We have aces in spades tonight. On DraftKings, eight pitchers cost at least $10,000. That’s the most since April 9th, a day in which only two of the high-priced hurlers exceeded expected value. This phenomenon only occurred three times last year, and the results varied.

Assuming you pay up for pitching, you need to save money on hitters. It makes sense to select hitters not opposing the upper-echelon starters or at least avoid hitters in poor situations. A punt play will help you circumvent the salary cap to include expensive pitchers. Now all we have to do is isolate the right type of punt.

Inspired by yesterday’s article by Bryan Mears, I wanted to find cheap players who can provide stable Upside and Consistency. A cheap hitter who consistently meets value and provides a serviceable amount of upside should theoretically raise our floor and ceiling today.

MLB Trend of the Day: Cheap Hitters With High Consistency and Upside

Step 1:  Player Filters > Salary > Set to “2000 to 3500”

Loading up on Madison Bumgarner and Noah Syndergaard will leave you with $3,250 left per hitter at DraftKings. I bumped my filter up an additional $250 should you prefer a cheaper pitching duo.

Step 2: Vegas Filters > Runs > Set to “4 to 6”

This filter accomplishes two things: 1) It targets players from teams implied to score runs on the higher end today, and 2) removes batters with terrible matchups against high-priced pitchers who are projected to dominate. Again, our goal is to find cheap hitters in good positions.

Step 3: Fantasy Month Filters > Month Count > Set to “15 to 30”

I wanted to make sure players have participated in at least half their team’s games over the past month. The range would provide a bit of security for the current matches playing today since they’ve likely been a staple in recent contests. Though the “Average Expected Points” rose, the Plus/Minus decreased for these cheap options.

Step 4: Fantasy Month Filters > Monthly Consistency > Set to “40 to 82”

I decided 40 percent was the proper baseline because that’s the benchmark where hitters begin to consistently provide a positive Plus/Minus. Had I elevated the bar to 50 percent, we would have finished this exercise with three players and a worse Plus/Minus.

Step 5: Fantasy Month Filters > Monthly Upside > Set to “25 to 53”

Much like a Brian McKnight ballad, I’m done after five steps (unless I get caught in an infinite loop after Step 4). The last filter emphasizes recent Upside, and the Plus/Minus surges to +0.97. And now we have a good mix of cheap hitters who have recently provided a healthy amount of Consistency and Upside.

Current Matches

Ryan Rua, Robbie Grossman, and Gregorio Petit all claim at least six Pro Trends today, and Petit leads them all with seven. The only match with negative wOBA and ISO splits is Rua, and Luis Valbuena is the only batter opposing an expensive starter.

After completing the trend, I tinkered with the “Monthly Count” filter and noticed that 10 to 30 games yielded a +1.10 Plus/Minus, and the “Current Matches” list grew by seven players.

Using only current matches from this trend, I was able to afford Bumgarner and Syndergaard while leaving $7,400 available to spend on a catcher and second baseman.