Welcome to Bales’ MLB Game Theory. In this article, I will outline my favorite plays at each position for MLB’s Sunday slate. You can find all of Karma’s staff cores through our MLB Premium Package. Without further ado, here are my favorite plays at each position.
| Pitcher | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF |
| Carrasco | Nunez | Hernandez | Ramirez | Lindor | Red Sox OF |
| Darvish | Santana | Wong | Devers | Bogaerts | Cubs OF |
| Burnes | Rizzo | Hiura | Carpenter | Baez | Yelich |
| Thornton | Sano | Moustakas | Ruiz | Edman | Winker |
| Godley | Davidson | Chavis | Bote | Mondesi | Cave |
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*If you don’t already play 3 lineups and 3 max entry contests daily, try using the teams provided in the stacks above to maximize upside and correlation in your MLB lineups.
Slate Thoughts:
- There are two elite pitching options on this slate – Yu Darvish and Carlos Carrasco. If you can find a way to fit both, that’s a fine way to go in cash games. If you can’t, I prefer Carrasco slightly to Darvish, but either make outstanding options. The most popular pairing with either high priced option will likely be Corbin Burnes. He’s a solid salary relief option. The only other cash option is Josh Fleming, who is making his MLB debut but extremely cheap. I prefer Burne to Fleming.
- I’ll likely still with the first three pitchers listed above, even in tournaments, but there are a few other options that can be considered. Dylan Cease gets a tough matchup but comes with plenty of strikeout potential in this matchup. Trent Thornton and Daniel Ponce de Leon are two more options with strikeout upside today. It’s a tough slate for pitching and you’re going to have to take some risks in tournaments, so attacking strikeouts makes sense.
- The Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox are likely going to end up being the chalk stacks today. The right-handed bats of Boston, specifically J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts, should be used. Cheaper options, such as Kevin Pillar, can be used, as well. The Indians are another team that will likely garner ownership tonight. The final chalk stack is the Chicago Cubs. They burned quite a few people last night, but there’s very little reason to believe people won’t go back to them, especially Ian Happ if he’s leading off again.
- If Fleming is going to get ownership today, I’m looking at the Toronto Blue Jays as my top GPP stack. They rank sixth in the MLB in team batting average, eighth in slugging percentage, and fourth in home runs over the last 10 days. They come with tremendous upside in a matchup against a debuting pitcher. The Milwaukee Brewers and Minnesota Twins also stick out as solid GPP stacks on this slate. Finally, you can always stack the Chicago White Sox because of their upside, but it’s tough to love them against Darvish. If they go off, though, it’s great leverage.
