Pitching: Messick (SP1), Burke (SP2), Ray (GPP 1), Ritchie (GPP value)
Hitting: BOS (Optimal), CIN (GPP 1), ATL (GPP 2), COL (GPP 3), ATH (Leverage)
Weather: All Clear
Bad Chalk: Wrobleski, Baz
We’ve got a 9-game Tuesday slate on our hands with just 2 teams holding team totals above 5, and one of them is playing in Coors so you know they’ll be popular. We’ll get to that later, but for now let’s dive into the pitching.
The top pitcher for this slate is Guardians lefty Parker Messick. Coming off a nine-strikeout win against the Brewers, Messick now looks to build on that. This season, he’s allowing xISO and xwOBA numbers of .112/.282 to lefties while striking them out at a 23% rate and .119/.288 to righties while striking them out at a 28% rate. The White Sox lineup consists of four players striking out at a 27% or higher rate against left-handed pitching, as well as three more batters at 20% and higher. This is one of those slates where the pitching looks pretty ugly on the surface, but that just means we have to find the right spots. We think you should lock in Messick as Tuesday’s top pitching option, because some people will pivot off him. He’s the most expensive arm on the slate, and if you look at his game logs it seems like he’s not all that great, but his X stats are much better than his actual stats of late. He’s pitching really well and just hasn’t been rewarded recently. We think he’s quite a bit better than any other option tonight and you’re going to see similar ownership across the top arms today, so you might as well roll with the best one in all formats.
Our next option is the White Sox pitcher Sean Burke. While Burke has been much more productive against righties and gets just two today, he faces a Cleveland lineup with six batters striking out at over a 23% rate. Coming off an eight-strikeout, one-run win against the Yankees, Burke now looks to build on that. When we look at his last month compared to his full season, we see a guy who has increased his velocity a full tick and is suddenly getting a much higher swinging strike rate against lefties. The projections are picking up this recent surge and therefore have him as the top PT/$ arm on the slate. On a slate where good pitching seems scarce, Burke is a really nice value and could provide both a comfortable floor and a high ceiling at home here. He is preferred over a chalky and more pricey Shane Baz who has worse metrics in just about every way.
Speaking of the bad chalk arms, our top 4 pitchers on this slate really stand out as the only ones to consider, as everyone else projects so much worse or will be overowned. There will be sprinkled ownership across lots of mediocre options as people just try to be unique since they aren’t going to love the top arms as much as we usually see. One of the bad chalk pitchers we don’t think you need to risk it with is Dodgers left-hander Justin Wrobleski. He faces the Twins on the road, and that means Wrobleski faces a Minnesota lineup that has seven right-handed hitters and two switch hitters, so he’ll face 9 righties. His numbers are down from last season, now allowing .153/.322 to righties while striking them out at just a 15% rate. Compared to the 27% strikeout rate from last season, he’s clearly not the same guy. Wrobleski has been so underwhelming, but he looked dialed in during his last start against the Rays so people may think he could be picking up some momentum. That should have his ownership way too high for a guy generating just a 7% swinging strike rate to righties. That simply doesn’t cut it for his price and ownership.
Getting back to pitchers we like, in GPPs we’re interested in punting with Braves rookie JR Ritchie. While he’s had more than a little trouble against lefties, Ritchie’s numbers look much better against righties and he faces a Padres lineup with six of them, and those 6 contain most of their power threats. He’s allowing .073/.274 while striking them out at a 19% rate. San Diego does have two lefties that could cause trouble in Gavin Sheets and Jackson Merrill, but outside of that, Ritchie is set up nicely here. The rookie is still putting it all together and is in a great spot to get dialed in here, while his ownership should be very low.
The last arm to consider is Robbie Ray, who is a GPP only option, mainly because cash builds should absolutely have Messick and Burke. Ray has a lot of strikeout upside, but also gives up a lot of damage. This Athletics lineup is fully capable of hitting 4 homers off Ray, or they could strikeout a dozen times. He’s a very uncomfortable click because he could get negative points, but he also has the highest ceiling of any pitcher on the slate, and a wide range of outcomes like that is actually pretty ideal for GPPs. We can’t pretend to know which version of him we’ll get tonight, but we can tell you this is the type of spot that people often don’t value enough in GPPs because they hate the prospect of getting his floor games, when they should be more focused on the ceiling outcomes. He’s not a lock for GPPs because we like Burke and Messick a lot too, but he’s a solid option for that ceiling potential.
For the second straight day, our optimal hitting stack is Boston as they stay in Coors. The stack did not perform as great as it could have yesterday, largely due to the team not finishing with runners on base, but we love the spot once again. They now face off against lefty Sean Sullivan. During his start against the Cubs last week, Sullivan allowed eight runs on nine hits, two walks, and two home runs in four innings. He throws fastballs at an over 50% rate to each side of the plate. Jarren Duran, Willson Contreras, and Andruw Monasterio have had the most success against the pitch. Wilyer Abreu, Caddanne Rafaela, and Caleb Durbin are viable as well. While you should still be a bit cautious considering the chalkiness with a team like this, Boston remains a great value considering the matchup. It is worth pointing out how much this team has busted in good spots this year, so they are absolutely fadable in GPPs where they’ll be pretty highly owned. That said, you can definitely stack them and mix in some unique pieces around them. Personally, I’m leaning towards a fade because there are guys that project about as well that will be much lower owned.
Our first GPP hitting stack is the Cincinnati Reds, facing Brewers pitcher Brandon Sproat. He hasn’t performed great on either side of the plate, but has struggled against righties in particular where he’s given up .210/349 this season. This sets righties Sal Stewart, Eugenio Suárez, Noelvi Marte and Blake Dunn up incredibly here. Elly De La Cruz, JJ Bleday, and Nathaniel Lowe have all had success against Sproat’s pitches and are viable plays for the stack as well.
The next stack we’ll be discussing comes from the Braves, who are facing Padres starter Griffin Canning. Canning has allowed .243/.374 to lefties, which is a recipe for disaster against this Atlanta team. Braves lefties Matt Olson, Drake Baldwin, Michael Harris, Dominic Smith, and Mike Yastrzemski match up the best here. Austin Riley and Ozzie Albies are also good to play here. Olson and Baldwin are our favorites of the stack, probably followed by Riley just because of the value he provides at low ownership.
The Rockies are often overlooked in these Coors games as everyone stacks the away team, and that may happen again here. They face Boston’s Sonny Gray, who has had some bright spots this season but can get hit hard as well. He’s allowing .147/.317 to lefties and .139/.300 to righties, but in Coors those numbers don’t mean as much. Colorado gets back its top left-handed-hitter back in Mickey Moniak. This is huge for the strength of their overall lineup and should have the Rockies rolling. Moniak, Hunter Goodman, TJ Rumfield, Jake McCarthy, Ezequiel Tovar, Cole Carrigg, and Willi Castro are all viable. If you want to run a mini-stack, we like Goodman, Moniak, and McCarthy as a 3-man stack.
Our last hitting stack comes from the Athletics and is a leverage play against a projected highly-owned Robbie Ray who we discussed above. We like the A’s righties here, as Ray has allowed .249/.354 to them this season. Righties Shae Langeliers, Colby Thomas, Zack Gelof, Jacob Wilson, Henry Bolte, and Max Muncy are set up incredibly here given the explosions Ray sometimes allows. Nick Kurtz has had a ton of success against Ray’s top two most frequently thrown pitches to lefties and is viable as well. It’s not a hard rule to pick a side in this game, but we think there’s a pretty good chance you’ll see A’s stacks OR Robbie Ray lineups win GPPs tonight.
Good luck, everyone!