Pitching: Peralta (#1 Optimal), Ragans (#2 Optimal), Crochet (#1 GPP), Steele (#2 GPP), Waldron (#3 GPP), Medina (#4 GPP)
Hitting: KAN (Optimal), BOS (#1 GPP), CIN (#2 GPP), MIL (#3 GPP), CWS (#4 GPP), OAK (#5 GPP), PIT (FD controversial stack)
Bad Chalk: Canning, SDP
Weather: MIA/KAN (100 degrees, humid, 10 mph winds out to left), CIN/PIT (88 degrees, good hitting weather and ballpark)
We have an absolutely loaded nine-game slate full of pitching this Monday. It will be an arms race on the mound and nailing the right ones will make or break you even more than usual in this spot due to the high scores that will be posted. There are also a ton of terrible pitchers throwing without much middle ground to speak of. That means this should be a fun one and we will dive right in!
There are two clear optimal arms on the slate this evening. The first of them is Freddy Peralta, who will be taking on the Texas Rangers. The matchup is not amazing as he will face just one batter with a K rate north of 22%. However, Freddy has great strikeout upside as he has fanned 32.2% of lefties and 30.0% of righties this season. He has allowed a .200 xISO/.377 xwOBA off his heater to righties but this is a best-case scenario for him. The Rangers rank 29th in ISO against righties this season and the only righty with a xISO north of .200 against heaters is Garcia. The biggest issue for Peralta is his longevity as he has topped 6 innings just once this season over 15 starts. That matters because he also has only topped 8 Ks twice this season due to that lack of depth in games. Thus, he does feel like his ceiling is a bit capped in this matchup. He should be super safe and post a score in the low-to-mid 20s. However, chasing the ceiling may prove to be challenging for him. The projections do grade him out as one of the better point-per-dollar options on both sites, so he is a strong optimal play, but we are absolutely on board with looking elsewhere in GPP formats.
The second optimal arm is Cole Ragans. Of the studs, he has by far the best matchup, going up against the hapless Miami Marlins offensive attack. They rank dead last in wOBA and wRC+ against lefties this season. They are projected to start eight righties against Ragans, which helps him out significantly. He holds a meager 15.3% K rate against lefties but a massive 31.5% mark against righties this season. They also have some of the worst power numbers against lefties we have seen of anybody this season. Of their nine projected starters, only one has an xISO of .150 or greater (De La Cruz) and five of the nine have xISOs of .084 or below. The only downside for Ragans is the weather. It is forecasted to be exceptionally humid, 100 degrees, and have 10 mph winds out to left. That is elite-hitting weather and could aid the usually poor Marlins’ bats. You may notice some Marlins bats project decently and that’s because of the weather and Royals bullpen. If Ragans makes any mistakes, it’s far more likely the ball will carry and punish him. Using a couple Marlins is viable in GPPs if fading Ragans, but I probably wouldn’t try to full send this stack as you’d be chasing a couple mistake pitches flying over the fence.
As we turn to GPPs, we absolutely love the upside of Garrett Crochet, per usual. The difference tonight that is going to hold his ownership somewhat in check is that he is facing off with the LA Dodgers. That does not scare us as their lineup is not great after you get past the top 3-4 at this point. Crochet has now scored 20+ fantasy points in 8 of his last 9 starts and has the best K upside of anybody on this slate. He has struck out an astounding 40.7% of lefties and 34.2% of righties this season while holding lefties to a .117 xISO/.245 xwOBA and righties to a .131/.251 line themselves. With him projecting for essentially half of the ownership of Peralta, he is an exceptional pivot in tournaments.
The second GPP arm of the evening is Justin Steele of the Chicago Cubs. Steele does not have quite the K upside of the first three arms listed, however, the matchup is strong and he has been exceptional at mitigating damage this season. He has only allowed a whopping 4 runs over his last five appearances and is going up against the Giants who are far from a fearsome offensive unit. Lefties have a 27.3% K rate against him and a .114/.314 line while righties have a 22.9% K rate and a .111/.270 line. The Giants are projected to start nine righties against him, which does limit his K upside but also aids his damage prevention. At his price on both sites, he stands out as one of the better point-per-dollar options and is a strong GPP play in the mid-range.
Matt Waldron is our next GPP option. He is taking on the Washington Nationals and has now posted five consecutive quality starts. For Waldron, it is all about the knuckleball and it will dictate how his night transpires. Lefties have a .166/.320 line against him and righties have a .127/.283 line themselves. He has now scored 19+ fantasy points in five of his last seven starts and seems to just be improving as the year has gone on. It is entirely possible to pair him with Steele and skip over the expensive arms entirely if you want to go in this direction as both of them have clear mid-20s fantasy point potential that they have flashed frequently. We love his upside in GPPs as well.
To wrap up the pitchers, we have to discuss a pair of punts that are opposing one another in the same game. Griffin Canning seems to be drawing some steam on both sites as the cheap pitcher to look to tonight and our projections seem to agree as he is taking on the Oakland A’s. He grades out as the best value on both sites tonight by a comfortable margin, but he is just a trap in our opinion. He has been horrid this season and Oakland has a number of bats that look great from a pitch-value alignment perspective. Lefties have a .374/.483 line off his heater and righties have a .216/.335 line. Between Bleday (.189/.388), Andujar (.352 xwOBA), Rooker (.217/.373), Soderstrom (.473/.515), Langeliers (.271/.359), Gelof (.371/.403), and Butler (.351 xwOBA), there is plenty of damage to be done to Canning. He has K upside, but we think there will be damage done here to outweigh it.
On the other side, we have Luis Medina. Medina has been exceptionally hit or miss this season and has sandwiched performances of 22.4 and 16.0 fantasy points around two stinkers. This is a very strong spot for him as the main way he has been damaged has been by lefties against his fastball (.265/.330). The Angels are only projected to start four lefties against him and they really do not hit for power. Only Moniak has greater than a .130 xISO against the heater. You could do far worse than Funky Fresh Medina at his basement price tonight but he does carry obvious risk if he cannot throw strikes.
As we turn to the bats, there are a ton of viable spots tonight to attack. One of them, the Kansas City Royals, is leaps and bounds above the rest thanks to their matchup and the blistering hot weather that will be in effect for this one. Roddery Munoz will be on the mound for the Marlins and he has some of the worst numbers we have seen this year for any pitcher. Lefties have a .467/.448 line against his heater and a .543/.522 line against his sinker. Righties have a .243/.393 line against his cutter and a .439/.494 line against his heater. That brings nearly every Royal into play. Frazier (.359 xwOBA), Witt (.495/.505), Pasquantino (.215/.345), Perez (.433/.423), Loftin (.362 xwOBA), Melendez (.273/.341), Velazquez (.251 xISO), and Isbel (.224/.379) are exceptional plays and this weather should just serve as gas on the fire.
The San Diego Padres bats are projected to be pretty chalky in their matchup with Patrick Corbin and the Nats. We are not super keen on them in this spot as they do not have the greatest numbers against lefties sinkers overall. There is not a single righty with higher than a .185 xISO and four of the six righties are below a .100 xISO. We know that Corbin is usually a pitcher we target heavily but with the sheer number of great offensive spots and higher ownership concentrating on bats with bad numbers here, we would vastly prefer to look elsewhere.
As we turn to GPPs, our favorite stack of the night is the Boston Red Sox, who are going up against the Hound Dog himself, Chris Bassitt, and the Blue Jays. Bassitt has been pulverized by lefties this season with a .234 xISO/.452 xwOBA off the sinker and a .209 xISO off his cutter, which he throws a combined 55% of the time. Boston is loaded with strong lefties and is projected to send eight of them to the plate tonight, which is simply hellish for Bassitt. Duran (.389 xwOBA), Hamilton (.379 xwOBA), Abreu (.664/.619), Devers (.319/.345), Valdez (.200 xISO), Smith (.223/.399), and McGuire (.281 xISO) all slaughter these pitches and are poised to send the Bassitt Hound whimpering into the night.
Our next GPP spot of the night is the Cincinnati Reds. They are facing off with Bailey Falter and the Pittsburgh Pirates in Great American SmallPark tonight. Lefties have a .218 xISO off of his heater and righties have a .455/.520 line off his sinker. The Reds line up impeccably here and we love the bats of Fairchild (.225/.415), De La Cruz (.444/.523), Candelario (.388 xwOBA), Steer (.269/.330), Stephenson (.235/.415), India (.449 xwOBA), and Maile (.221/.425). Between the Red Sox and the Reds, we should hope these red teams make us a whole lot of green tonight!
The Milwaukee Brewers stand out as our next GPP target of the evening. The reason we like them is that they have a very clear four-man stack that should be targeted. Michael Lorenzen is pitching for the Rangers and he has been very reverse-splits this season. Lefties have a meager .087/.262 line against him. However, righties have pulverized him with a .259/.449 line off his sinker, a .206/.373 line off his heater, and a .283/.471 line off his slider. He has precisely zero safe pitches to throw their way. That means Contreras (.221/.344), Adames (.231/.352), Hoskins (.339/.409), and Ortiz (.199/.403) are the ideal four men to stack up here. You could mix in Yelich from the left side as a fifth if you wished as well.
Another contrarian spot to call out this evening is the Chicago White Sox. While Paxton finally had a strong start the last time out, he has still been horrid this year and the White Sox are projected to start nine righties against Paxton. James has a 15% K rate against righties this year and they hold a .380 xwOBA off his fastball. Pham (.490/.606), Jimenez (.280/.405), Sosa (.402 xwOBA), Lee (.214/.360), Julks (.439/.612), and Mendick (.414 xwOBA) all have great alignment here. The big bats of Vaughn and Robert don’t align that well from a pitch value perspective, but obviously are capable of damaging anybody if they run into one. If Paxton struggles to command his offspeed stuff, he’ll have to give these guys fastballs that they can wallop.
Finally, we get to our controversial stack of the night in the Pittsburgh Pirates. This does not happen very often, but tonight the team was pretty evenly divided on whether the Pirates vs Carson Spiers was a good play or not on FanDuel. Spiers’ X stats look great to both sides of the plate and if you look even deeper there do not seem to be many flaws in his arsenal to either side. That said, Spiers has primarily been a relief pitcher this season and has a much smaller innings sample size than a typical starter would. This is only his 2nd start of the year and while he has had some bulk relief appearances, opposing batters do not typically get to see him for a second or third time. Sometimes guys like that implode when they go deeper into games and face hitters multiple times. The projections love the Pirates and if you take a look into how the Pirates hitters fare against Spiers’ pitch selection, there are some things that pop out. To LHH, Spiers is primarily FB/FC/CH. Reynolds (.380/.477 vs RFB .389/.516 vs RFC), Cruz (.409/.473 vs RFB, .264/.487 vs RFC), and Tellez (.218/.342 vs RFB, .296/.490 vs RFC) all have great numbers against the fastball/cutter combo and should sit on that all night. Spiers attacks RHH a bit differently with his primary offerings being a ST/SI combo. McCutchen (.271/.422 vs RSI .214/.269 vs RSI), has great numbers against these offerings and rounds out a solid 4-man stack. Suwinski, Hayes, Oliveras, and even Grandal also look great from a point/$ perspective and can be mixed and matched around the top options mentioned above. Personally, I (Justin) really like the Pirates here because I trust my projections, the bullpen behind Spiers is bad, the ballpark is great, the hitting weather is great, and I’m skeptical about Spiers’ stats remaining so strong in a starter’s role.