Pitchers
Top Tier: Chris Sale- Jacob deGrom as been the most consistent pitcher for the entirety of this MLB season, but I can’t pay over $13,000 for him on DraftKings. That leaves me focused on Chris Sale if choosing to spend up for my SP1. Sale likely will be limited again today in terms of pitch count, but after going over 70 in his last start he should be looking at around 90 today in a smash spot against the Baltimore Orioles. The Orioles rank top-three in the MLB in strikeout rate against southpaws, and I’m willing to take 90 pitches of Sale against them in all formats.
Mid Tier: Masahiro Tanaka/Andrew Heaney- This is my favorite tier on DraftKings with Tanaka coming in at $9,500 and Heaney at $8,000. Tanaka probably won’t be pushed in terms of pitch count here, but he never really goes past 95 pitches anyways so I don’t think that affects his overall upside. He has god control, above-average strikeouts and gets a great park bump heading into Tropicana Field.
As for Heaney, he was shellacked in his last start allowing six runs in just three innings against the Astros, but has a much more favorable matchup with the Texas Rangers tonight. I picked on this Rangers team with Felix Pena two nights ago, and Heaney has significantly higher strikeout upside than his teammate Pena. The only issue for Heaney is right-handed power, which is something this Rangers lineup lacks. Their most intimidating batters are lefties, and I think he profiles exceptionally for this matchup, especially when factoring in his price tag.
Low Tier: Yonny Chirinos- I likely will be trying to fit Sale or Tanaka + Heaney in my cash game roster on DraftKings tonight, but if you need some savings you can drop to Yonny Chirinos who is expected to be the long man for the Rays tonight. The matchup with the Yankees isn’t ideal, but there is the chance that he comes in and starts out against the bottom of the order his first time through and the Rays main pitchers always see low-ownership outside of Blake Snell given the fact that only people paying attention know who is coming in. He has fairly average strikeout stuff, but you can count on him pretty much for five innings.
Batters
C: Francisco Cervelli, Mike Zunino, Austin Hedges
1B: Anthony Rizzo, Matt Carpenter, Steve Pearce/Mitch Moreland
2B: Daniel Murphy, Travis Shaw, DJ LeMahieu
3B: Nolan Arenado, Travis Shaw, Josh Donaldson
SS: Trevor Story, Amed Rosario, Tzu-Wei Lin
OF: Christian Yelich, Kole Calhoun, Charlie Blackmon, David Dahl, Rhys Hoskins, Nick Martini
Stack of the Day
1. Rockies (cash games)- I hate picking on Pivetta, but he probably won’t go for a full allotment of pitches and the Rockies have the power to beat him in Coors Field.
2. Cubs (lefties)- The Cubs need to win and Nova has no strikeout ability against LHB.
3. Brewers- Like the Cubs, they need to win and Gant has been increasingly luckier as the season has gone on.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
