid performance against the Marlins in his last start, scoring 25.3 DK points in six innings pitched. He has also allowed a nice 88 MPH batted-ball exit velocity lately and boasts a slate-high 10 DK Pro Trends today. At only $8,500 there, he’s a nice source of salary relief to load up on a high-powered offense.
Max Scherzer is unbelievably expensive, especially on DraftKings where he’s $13,600 and has a four percent Bargain Rating. The matchup against the NL West-leading Giants isn’t ideal either. However, he is pitching at AT&T Park in San Francisco, which boasts a perfect 100 Park Factor Rating for pitchers. The Giants don’t strike out a ton (.209 SO/AB), which is why Scherzer’s K Prediction of 7.2 is lower than you’d expect for a guy with a SO/9 rate of 11.568. However, he’s been in great form lately, exceeding salary-based expectations in seven of his last nine games. The matchup and price tag suggest more GPP exposure than cash, but he definitely has as much upside as any pitcher on any slate.
If you want to play the hot-hand angle, Jose Quintana is second to all pitchers in this slate (behind only Rick Porcello) in Consistency in the last month: He’s hit value in 70 percent of contests. He hasn’t been below 32 FD points in his last five contests and his K Prediction of 6.8 is behind only the trio of Maeda-Lester-Scherzer in this slate. The opposing Twins are implied to score 4.2 runs currently, however, so he’s likely a GPP-only play.
I’ll quickly mention Velasquez again, who seems like he has a lot of upside given his second-highest SO/9 mark of 10.342. However, he’s facing the Braves, who are not a good baseball team, but they just don’t strike out very often. As is the case with Scherzer, Velasquez’s K Prediction of 5.9 is much lower than his personal K rate would suggest because of the Braves’ low .215 SO/AB rate. However, targeting guys with high strikeout upside is a viable tournament strategy, so he’s perhaps worth a flyer there.
Stacks
This may come as a surpise to you, but the Boston Red Sox are fairly decent at hitting the baseball. They’re again implied for a slate-high 5.0 runs currently, and thus boast the highest-rated five-man DK stack according to the Bales Model.
That’s boring though. In our MLB Contrarian podcast, Jay and I discussed the strategy of pivoting down to a team that isn’t the highest-implied team but still has upside. The 4.5-ish range is typically where we look. (We broke down this past week’s DK Midsummer Classic where this was a big strategy in a pod coming out in just a couple of hours!)
Let’s do another DK stack, but this time sort by ISO:
Oh yeah, there it is. The Twins are currently implied to score 4.2 runs, a mark right around average for this slate. This projected 1-3-4-6-7 lineup has an average ISO of .308, showing its incredible upside.
If you’re playing FanDuel, here’s the highest-rated stack from the Bales Model:
For reference, the second-highest-rated stack was a Cleveland foursome that collectively costs $2,600 more than this 1-2-3-6 stack of the Rangers. The combination of their affordable salaries and high-implied total of 4.8 runs currently gives them the highest Team Value Rating on FD of 82.
Hitters
George Springer faces Matt Boyd today, who has a bad 1.451 WHIP and a HR/9 rate of 1.735 in the last year, the fourth-worst mark of the slate. That makes Springer very enticing, as he has a .405 wOBA, .263 ISO, and .555 slugging percentage versus left-handed pitchers. Projected to bat leadoff for the Houston Astros and their implied 4.7 runs currently, Springer is an elite play today.
Both Carlos Santana and Jason Kipnis of the Indians — their projected first and second hitters, respectively — are highly-rated in the Bales Model. They face Kendall Graveman, who is a bit tough to figure out: He has a bad WHIP and a bad SO/9 rate, yet he has crushed value in his last four outings:
The Indians are implied to score 4.8 runs currently, so Vegas seems to think that his hot play will regress starting tonight. If it does, Santana and Kipnis — both with .200-plus ISOs versus righties — will stand to benefit in a big way.
Another pair of teammates next to each other in the order — Corey Seager and Justin Turner, hitting second and third for the Dodgers, respectively — find themselves in a nice spot tonight. They face Diamondbacks pitcher Zack Godley, whose awful 1.538 WHIP does not do his surname justice. They both have .200-plus ISOs as well, and they’ve both been crushing the ball lately: They both boast batted-ball distances of at least 227 feet and hard-hit rates of at least 34 percent. Chase Utley is also highly-rated as well, if you want to complete a Dodgers mini-stack.
The Phillies face Tyrell Jenkins tonight, who has the second-worst WHIP (1.964), second-worst HR/9 (2.411), and absolute-worst SO/9 (4.420). The Phillies aren’t a typical team to stack, but they are implied to score 4.4 runs today — that range we like for contrarian purposes — and they have an elite matchup against Jenkins. Odubel Herrera has a .376 wOBA against righties and Aaron Altherr, projected to bat sixth at min price at FD, boasts an impressive .287 ISO, albeit in a limited sample.
Good luck today!
