Below are stacks to consider for Monday’s MLB DFS action.
The Chalk
We’ve got a game at Coors tonight, so the chalk obviously begins here. The Rockies have the highest implied run total of the slate in Vegas, and the visiting Padres have the seventh highest implied total. The pitching matchup will be between a couple of right-handers, Bryan Mitchell and Chad Bettis.
Mitchell has an ERA just over 5.00 through four starts, and that honestly doesn’t begin to describe how bad he has been. He has allowed a ghastly 17 walks in 19.2 innings compared to only seven strikeouts, which is how you end up with an xFIP over 6.00.
Charlie Blackmon is the chalkiest play on the slate with his .425 wOBA against right-handed pitching dating back to last season. Nolan Arenado and DJ Lemahieu are the most obvious stack partners with Blackmon as they should all hit in the top four in the order and potentially 1-2-3. If someone different ends up in the two-hole, they could be included as well. Chris Iannetta has hit in that slot a couple times recently and has solid numbers against same-handed pitching.
Opposite Mitchell is Bettis who is ripe for some regression. Bettis has a 1.44 ERA through four starts but is stranding runners at a 95 percent clip and has a .217 BABIP along with a walk rate in double digits. Yeah, that’ll last.
Wil Myers has the best value rating of any Padre on both DraftKings and FanDuel per our projections, so he’s a good option for San Diego exposure in this game. He and Eric Hosmer, who has a 146 wRC+ vs. RHP dating back to last season, are who you should build a Pads stack around. Rookie Christian Villanueva has a .393 wOBA in his first 64 career PA against righties and should also hit in the top half of the order. Preferably Jose Pirela will lead off as opposed to Manuel Margot as Pirela has much better numbers against righties. And if Franchy Cordero is hitting five or six in the order, he can also be included in a San Diego stack.
The only other team with an implied run total well over five runs other than the Rockies is Oakland, who is getting a positive park shift in Texas tonight. The A’s will face lefty Matt Moore who has a 5.59 ERA through four starts this season. Despite being a lefty, Moore has the highest wOBA allowed to left-handed hitters of any starter going today going back to the start of last season, so you don’t have to exclude A’s who won’t have the platoon advantage.
Moore will be the fourth straight lefty the A’s have faced, and they’ve rolled out the same top half of the order in their last three games: Marcus Semien, Stephen Piscotty, Jed Lowrie, Khris Davis and Matt Chapman. Excluding Piscotty, each of those guys has been above average against left-handed pitching dating back to the beginning of last season.
Other chalk options would include the last two teams to see their seasons end at the hands of the Astros last season, the Dodgers and the Yankees. Both teams have an implied total around five runs. The Yanks will face Jake Odorizzi and the Dodgers will face Jarlin Garcia, who have both benefitted from some batted ball luck early in the season that has kept their ERAs near or below 4.00.
Not the Chalk
With a Coors game, Oakland having a high implied total in Texas, and the Yankees and Dodgers (and even the Astros) having high implied totals tonight, the Rangers shouldn’t see ownership at high levels tonight. They’ll face right-hander Trevor Cahill who has made one good start this season but who has a 4.55 ERA dating back to last season.
Adrian Beltre and Shin-Soo Choo have hit Cahill well in their careers with Beltre owning a 1.087 OPS against him in 31 PA and Choo being 5-for-10 against him with four walks. Those two along with Joey Gallo are Texas’ best hitters against right-handers, and they should hit 1-4-5 in the order. Between them should be Nomar Mazara who has been about average against right-handers since the start of last season.
It’s going to be 75 degrees in Texas, which certainly isn’t the summer heat that inflates offense there, but it’s still the highest game-time temperature of the night unless the Astros open the roof tonight. The weather and the park are perhaps the friendliest conditions for hitters tonight, and the Rangers should be the lesser owned of the two teams playing there.
The middle of Cleveland’s order is another chance to perhaps get some hitters at lower ownership rates than they should have. The Indians only have the ninth highest implied run total tonight, but they’ll face Kevin Gausman who has the third worst wOBA allowed to left-handed hitters and fourth worst wOBA allowed to right-handed hitters of any pitcher in action tonight since the start of last season.
Cleveland has gone Jose Ramirez, Michael Brantley, Edwin Encarnacion and Yonder Alonso 3-6 in the order in their last five games, all against right-handed pitching. Dating back to last season, each one of those guys has a wRC+ north of 128 against right-handed pitching.
Going a little further down the implied run totals are the White Sox who are most definitely a non-chalk option. They have a below average implied total of only 4.1 against Mike Leake. Of the 18 pitchers going today, Leake has the lowest rate of soft contact rate induced since the start of last season and the fourth highest hard contact rate allowed. Leake is perfectly content to induce ground balls, which is how he gets away with the lack of soft contact. But when hitters do elevate, he gives up a high pull rate and has a higher than average HR/FB rate.
The Sox have six hitters with a wRC+ over 100 against right-handed pitching since the start of last season: Jose Abreu, Yoan Moncada, Nicky Delmonico, Avisail Garcia, Welington Castillo, and Yolmer Sanchez. When Chicago’s lineup comes out, see if there’s some connectivity of those guys in the order to form a contrarian Chicago stack.