Independence Day is behind us, but we still have another huge slate of baseball heading into the All-Star break beginning on Monday. There are 13 games on the main slate, and those are the main concern tonight.
Pitching
The top end of pitching is rather loaded tonight, but it is yet another day that doesn’t really excite me when it comes to paying up for the studs. As of this afternoon, Jacob deGrom is popping up as the chalkiest play by far on the slate, and I just can’t get on board with that. deGrom is a great pitcher, but the matchup is just okay, and I don’t want to eat the expensive chalk on a day with so many options.
Justin Verlander is viable, but the Angels lineup isn’t an ideal strikeout matchup for someone of his price tag.
My favorite top-end pitchers are Zack Greinke and Masahiro Tanaka in much better matchups. Greinke gets a Colorado team away from Coors, where they usually really struggle to make contact. Greinke has good stuff even though he lacks elite velocity, and he does a great job of limiting damage.
Tanaka has struggled a bit in his last two outings, especially his last one, but I think that was a ballpark issue more than a Tanaka issue. Tanaka has faced the Rays three times since the beginning of May and here are his DraftKings points in the outings; 28.8, 23.7, and 47.5 just a few weeks ago. Tanaka now gets the Rays in the Trop and has flashed elite upside in this matchup.
My favorite cash pitcher in the mid-tier is Dakota Hudson. Hudson is a decent pitcher facing a bad offense in a great park for limiting power. Hudson has flashed upside in good matchups this year, and he is very affordable on all sites.
In the other dugout of that very same game, Drew Pomeranz is a great upside arm in a great park but a scary lineup. The Cardinals lineup has struggled as a whole this year, but no lefty wants to see a 2, 3, 4, 5 of Martinez, DeJong, Goldschmidt, and O’Neill. The Cardinals do have some upside here, but Pomeranz has the third-highest K rate on the entire slate, making him an elite tournament option.
Julio Teheran is another scary but viable option on this slate against Miami. Miami is one of the worst offenses in the league, but they have been generally pesky this year. Teheran has posted two games against them of six-inning, no-run ball this year, which is promising.
At the bottom of the pitching list, you will see Aaron Sanchez. I only like him on two-pitcher sites, but I do think that I will be using him here.
Sanchez has been really bad this year, and there really isn’t anything in his stats that make me feel confident in his ability to be much better besides the fact that he is just more talented than his results would suggest. He gets a great matchup and is cheap enough that he just needs to be serviceable.
When I talk about this bottom tier, you need to understand value, and that you are doing this to get elite hitters. A few days ago, someone won $50,000 with a 0 from $5,900 Reynaldo Lopez on DraftKings because of the lineups that the salary savings allowed him to make. It’s about the whole lineup and not just one player.
Stacks
The Red Sox are a fantastic spot tonight against Ryan Carpenter and the Tigers bullpen. Detroit is often seen as a bad park for hitters, but that is not the case. It is not great for home runs, but it is good for hitting in general, which is nice for a full stack.
The Washington Nationals have a 6.2 team total and are not garnering enough ownership on this slate. It is hot and humid in D.C., and this team still has a lot of pop. I love Juan Soto tonight, and I also like a stack as well.