Happy Fourth of July! Today’s DFS slate is packed full of fireworks! DraftKings features a 9-game main slate, while FanDuel is rocking eight games with both slates starting at 1:05. The lone game not on the FanDuel slate is game one of the Mets/Yankees doubleheader, featuring Gerrit Cole and Marcus Stroman. The baseball gods have answered our patriotic prayers and will keep the rain at bay for the day. I’m also excited to have a slate without chalk Coors. The last couple of days has been brutal for me, eating the Coors chalk in cash games. Let’s take a look at the Implied Run Totals for each game, and then we’ll dive into the slate!
From an implied run total standpoint, this is shaping up to be a really interesting slate. There are six teams with implied run totals north of 5.0 runs, with none coming close to that magical 6.0 number. On the other hand, there are three teams (five if you’re playing on DraftKings) that have an implied total of 4.0 or less. In my head, this means narrowing down our pitching options should be pretty easy. Who we stack is going to be the tougher piece of the pie. Let’s take a look at our starting pitchers for the day.
Starting Pitchers
On the starting pitching front, I’m going to let our implied totals dictate our options for our starting pitchers. Our targets on both sites are Freddy Peralta ($9,700 DK, $9,900 FD), Lucas Giolito ($8,900 DK, $9.600 FD), Zack Greinke ($8,200 DK, $8,500 FD), and Charlie Morton ($7,800 DK, $9,000 FD). DraftKings exclusively has Gerrit Cole ($10,600 DK) and Marcus Stroman ($8,100 DK). Let’s breakdown the matchups:
As you can see, I added a new column with the pitcher’s strikeout rate. Since K’s are king in DFS, it’s important to have this data laid out for us to maximize our leverage on the field. Right off the bat, two things stand out: Greinke doesn’t strike enough batters out and Stroman easily has the toughest matchup of this bunch. Feel free to use them as GPP options, but I’m not touching them in cash games.
That leaves Peralta, Giolito, and Morton on FanDuel, with Cole added to the group on DraftKings. This is a solid group of pitchers with decent strikeout upside. On FanDuel, I’m most likely using Freddy Peralta due to his 36% strikeout rate, as well as the lightest matchup in terms of isolated slugging and wRC+. On DraftKings, I’m locking in Cole first, as I cannot pass on his upside. He’s pitching in a seven-inning game and there’s definitely a chance of a “complete game shutout”. To save some salary, I’ll be pairing him with Morton.
Hitter Stacks
We have six teams on today’s slate with an implied total of 5.0 runs or more and the Padres aren’t too far behind at 4.8. Let’s break down the matchups to see if any of these stacks stand out:
While it may be easy to go, “OOOO Astros, definitely Astros!”, and that may very well be correct, the Astros lineup that we’re likely to see today will lack the pop that we desire. With Alex Bregman on the IL, Yordan Alvarez on the paternity list, and Kyle Tucker and Michael Brantley DTD, I’m more likely to use the cheaper fill-in bats like Chas McCormick ($2,400 DK, $2,400 FD), Abraham Toro ($3,300 DK, $2,500 FD), Myles Straw ($2,800 DK, $2,800 FD), and Jason Castro ($2,800 DK, $2,200 FD) in a secondary stack.
The two offenses that I’m going to designate as GPP only are Atlanta and Cincinnati. Marlins’ rookie Zach Thompson ($6,400 DK, $9,200 FD) has pitched very well in his four outings this year, allowing just four earned runs while striking out 34% of the batters he’s faced. In fact, I’ll likely be using Thompson in a GPP lineup on DraftKings because of his strikeout upside and super cheap price. With Cincinnati, they face Kyle Hendricks. Don’t get me wrong, Hendricks has not looked like his usual consistent self, but in cash games, I’d rather pick on pitchers that have a track record of being bad.
That leaves the Twins, White Sox, Blue Jays, and Padres. While I don’t love the Twins lineup, especially if Josh Donaldson potentially out of the lineup, they do provide a decent amount of value. The other plus is that Brad Keller has allowed at least four earned runs in each of his last five starts. If you’re stacking the Twins, you have to start with Nelson Cruz ($5,600 DK, $4,200 FD), but Luis Arráez ($3,600 DK, $3,000 FD), Alex Kirilloff ($3,800 DK, $3,000 FD), Max Kepler ($3,700 DK, $3,300 FD), and Trevor Larnach ($2,900 DK, $2,800 FD) are all affordable.
My second favorite stack is the Padres. While Vince Velasquez has been decent on the year, the Phillies bullpen has not been. Anytime I get to lock Fernando Tatís, Jr. ($6,100 DK, $4,500 FD) into my lineup, my heart skips a beat. There’s a pretty good chance that I’ll use Tatis as a one-off (and I’ll show that lineup at the end), but if you’re looking to full-stack the Padres, I like adding Trent Grisham ($4,800 DK, $3,800 FD), Tommy Pham ($5,100 DK, $3,400 FD), Manny Machado ($5,400 DK, $3,600 FD), and Jake Cronenworth ($5,000 DK, $3,200 FD).
Value Hitters
With the value in the Astros and Twins lineups, I don’t think you’ll need extra value, but here are some of the best value hitters not mentioned above:
If you stuck around, here’s the lineup I plan on using in cash games today:
Good luck today!
Design by J.R. Caines (@JRCainesDesign on Twitter and @caines_design on Instagram)