Pitching: Skubal (SP1), Detmers (SP2), Henderson (GPP Pivot off Skubal), Gray (GPP 1), Lopez (Leverage)
Hitting: BOS (Optimal), STL (GPP 1), LAD (GPP 2), AZ (GPP 3), LAA (Leverage)
Chalk Fades: TB Bats, MacKenzie Gore
Weather: All clear
Time to break down another Monday slate of baseball!
The optimal pitcher for this slate is the reigning back-to-back Cy Young winner and Dodgers’ recently acquired ace Tarik Skubal. The 29-year-old’s first start with his new team ended in a loss to the Cubs, giving up two runs while striking out six batters in six innings pitched. Skubal holds strikeout rates of 34% against lefties and 30% against righties. Facing a Royals lineup with five batters who have an xISO under .120 against left-handed pitchers, Skubal is set up well here as the slate’s top pitching option.
The Angels’ Reid Detmers is our next option, as he faces a Rangers lineup that consists of six batters striking out at over a 24% rate when facing left-handed pitchers. Detmers holds strikeout rates of 25% against lefties and 29% against righties, giving him great K upside here. The sites have refused to raise his price all year, so he pretty much always projects as an optimal pitcher with his strong K rates this season. We like him as usual, but he will be popular. In cash, he’s the SP2 alongside Skubal for sure.
While very expensive, Milwaukee’s Logan Henderson will be much less chalky than Skubal and will provide a stable floor. Henderson has held lefties to .133/.265 while striking them out at a 31% strikeout rate and righties to .105/.224 with a 35% k rate. He now faces a Padres lineup with four batters striking out over 22% of the time when facing righties, along with two more striking out at over a 20% rate. Henderson doesn’t project all that well, but he should be strongly considered if you want to avoid the Skubal chalk in GPPs and get a low owned pitcher who could post a big score.
Sonny Gray is our next GPP option, facing a Toronto team that he had a ton of trouble with a couple of weeks ago. Despite that, Gray holds a 14-2 record this season and looks to keep rolling here. He has held lefties to .131/.305 with a 23% strikeout rate and righties to .112/.284 with a 21% strikeout rate. This Blue Jays lineup consists of five batters with below a .140 xISO against right-handed pitchers and is one we want to bet against considering their weak lineup. The only downside here is that they don’t strikeout a ton. So you’re going to need Gray to get them to K more than usual, or cruise through a bunch of clean innings. Both are viable, and if they happen in unison he could be optimal at lower ownership.
We’re taking a stand fading Tampa Bay bats against Jacob Lopez at Sutter Health. While it’s risky, Lopez has looked much better as of recent, holding lefties to .091/.115 and righties to .082/.266 over the last month. He now faces a lineup with just two batters with an xISO above .130 against lefties. We project Rays bats to be very chalky here and don’t believe it’s worth the price or ownership considering the matchup.
With the Tampa Bay fade, our optimal hitting stack comes from the Red Sox, who face another recently acquired pitcher in former Cub Jameson Taillon. He has struggled to both sides of the plate, allowing .299/.401 to lefties and .259/.338 to righties. Ceddanne Rafaela, Wilyer Abreu, Willson Contreras, Masataka Yoshida, Caleb Durbin, Jarren Duran, and Andruw Monasterio are all viable. Abreu and Contreras are our favorite plays of the stack. Yoshida projects the best in terms of PT/$, but he is always a pinch-hit risk so take that with a grain of salt.
The Cardinals are our next stack, as they face Phillies pitcher Andrew Painter. The struggling rookie has allowed x numbers of .171/.336 to lefties and .211/.362 to righties and this team projects for very low ownership on this big slate. JJ Wetherholt, Iván Herrera, Alec Burleson, Jordan Walker, Nathan Church, Jimmy Crooks, Bryan Torres, and César Prieto are all viable here. Herrera and Wetherholt make for a nice min-stack batting 1st and 2nd and filling valuable positions on DK.
Our next stack is the Dodgers, as they face Royals lefty Noah Cameron. He has allowed .196/.329 to lefties and .160/.321 to righties and this lineup has tons of firepower. Shohei Ohtani, Andy Pages, Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy, Tommy Edman, Mookie Betts, Teoscar Hernández, and Hunter Feduccia are all viable here. Ohtani and Edman are our favorite plays of the stack. Ohtani is always a viable one-off is looking to put a bunch of salary into the best overall hitter on the slate.
The Diamondbacks face Rockies pitcher Gabriel Hughes, who throws fastballs at over a 50% rate to both sides of the plate, which is a mistake against most teams, the Diamondbacks included. Corbin Carroll, Gabriel Moreno, Katel Marte, Lars Nootbaar, Max Kepler, Tim Tawa, and Ryan Waldschmidt have had the most success against fastballs and are viable here. Marte and Nootbaar are our favorites from the stack. They project to be a little more popular than our other stacks but they can still be used in GPPs.
Our last stack is a leverage play against a projected chalky MacKenzie Gore, as he faces the Angels. Gore throws fastballs at a 49% rate to righties this season and has only increased that over the last month. The Angels’ Zach Neto, Mike Trout, Vaughn Grissom, Oswald Peraza, Denzer Guzman, Travis d’Arnaud, and Jose Siri all have success against the pitch from left-handed pitchers. Neto, Trout and Siri are our favorite plays as they absolute rake lefty fastballs. This is a matchup we’ve faded chalk pitchers in before, because they project well against a high-strikeout team, but they have very low floors because these guys can smack dingers and wreck their outing.
Good luck, everyone!