Pitchers
Patrick Corbin- Corbin is far and away the best pitcher on this slate with his 30.0+% strikeouts and 13.0% swinging strikes, the problem is that he’s pitching in Coors Field. Corbin’s Achilles heel is allowing hard hits, which he does at a 40.0+% rate, but with strong control and elite swing and miss stuff, even if he gives up a homer or two there’s a strong chance they are solo shots rather than two or three run dongs. He also has the ability to strike guys out and make up for the lost points from the runs, which not many arms on this slate do. His pitch mix (heavy slider usage) will play well in the altitude and while I don’t want to roster a pitcher in Coors on a 13 game slate, I might be forced to.
Zack Wheeler- Outside of his first two starts (really the second), Wheeler has been good this season and at his price, he comes in as one of the better options on this slate even against the Phillies. The control has been sketchy, but the strikeouts will come and he’s still been good at limiting hard hits this season. This is a banged up Phillies lineup, and while I don’t feel very comfortable with it, it would be hard to not call him my favorite cash game play tonight even at elevated ownership.
Erik Swanson- Last night, I ended up on Chris Bassitt for FanDuel cash games in an attempt to jam in all the bats, that worked out well and given the lack of a clear ace on this slate I could see rolling out a similar strategy with Erik Swanson. We don’t know a ton about Swanson, but looking at his minors numbers he profiles as a fly-ball pitcher with good control and decent strike out ability. The fly balls won’t concern me pitching in San Diego,a and he’s cheap enough that even an average game would get by at this price.
Tournament Pool: Homer Bailey, Domingo German, Spencer Turnbull, Jose Quintana (UNDERWEIGHT)
Building Blocks
Matt Carpenter- Carp delivered for me with a big game last night, and I’m going right back to the well tonight against Zach Davies. Even after a big game last night, the sites did not raise Carp’s price yet I already told you yesterday he’s getting a lot more unlucky rather than hitting poorly. Davies doesn’t have strong strike out ability, and seeing as we know balls will be in play, Carpenter is my home run call for tonight.
Shin-Soo Choo- I was going to slot Jose Abreu into this position, and I still think he’s a good play, but for cash games I feel very comfortable locking in Choo in cash games. Montas has made some improvements this season to his pitch mix resulting in more strikeouts, but he still allows above-average hard hits and fly balls to lefties. Choo has a solid OBP out of the top spot in the Rangers order, but he has power as well with a .215 ISO.
Stacks
1. Yankees- Chris Stratton has been probably the worst pitcher in the MLB this season, and given all of their injuries this will be another night where we get the Yankees at 5% owned. He allows a lot of hard-contact to righties with extremely poor control, and the one thing the Yankees still do have is some power from the right-side. Luke Voit, Gleyber Torres, Mike Tauchman and Clint Frazier are my main targets and I wouldn’t hesitate to add in DJ LeMahieu should he be at the top of the lineup.
2. Brewers/Cardinals game stack- This game popped off big-time last night with the help of the weather, while it’s not as warm as it was then tonight, we do have some deep, skilled lineups matchup with some mediocre pitchers. For the Cardinals, I’m looking at Matt Carpenter (see above), Paul Goldschmidt, Paul DeJong and Dexter Fowler and on the Brewers side I want the usual lefty suspects.
3. Dodgers- I’m still on the non-believer side of Jose Quintana’s 2019 strikeout rate boost, and even if it is legit, the Dodgers have one of the best/deepest lineups in the MLB and they will probably come in even less owned than the Yankees. They still have capable right-handed hitters in Justin Turner and Kike Hernandez, and Cody Bellinger is someone that excels against curve balls — Quintana’s best pitch this season.
Chalk Stacks: Nationals, White Sox
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
