Pitchers
Carlos Rodon- With the Twins game getting PPD, I will be hunting in the mid-tier for my pitchers tonight, starting with Carlos Rodon…barring his game is weather safe as well. Rodon has upped his slider usage to over 40.0% this season, which has shown gleaming results seeing his strikeouts and swing and misses jump a significant amount from last season. The control will always be somewhat of a concern, less so against this Tigers tean, and he gets the benefit of seeing 7 righties tonight, which he has struck out at a 30.0% clip this season.
Anibal Sanchez- On FanDuel, and on DK as an SP2, Anibal Sanchez looks to be like the place to go in cash games if attempting to jam in some high-priced bats on Friday night. Sanchez isn’t a great pitcher, but this Marlins team is one of the worst offenses in baseball this season and just made every starter on the Cubs look like a Cy Young candidate last series. There’s six righties in the lineup for them tonight, and we could mess around and catch a ceiling game from Anibal tonight seeing that the Marlins are currently first in the MLB in K% to right-handed pitchers.
Caleb Smith- The last guy I’m looking at in cash games is Caleb Smith, which may come as a surprise to some people. The Nationals are not usually a team that I pick on with pitcher’s, but this is one of the most positive pitching environments on this slate, and Smith (someone I’ve been high on) hasn’t missed a step since coming back from injury. He strikes out over 26.0% of batters to each side of the plate, and given his price across the industry I think you can consider him in all formats.
Tournament Pivots: Justin Verlander, German Marquez, Eduardo Rodriguez
Stacks
1. Mariners- Felix Pena has been bad for the Angels this season, posting a 4.76 SIERA thus far and averaging over 2 MPH less on his fastball. He allowed a .166 ISO to left-handed batters in 2018 to go along with just 19.0% strikeouts, and the red-hot Mariners top my stack list again tonight…somehow they once again aren’t favored here.
2. Dodgers- Jhoulys Chacin is always a frustrating person to stack against given his ground ball ability, but in a limited sample this season his fly balls have pulled even with his ground balls and we already know that we can attack him with lefties. This is a nightmare matchup for him given how deep the Dodgers lineup is and it just happens to be packed with strong hitting left-handers as well.
Chalk Stacks: Rockies, Astros, Cardinals
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
