Pitching: Cease (SP1), Burke (SP2), Weathers (#1 GPP), Harrison (#2 GPP), Bratt (#3 GPP/Value)
Hitting: TBR (#1 Optimal), TEX (#2 Optimal), ARI (#1 GPP), BAL (#2 GPP), NYY (#3 GPP/leverage)
Chalk Fades: Snell, Woo, TBR LHH in GPPs
Weather: NYY/SEA chance for late start or short in game delay. Full game expected. Check discord for updates.
We’ve got a loaded Tuesday night slate on our hands, so let’s get right into it. Starting with a couple of chalk fades we like. First up, we have Blake Snell making his first start since May 9th and just his second start of the season. We obviously know that when healthy, Snell is one of the best pitchers in baseball and in baseball DFS. That said, he was capped at 73 pitches in his last rehab outing, and we can’t imagine him being allowed to throw any more than 80-85 tonight. With the Dodgers sitting comfortably atop the NL West, there is really no reason to push it with Snell, and their ultimate goal is likely just to get him up to playoff speed. Not only does that make it difficult for him to hit value, but it also zaps any potential ceiling, making him an easy fade for us with his ownership projecting for close to 20%.
Next up, we have Seattle Mariners right-hander Bryan Woo in a matchup with the New York Yankees. Woo is also projecting for around 20% ownership, something we want no part of, and we actually think some of the Yankees make for great leverage options. Woo has had a bit of a letdown after a very solid 2025 campaign, and tonight’s matchup could be trouble for him. Woo’s main kryptonite has been LHH, and if you look at his game logs, some of his big blowup outings have come against lineups with power lefties like the Dodgers, Rangers, Orioles, and Pirates. His fastball, in particular, has been hit hard. It is a pitch he throws over 50% of the time to LHH, and he is allowing a line of .179/.344 against it. Trent Grisham (.250/.388), Ben Rice (.557/.485), Luis Garcia (.291/.416), Ryan McMahon (.273/.391), and Austin Wells (xwOBA .379) will all hit from the left side and have had great success against right-handed fastballs this season. Jazz Chisholm and Spencer Jones do not boast numbers as good as the other guys mentioned, but they will also hit from the left side and have good power and SB upside, making them viable as well. Overall, the Yankees’ implied total is just north of 4, so we would not go all in on them, but a nice 2-3-man stack carries plenty of upside and should provide you with some leverage in tournaments. At the very least, we would pass on Woo in all formats.
Moving on to pitching, your top optimal option tonight is Toronto Blue Jays right-hander Dylan Cease, who gets a matchup with the Boston Red Sox. Cease has been on an absolute tear and has now struck out seven or more batters in 15 straight starts, including double-digit strikeout efforts in three of his last five. The K rates are as elite as they come, with season-long marks of 36% against batters from both sides of the plate. The xStats are just as impressive, as he is holding batters from both sides to xISOs below .115 and xwOBAs below .270. The matchup is good, not great, but the Red Sox have cooled off quite a bit, and Cease was able to dominate them just a few starts ago, logging a complete-game shutout with 12 strikeouts. The Sox do get to see him for a second time in just a couple of weeks, but that is pretty par for the course against a division foe and does not always benefit the offense. With just two hitters boasting xISOs above .170 against RHP, he should be able to hold them down again while racking up the Ks. With the top raw-score projection and one of the top point-per-dollar marks on the slate, he is a lock in cash games. In GPPs, there is some merit to trying to find a way around his 40%+ ownership, but his elite floor and ceiling make him a tough fade in any contest tonight.
Your optimal SP2 this evening is White Sox right-hander Sean Burke in a matchup with the Cincinnati Reds. Burke has quietly put together a very impressive season, and while he hit a bit of a speed bump last time out, he has been on an elite stretch. Prior to his last start, Burke logged five straight starts of 25 or more fantasy points on DraftKings, going six or more innings in each and striking out nine or more in four of the five. The K rates are solid and pretty even to both sides at around 28%. In terms of xStats, he has dominated the right-on-right split, allowing them a line of just .108/.281. LHH have been slightly better, but he has still held them to a line of .162/.302. The one hole to poke in Burke’s game is that he has allowed some damage with his fastball to LHH, giving up an xISO just above .200 against the pitch, which he throws nearly 40% of the time to them. Given that the Reds only have two guys who can exploit that in Elly De La Cruz and JJ Bleday, we feel great about this matchup for him. There are plenty of strikeouts to be had in this lineup, with five guys striking out 25% of the time or more against RHP this season, so if he can work around those two, the potential for a ceiling performance is certainly there. Overall, he rivals Cease as one of the top point-per-dollar options while carrying slightly less ownership. In cash games, he fits nicely alongside Cease, and in GPPs, he can certainly match Cease’s upside and carry the SP1 load at a price and ownership discount.
Speaking of GPP options, Ryan Weathers looks great to us in a matchup with the Seattle Mariners. Weathers has had his ups and downs but has been solid of late, posting scores of 20 or more on DraftKings in three straight starts. On the season, he has K rates of 28% against LHH and 26% against RHH. He has been very solid against LHH, holding them to a line of .133/.312, and while he has allowed some damage to RHH, he has really held them in check over the last 30 days with an xISO against of just .132. In terms of the matchup, the Mariners have been one of the more disappointing teams in baseball this season and are toward the bottom in most team offensive categories. They also have three guys at the bottom of their lineup striking out 30% or more against LHP this season. Weathers has a solid point-per-dollar mark but should see ownership below 20%, making him a solid pivot off our fades and some of the more popular guys.
Next up, we have Milwaukee Brewers left-hander Kyle Harrison in a matchup with the San Diego Padres. Harrison was one of the hottest pitchers out of the gates this season and put up some extremely impressive lines, showing elite strikeout upside with K rates of nearly 30% against batters from both sides. He did seemingly hit a bit of a wall in the first couple of weeks of July, which ultimately led to a stint on the IL with some forearm/elbow tightness. Less than a month later, Harrison returned looking as dominant as ever, throwing five shutout innings while striking out 10 Pirates. If you look at the box score, you would assume he was on some sort of strict limit, as he was lifted after just 69 pitches despite the dominant effort. In reality, he exited the game while warming up for the sixth inning with cramps, which was unrelated to the injury that landed him on the IL in the first place. Assuming they can get the cramp issue in check, he should be a full go. When he was on earlier in the season, they routinely allowed his pitch count to get into the mid-90s and, on one occasion, let him throw 106 pitches. Given all that, there is some risk baked into this play, but that should keep his ownership down despite him having one of the highest ceilings on the slate, making him an awesome GPP option.
The final GPP play is a nice value option that seems to be flying under the radar a bit, as Arizona Diamondbacks rookie Mitch Bratt looks to follow up his breakout performance in which he threw seven shutout innings of one-hit ball while striking out nine Padres. Bratt is far from what we would call a highly touted prospect, but he is still ranked among the top 10 in the Diamondbacks’ organization. Bratt also put together a very impressive 13-start stretch in Triple-A prior to being called up, and while we typically do not put much stock into minor league stats, it is hard to ignore his 2.41 ERA and sub-1.00 WHIP, especially when you consider that his home ballpark in Reno is widely known as one of the most hitter-friendly environments in all of baseball. At his cheap price tag, he is one of the top point-per-dollar plays on the slate while carrying sub-10% ownership in a plus matchup against the lowly Rockies. We saw what his ceiling can look like in his last outing, making him a very intriguing GPP option tonight who should open up plenty of salary for the rest of your lineup.
Moving on to the bats, the Tampa Bay Rays at Sutter Health Park are one of your optimal options, but we do think there is some fadable chalk among the LHH who will make up most of their lineup. For cash games, you should always rely on the projections, so guys like Jonathan Aranda and Taylor Walls cannot be ignored with strong point-per-dollar projections, along with Victor Mesa Jr., Chandler Simpson, and Liam Hicks to a lesser extent. In GPPs, we want to take a different approach because of Athletics starter Mason Barnett. Barnett is a reverse-splits RHP who has actually been much better against LHH, holding them to a .160/.313 line on the season and an elite .084/.226 over the last 30 days. Tampa Bay projects to send seven hitters to the plate from the left side when accounting for likely platoon options and switch hitters. Barnett’s projection takes him completely out of consideration as a pitching option, but his success against LHH is enough to keep us off a full Rays stack. RHH, on the other hand, have hit Barnett hard, with a .207/.332 line against him on the season and .261/.342 over the last 30 days. That brings us to Junior Caminero (.244/.358) and Yandy Diaz (xwOBA .358), who both have strong right-on-right numbers and are the two Rays we want to target in GPPs. Both will be popular, but a mini stack of just Caminero and Diaz should be much more unique, as most lineups playing them will also include the popular Rays LHH. Both have the power to homer and find their way into the optimal lineup while the rest of Tampa Bay could struggle to put together meaningful scores around them.
The other optimal option tonight is the Texas Rangers in a matchup with Los Angeles Angels right-hander Ryan Johnson. Starting with the projections, cheap price tags and an implied total close to five runs have most of the Rangers lineup popping from a point-per-dollar perspective, putting them firmly in play for cash builds as well as GPPS. Looking at the matchup, Johnson has been hit pretty hard by batters from both sides, with LHH slashing .190/.348 and RHH at an even better .238/.381. The lefties look like our top options, as Corey Seager (.241/.348), Brandon Nimmo (.226/.378), and Joc Pederson (.210/.358) all have fantastic numbers against RHP. Evan Carter will also hit from the left side, and while his xStats do not exactly jump off the page, eight of his home runs have come against righties, and he brings some SB upside as well, making him a viable option. From the right side, Wyatt Langford and Jake Burger’s xStats against righties are nothing to go crazy about, but Johnson has been so bad against RHH that they remain firmly in play, especially with the projections to back them. Finally, Austin Wynns is near min price and is a fine piece to round things out with a top-end point-per-dollar mark.
Next up, we have the Arizona Diamondbacks, who are a great GPP option in a matchup with Colorado Rockies right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano. Similar to the Rangers, the D-backs combine a high implied total with affordable price tags to create some solid point-per-dollar plays across the board. Sugano is quite bad, to put it lightly, and gets crushed by batters from both sides of the plate, allowing LHH to slash .286/.413 and RHH .219/.378. Our top options from this lineup are Corbin Carroll (.208/.342), Gabriel Moreno (xwOBA .362), Ketel Marte (xwOBA .330), Lars Nootbaar (xwOBA .344), and Geraldo Perdomo (xwOBA .334). You’ll notice that a lot of these top plays have only their xwOBA listed. That is because their xISO numbers don’t stand out quite as much, meaning they may not offer the same individual power upside as some other hitters on the slate. Their strong xwOBAs, however, show that they are still producing quality overall offensive results in the matchup and can generate fantasy points through hits, walks, runs, and RBI rather than relying solely on the long ball. That may limit the stack’s pure home run ceiling a bit, but the projections account for that and still have Arizona grading out as one of the better value stacks on the slate.
The final GPP option tonight is the Baltimore Orioles in a matchup with Minnesota Twins right-hander Bailey Ober. Ober has been around the block long enough for us to know that if you catch him on the right night, there can be runs aplenty, and tonight looks like it could be one of those nights. On the season, Ober has been crushed by LHH, allowing them to slash .238/.332, including a .272/.330 line against his fastball, a pitch he throws nearly 40% of the time to them. As a result, we love the O’s left-handed hitters, especially those with strong numbers against righty fastballs like Gunnar Henderson, Colton Cowser, Dylan Beavers, and Jackson Holliday. Pete Alonso and Tyler O’Neill will hit from the right side, but both are also firmly in play, with Alonso offering elite power upside and O’Neill grading out as the top point-per-dollar play on the entire slate. We do want to note that Cowser carries significant pinch-hit risk, but his numbers against right-handed pitching are so strong that we think he is worth the risk in GPPs, especially at his cheap price tag.
Best of luck tonight!