Top Stacks: ARI, LAD, SDP, TOR (chalk)
Top Pitchers: Darvish (Optimal #1), Castillo, Allen, Maeda, Gray (GPP), Rea (GPP)
On today’s slate we have a very clear top arm in Yu Darvish. Darvish sports very nice strikeout rates of 35% and 21% against lefties and righties respectively the past 30 days. He is also allowing under a .100 xISO and .320 xwOBA against both sides of the plate during this stretch. He is the optimal target across all formats at pitcher for us tonight.
If we are looking at a second option to Darvish, we really love the way that Logan Allen is pitching across the last 30 days. Allen owns a massive 42% strikeout rate against right-handed bats the last 30 days, and a 25% strikeout rate overall against both sides of the plate in 2023 as a whole. Allen is allowing under a .165 xISO against both sides of the plate, and should be able to capitalize on his dominance against righties against KC. KC will send seven righties to the plate tonight, which bodes very well for targeting Allen in GPPs.
While the most popular value arm on the slate is Patrick Corbin against a very poor COL offense, we actually love targeting Colin Rea as one of the best per dollar value plays on the slate. Rea comes in very cheap tonight, and has been great against righties the last 30 days, striking them out at a 25% rate and allowing under a .250 xISO and .300 xwOBA. The Reds will send five righties to the plate tonight, and three of the lefties that will be in the lineup own under a .170 xISO against righty arms. Rea has improved against lefties over the last 30 days, and we believe he makes for a very nice GPP value piece on this slate as most people will turn to Corbin if they use a value arm.
The primary stack that seems to be gathering steam in terms of ownership is Toronto. However, this feels like a spot that we would look to avoid and get leverage against the field, as the Blue Jays do not have a very high team total on the slate, and they will be facing off against RHP Michael Grove who has actually been very stout against right-handed hitters across the last 30 days. Grove has allowed under a .100 xISO against righties in this stretch. He has even found some success against lefties allowing under a .160 xISO. We would avoid TOR here in this spot as they are just not worth eating the ownership on.
Our top full stack on this slate comes from the same game, but we like the Dodgers instead, facing off against RHP Jose Berrios. Lefties have had a lot of success against Berrios the last 30 days, as he has allowed a .225 xISO against them overall. Berrios relies on his changeup and four-seam, throwing them 32% and 28% of the time against lefties. The top lefties in this stack will be Freeman, Muncy, Outman and Peralta and we do not mind Heyward either. We also like targeting both Betts and Martinez if you stack this team, as they have found success against the sinker all season, which Berrios throws over 40% of the time to righties. For value, Chris Taylor is a viable piece to use as he’s cheap and is eligible to fill multiple positions.
If you want a two man stack that we think is extremely elite tonight, look no further than the duo of Juan Soto and Fernando Tatis Jr. They will face off against rookie RHP Quinn Priester, who struggled in his first start allowing a .205 and .320 xISO against lefties and righties respectively. Priester relies on his sinker and slider, using them 44% of the time each in a small sample against righties. He also uses the sinker and the changeup over 30% of the time each against lefties. Soto mashes righties this season, owning a .260 xISO and .420 xwOBA against them overall this season. He has mashed the sinker to the tune of a .256 xISO and .455 xwOBA, and sports a .360 ISO and .420 xwOBA against the changeup. He is an optimal target for us on this slate. Fernando Tatis comes in with a very healthy .207 ISO against the sinker as well, while owning a healthy .277 xISO and .420 xwOBA against sliders. We love targeting these two elite bats to pair with some value on this slate.
With the LAD and SD bats listed above, you will need to find some value bats to use. The chalky option that we still think is worth using is Tyler O’Neill, who will face off against RHP Ryne Nelson, who has really struggled allowing a .270 xISO to righties over the last 30 days. Nelson relies on the four-seam, throwing it over 50% of the time, while also using the cutter around 33% of the time. TON has been finding his stride since returning from injury, reaching base eight times in plate appearances since his return. TON has mashed the four-seam to a .400 xISO and .450 xwOBA this year, and makes for a great cheap target across all formats. Another value piece we love is Chris Taylor, who is cheap and fits right into the Dodgers stack listed above. Two other viable options would be Alejandro Kirk and Matt Wallner, although Kirk is a bit anti-correlated with the Jays fade.
Conclusion: Our core for cash games today is Darvish, Soto, and O’Neill as the optimal targets with Allen/Castillo/Rea in that order for potential SP2. For stacking there isn’t a clear optimal stack for cash games, but the Dodgers and Diamondbacks look like two great options to use when pivoting away from the Toronto stack we believe is bad chalk. We also love the mini SD stack with Tatis and Soto. Our favorite value plays are O’Neill, Taylor, and Wallner.
Update: We originally had Winker over Wallner for value, but Winker didn’t make the lineup. We’ve also had a spirited debate in Discord about Logan Allen. I, Justin, originally thought he was the best pitcher play on the slate, but Will was concerned that his recent stats are only so elite because he faced two bad offenses. It seemed like a situation where you either play or fade a small sample size, but after digging deeper we found something very concerning, which is that Allen’s velocity has actually dipped quite a bit of late. I talked to an MLB expert who said it can’t be good that Allen’s velocity is down. He also reminded me that Allen’s last 30 days only include two starts because he was sent to the Minors, and he got his shit rocked in his first start before a dazzling 8K performance in the next one. More importantly though, his velo was down in those too. So I think I’m going to get off him and concede that Bobby Witt is actually an elite one-off on this slate and make that my stand. A full Royals stack is also not a bad idea if Allen blows up, which I now think he could given this concerning velo dip. Literally 0 people have posted about this on Twitter in the last 24 hours, so I think we’re the only people in the industry that are on the velo dip. That makes the edge to play here definitely on the side of a KC stack and an Allen fade. You can read the full discussion in the Discord if you’re interested. Allen will remain in the article as an upside play, but my personal stance in DFS is why play someone we are lower on than the crowd? Everyone can see that Allen has been dominant lately and the Royals strikeout a lot. What we know and they don’t is that his velocity is down. So why would we play someone, even if they have upside, if we know something bad that nobody else knows?