Below are stacks to consider for Friday’s 13-game main slate starting at 7:05 PM EST.
Coors Field
Since we’ve got a game in Colorado tonight, let’s get that out of the way first.
Vince Velasquez from the visiting Phillies will take on Colorado’s Jon Gray. Of the two, Velasquez is the easier guy to pick on. VV has been homer prone this season with a 1.91 HR/9, which obviously makes Rockies more attractive against him. He has had two good starts out of three since his recent return to the rotation, but he’s been the benefactor of a bit of good fortune. His strand rate in those three starts is almost 90 percent, and it’s not as if he’s been racking up strikeouts to get out of jams. His strikeout rate in those three starts is only 17.5 percent.
The Rockies with the best numbers against right-handed pitching this season are lefties Charlie Blackmon and Gerardo Parra as well as right-handed Mark Reynolds. Nolan Arenado also has pop without the platoon advantage, so those are the guys to build a super-chalky Rockies stack around.
The Phillies are less appealing though obviously still in play in Coors. But they’re less appealing because Gray has managed Coors field well this year with a 3.71 ERA and 1.06 HR/9 at home. He has also been pitching well of late with a 3.09 xFIP and a 28.4 percent strikeout rate in his last three starts. But if you decide to go with Phillies anyway, which makes some strategical sense since they’ll be lower-owned than Colorado, Daniel Nava, Aaron Altherr and Nick Williams are their best hitters against right-handed pitching.
Texas Rangers
The Rangers typically get a negative park shift when they go on the road, but they’re not taking much of a hit playing in Minnesota rather than Texas tonight. Minnesota ranks just behind Texas in a three-year rolling average of ESPN’s Runs Park Factors, so it’s decidedly a hitter-friendly park. There’s also supposed to be a decent breeze tonight in Minny with a 10mph wind blowing out to right field.
But the ballpark is not the reason to like Rangers tonight, it’s just simply not prohibitive. The real reason to like Rangers tonight is one Bartolo Colon. Colon is struggling as he has allowed exactly eight hits in each of his last three starts and has only recorded six total strikeouts in 15.1 innings over that stretch. Right-handed hitters have a combined .407 wOBA against Colon this season, and, dating back to last season, lefties are slugging .511 against Colon. That hitters from both sides of the plate can do damage against Colon makes him very stack-friendly.
The Twins bullpen is also stack-friendly. They rank bottom five in both ERA and xFIP for the season. In their defense, they have been about average over the last 30 days, but the trade of Brandon Kintzler to Washington at the deadline makes the unit even weaker for the stretch run.
Texas is much better against right-handed pitching than left, so the right-handed Colon will be a welcome sight. Six Rangers with at least 175 PA against right-handed pitching have been at least eight percent better than league average per wRC+: Adrian Beltre, Joey Gallo, Carlos Gomez, Elvis Andrus, Shin-Soo Choo and Nomar Mazara. You should be able to string together some Rangers with those options available to you.
Baltimore Orioles
Speaking of bad bullpens that lost some talent at the Trade Deadline, the Tigers trading Justin Wilson made a bad bullpen worst. Detroit’s bullpen ranks dead last in ERA and xFIP for the season and has the third worst mark in each of those stats over the last 30 days. Wilson is no Craig Kimbrel or anything, but his 2.76 ERA and 34 percent strikeout rate will certainly be missed.
Starting for the Tigers tonight is Justin Verlander. Verlander has a healthy 2.25 ERA in his last five starts, though a 4.13 xFIP in that stretch indicates that perhaps he has not been as dominant as his ERA would lead you to believe.
The real hesitation with Verlander starting is the fact that he’s averaging about six-and-a-third per start over his last five, so there’s some real risk Baltimore doesn’t see a ton of Detroit’s bullpen. But if Verlander can’t get through six innings, the O’s stand a great chance to do real damage. In eight starts this season in which Verlander has gone less than six innings, the opposing teams are averaging 8.25 runs per game.
Baltimore’s best hitters against right-handed pitching this season have been Trey Mancini, Jonathan Schoop, Seth Smith and Chris Davis.
Los Angeles Dodgers
Stacking Dodgers is a purely contrarian play today, which is obvious since they’re facing Jacob deGrom. But given how good the Dodgers are this year, there aren’t many days where their hitters have low ownership percentages like they should today against deGrom. A Dodgers stack today is simply taking the chance to get low ownership percentages on a team that ranks third in wRC+ vs. RHP this season and third in wRC+ over the last 30 days. They also have eight hitters with more than 200 PA vs. RHP this season with a wRC+ over 100. So yeah, deGrom is good, but so are the Dodgers.