Pitchers
Blake Snell- I’m not even going to dive deep here, it’s obvious Snell is the clear top play on this slate. He boasts an insane 36.5% strikeout rate backed by an even crazier 18.7% swinging strike rate, and draws the Blue Jays who strike out over a quarter of the time against southpaws. He is 100% a lock for me on DraftKings, and while I could see dropping down in cash games on FanDuel given his massive price tag, I will be over-exposed to him either way.
Pablo Lopez- I plan to be overweight to the field on Lopez tonight, who gets an amazing matchup at home against the San Francisco Giants. Lopez hasn’t thrown bad for the Marlins this season sporting a 3.95 xFIP and almost 23.0% strikeouts, but I also don’t think he’s been as good as he could be and furthermore, he’s been lights out at home with a 3.21 xFIP and 29.9% strikeouts in Miami. The Giants are not a good offense against right-handed pitchers owning the third-lowest wRC+ and fifth-lowest ISO against them. Lopez appears too cheap for the upside in my opinion (in this matchup) and I will consider him in cash games on both sites tonight.
Walker Buehler (DK)- This is a DK only play for me, as FanDuel was super aggressive with his pricing and he comes in under $1,000 less than Blake Snell. The Mets just got Michael Conforto back, but they still are a bit watered down, and they come into tonight striking out 23.6% of the time against right-handed pitchers. I still think I prefer Lopez for the price, but regardless Buehler is a great tournament play on Wednesday night.
Building Blocks
Nick Castellanos- I’ve been riding Casty for the last few weeks citing that positive regression was due, and tonight looks like a night it could hit in a big way against a fly ball lefty. Even after a rough start to the year, he still owns a .267 ISO and a 162 wRC+ against left-handed pitching this season and will be a staple across my lineups in both cash and GPPs.
Tim Locastro/Ildemaro Vargas (especially on FanDuel)- I try not to slot Coors players into this section normally, but these two are batting first and second against Jeff Hoffman in Coors…for cheap…don’t overthink this in cash games.
Stacks
Tonight is an amazing tournament slate in my opinion, and I will be focusing more on GPPs than I have all season, with the below stacks. I plan on being well overweight to Snell/Lopez, and implementing the players below across my builds, in order of preference. My cash game team will still most likely focus on Coors, which is why I do not have it listed.
1. Braves- It’s hot again in Atlanta, and the Braves get one of the top matchups on the slate against Anibal Sanchez. Sanchez has been extremely wild this season with double-digit walks to both sides of the plate, and that puts me on the full team stack here seeing that if he does allow a homerun or two there’s a good chance that there’s guys on base. We do not need to limit one side of the plate either, and I would start with Ronald Acuna, Dansby Swanson, Freddie Freeman and include one of Josh Donaldson or Austin Riley (or both on DK).
2. Phillies- The Phillies get a kid in Genesis Cabrera making his Major League debut, and this is someone who owns a 6.35 xFIP and over 10% walks at Triple A this season. Given that his control is not good, I’d rather take the full stack than a one off and they make a strong case for the top stack of the night.
Rhys Hoskins, Andrew McCutchen, Jean Segura, Bryce Harper
3. Dodgers- This might be my favorite overall spot for tournaments when we factor in potential ownership, as I don’t expect them to be highly-owned matching up with Noah Syndergaard and a 4.4 implied run total in Vegas. Syndergaard has not be great this season, coming off a start where he was hit hard by the Detroit Tigers. He has basically stopped throwing his slider, hinting that maybe something is wrong with him? Over his last three starts, he’s throwing his slider under 9% of the time, down from nearly 21% of the time last season. Further more, he has upped his fourseam fastball usage to over 55% during that stretch, a pitch that the Dodgers absolutely crush. The Dodgers come into tonight with the fifth-highest ISO in the MLB against right-handed pitching, and I can really see them popping off as a late night hammer tonight.
Joc Pederson, Cody Bellinger, Max Muncy, Justin Turner (or Seager)
4. Tigers/O’s- Rather than separating these tow, I think the full game stack is in order against underwhelming lefties in Ryan Carpenter and John Means, and bad bullpens backing them up. If picking one side, I would go with the Tigers, seeing as they will send eight righties to the plate to combat Means’ .200+ ISO allowed to right-handed hitters.
Nick Castellanos, Ronny Rodriguez, Niko Goodrum + Trey Mancini, Hanser Alberto, Renato Nunez
5. Royals- Reynaldo Lopez has had some big games this season, but he’s also been backed by some pretty heavy splits. This season, his xFIP jumps from 4.86 to 6.81 against lefties, with the strikeouts dropping from 26.8% to 16.3%. He also serves up over 50% fly balls to both sides of the plate, and the Royals do have some batters that can take advantage of that with power.
Adalberto Mondesi, Alex Gordon, Nicky Lopez, Ryan O’Hearn
Chalk Stacks: Diamondbacks, Rockies, Braves
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
