DFS changed for me when I realized I had to play for first place to 1) ever make any real money 2) be a winning player at all. DFS contests are top heavy. I have been fortunate to take down several big tourneys in my career (including last night), and when I am not taking down big tourneys I am mostly breaking even winnings wise. I want to approach today’s article through the lens of “playing for first”.
There are 9 pitchers on today’s slate who have produced at least one 35+ point score. The rest (outside of Nestor Cortes) have never cracked 30. A first place score is going to include the pitcher who goes for 35+ in tourneys larger than 400 entries. We should be looking to make roster choices from these 9 pitchers. Looking at matchups and park factors, I can whittle that list down to 5 pitchers who I think give me a chance to compete for first place tonight. You can see my two favorites below and check my Twitter for the full list later today.
When looking at offenses, the better ones are facing off against these good pitchers. I won’t roster players from BOS, TOR, SF, or MIL and I will mostly avoid NYY, HOU, PHI and ATL as well. COL is not a good offense and I have no interest in them vs. Cole Ragans. BAL leads the league in HRs but travels to the least friendly HR park in the majors. This leaves us with MIN, ARI, SD, and KC as teams I am likely to stack and if you decide to stack the royals you will likely need to get pretty different as they should be high owned.
I will be looking at roster configurations that include 5 players from one of those 4 teams or 3-4 players from a team like DET who travels to hitter friendly Cincy. I will grab some exposure to CLE who gets to face Kyle Harrison coming back from an ankle injury that has kept him out almost a month. Spend some time building lineups to find out what salaries fit together (or use an optimizer, which I do not use) and as you go you will settle on roster decisions that fit your particular angle for this slate. Resist the urge to add in additional players that you are not aiming to roster, but that have the potential for a good game. This is a distraction. Finally, I will highlight some of my favorite one offs in the “picks” section below.
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Kevin Gausman, SP: $8,300 – Mr. Gausman has not been good this year, but he did have a 45 point outing on June 8 against the Oakland A’s. SEA is more strikeout prone and has a similar wRC+ and plays in a park where HRs are still tough to hit. His price is lower than most of the “studs” and he should not be high owned.
Tanner Bibee, SP: $9,200 – The SF Giants have been a good HR hitting team over the past couple months, but Bibee has shown an ability to limit barrels hit against him and keep runners off the bases should he succumb to a big blast. This is not a slam dunk set up for Bibee as when he scored 39 vs. SEA, but I like the price point and the floor he can provide.
Shea Langeliers, C: $3,800 – I usually like to add a C to my main stack, but if I am rostering a one off catcher, he better be able to provide a ceiling type score. Langeliers is one of the best Cs for barrel rate, meaning he can hit it out even in OCo. He has also added a few SBs lately that can really help your final score. He faces Albert Suarex who has limited HRs so far (2.7% HR/FB) which is likely the result of a small sample of starts and will at some point regress.
Shohei Ohtani, 1B: $6,900 – The price on Ohtani means not many people will be able to roster the top performing player in DFS and you will have to make concessions at other positions, but his 30 point upside at one roster spot is very helpful to reaching 1st place, especially as a one off piece.
Colt Keith, 2B: $3,000 – Keith is still developing as a player and he doesn’t consistently hit the ball as hard as I would like, but he puts it into play and sometimes that is all you need to do in Great American Small Park. The salary is also right.
Matt Vierling, 3B: $4,200 – Sometimes we get a light hitting team like DET going to a hitter’s park and we can take advantage of salaries that are lower than they should be. DET is in that boat today and Vierling is a player that can take advantage. He has a 14% barrel rate over his last 30 games and doesn’t strike out more than once a game on average. He is a good value for today’s slate.
Elly de la Cruz, SS: $6,400 – We usually don’t associate Cruz with plate discipline, but his numbers over the past 30 days indicate he is on par with Gunnar Henderson, but Cruz barrels up the ball more often and has more tantalizing speed. Cruz is my top spend up option at SS if not stacking Royals.
Jackson Merrill, OF: $4,200 – Merrill is a solid lefty who sprays the ball to all fields with authority. He has already accumulated 12 HRs and 10 SBs this year while hitting near .300. 9 of those HRs have come in the past 30 days with a barrel rate that rivals Juan Soto. Cecconi really struggles when hitters see him for a second or third time. I think Merrill will do some good things tonight.
Jesus Sanchez, OF: $3,300 – As far as one offs go, Sanchez is a favorite of mine anytime he faces bad pitching. He is going to hit the ball hard as evidenced by his strong EV, barrel rate and max EV. Facing White Sox pitching he may even hit his ceiling score at some point in this series. He is way too cheap for the kind of hitter he has grown into.
I’m Only Happy When It Rains
We might have to worry about rain impacting the start of the Red Sox vs. Yankees game as well as in Cleveland and Atlanta, but there is nothing to worry about in terms of impact to starting pitchers or length of game.
Doing Lines In Vegas
Low totals across the board tonight is a result of what I talked about in the slate overview; good pitching vs. the stronger offensive teams and bad offense vs. the weak pitchers. KC should be a popular team with the highest Vegas implied team total tonight, and they are coming off a pretty poor month offensively with at least a decent wRC+ recently. They are in play.
