Below we’ve got a discussion of the starting pitching situation as well as the best teams to use for stacks for Tuesday’s 15-game evening slate on DraftKings. We’ve also got projections derived from Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, rankings of the top plays at each position and some sample lineups for you to consider.

Pitching Perspective

According to my model, Madison Bumgarner ($11,100) has the best projection of the day, but he does not not have the highest price tag. That means there’s some value in his salary. Bumgarner will be facing the Astros who don’t strike out as much against left-handed pitching as they do against right. But they’re also not as productive against left-handed pitching and still have the eighth highest strikeout rate against left-handed pitching. The game is also in San Francisco as opposed to Houston, which is a huge negative park shift for bats. And the Astros struggle away from Minute Maid with a 115 wRC+ at home and a 91 wRC+ on the road. If you’re paying up for a pitcher today, Bumgarner is your guy.

That’s about it for value with the expensive pitchers. Zack Greinke ($12,000) has the second best projection of the day, but it’s not that close to Bumgarner’s so I see no reason to pay more money for Greinke and a noticeably lower projection. To find anything else close to value, you’ll have to move past the starters with five-figure salaries.

Hell, even in the mid-price range ($7,000-$9,500) I don’t see much value. Taylor Jungmann ($8,700) and Taijuan Walker ($8,400) come close, but my model has them being priced exactly as they should be. Despite the fact that Jungmann has been pitching over his head to some degree and the fact that Walker has been pitching much better than his ERA would indicate, I prefer Jungmann’s matchup and strikeout upside against the Cubs, who continue to have the second highest strikeout rate against right-handed pitching. That said, Walker is facing the O’s who have the third-highest strikeout rate against right-handers but who have also been more productive against right-handers, including a much higher ISO as a team. But if you’re looking for pitchers in this price range, these are your options.

Part of the reason there’s almost no value in the expensive and mid-price salary ranges is that there simply aren’t many pitchers at all in those price ranges today. A whopping 19 of today’s starters are priced under $7,000. And the guys with the real good value potential are some of the much cheaper guys.

The first is Carlos Rodon at home against the Angels. The Angels are virtually an average matchup for left-handers, and the game is in hitter-friendly Chicago, so the variable factors aren’t exactly in Rodon’s favor. And with Rodon walking more than five batters per nine innings, there’s really not much to like. Except for one thing. His price. At only $5,400 there is some value potential given his 23.2 percent strikeout rate. I don’t trust the guy as far as I can throw him, so I’m out on this play. But if you like to gamble, there is value potential here.

The other potential bargain is Williams Perez ($4,300) against Tampa Bay. Perez has done nothing to inspire confidence this season with a 4.48 ERA and 4.81 xFIP, but he does have a very good matchup and a near-minimum price tag. According to my little matchup statistic, Perez has the second best matchup of the day after Jungmann. The Rays have the fourth lowest wRC+ and fourth highest strikeout rate against right-handed pitchers, which is obviously a bad combination. Or a good one if you want to roster Perez.

Here are our projections for today’s starters. You’ll see each starter’s salary, the average number of fantasy points the starter is projected to score per game and how far above or below average his projection is compared to his salary in the value column. You’ll also see adjustments being made for matchup and ballpark. As for the colors, they rank as follows from good to bad: purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, burgundy.

Stack Options

As I’m writing this, Arizona has 13 runs against the Phillies in the bottom of the seventh inning. Vegas liked the D’Backs the most last night, and the D’Backs are among their favorite offenses again tonight. The run environment is obviously good in Arizona, and they’ll get to face another bad Philadelphia starter today in David Buchanan. But there are reasons to maybe not stack D’Backs. For one, they went off last night and have a favorable Vegas total, so they could be fairly highly owned. The other problem is that their price tags aren’t great. Guys like Jake Lamb and David Peralta are priced appropriately but don’t scream value, though Jarrod Saltalamacchia could make for a good salary relief option in cash games.

The total in the D’Backs game is nine, and Arizona is a pretty hefty favorite. But the line is also nine in the Oakland at Toronto game and the Blue Jays opened as an even bigger favorite. The Blue Jays will face right-handed Kendall Graveman, and though they’re not quite as explosive against right-handed pitching, they’re still a top five offensive team against right-handers. Like Arizona, the Toronto bats don’t provide a lot of value and they’re the Blue Jays so they’re always likely to be highly owned. But if all you care about is trying to hit big with a six-man stack, the Blue Jays are always an option. For those of you looking for cheap cash game exposure to the Jays, Justin Smoak is an option.

I might actually look to the other side of the Toronto game for a stack with the A’s. Drew Hutchison will be starting for the Jays, and more than 1,500 batters faced into his career, he’s allowing a home run rate and hard hit rate that are noticeably worse than average. Josh Reddick and Coco Crisp both have excellent value grades assigned to them by my model, and a mini-stack with that pair and Billy Burns would give you the 1-2-3 in the Oakland lineup. Stephen Vogt and Ike Davis also look like solid values today. Perhaps you could throw in the hot-hitting Danny Valencia with the quintet I just listed and roll out a likely lightly-owned Oakland stack.

The other team Vegas likes today is the Angels against Rodon. I told you I couldn’t get on board with the Rodon play, and my model likes the value of the Angels against him. Mike Trout and Albert Pujols are obviously considerations, and Pujols is more than reasonably priced at $4,400. Trout has been in a slump and he’ll cost you $5,300, but he’s Mike freakin’ Trout. Don’t over think it. Shane Victorino is an excellent salary relief option at just $2,700, and he led off last night against another left-handed pitcher. Hopefully he’ll hit in that spot in the order again. Erick Aybar, Johnny Giavotella, Chris Iannetta and C.J. Cron are all also candidates to be thrown into a stack. If I was going with one of Vegas’ favorites tonight, it would be the Angels. If you want to be contrarian, I’d go with Oakland.

You can view and download our hitter projections here. These projections are an average of what each hitter is projected to do on a per game basis according to the ZiPS rest-of-season projections. The projections have then been adjusted for splits, quality of the opposing starting pitcher and ballpark.

Player Rankings

Catcher

1. John Jaso – $3,300 – Tampa Bay Rays
2. Chris Iannetta – $3,200 – Los Angeles Angels
3. Stephen Vogt – $3,700 – Oakland Athletics

First Base

1. Albert Pujols – $4,400 – Los Angeles Angels
2. Joey Votto – $4,500 – Cincinnati Reds
3. Ike Davis – $2,800 – Oakland Athletics

Second Base

1. Neil Walker – $3,300 – Pittsburgh Pirates
2. Dee Gordon – $4,300 – Miami Marlins
3. Scooter Gennett – $2,800 – Milwaukee Brewers

Third Base

1. Pedro Alvarez – $3,000 – Pittsburgh Pirates
2. Todd Frazier – $4,200 – Cincinnati Reds
3. Maikel Franco – $4,500 – Philadelphia Phillies

Shortstop

1. Hanley Ramirez – $4,200 – Boston Red Sox
2. Jose Reyes – $3,400 – Colorado Rockies
3. Troy Tulowitzki – $4,300 – Toronto Blue Jays

Outfield

1. Mike Trout – $5,300 – Los Angeles Angels
2. Josh Reddick – $4,100 – Oakland Athletics
3. Carlos Gonzalez – $3,800 – Colorado Rockies
4. Shane Victorino – $2,700 – Los Angeles Angels
5. Christian Yelich – $4,000 – Miami Marlins
6. Jay Bruce – $4,000 – Cincinnati Reds

Starting Pitcher

1. Madison Bumgarner – $11,100 – San Francisco Giants
2. Taylor Jungmann – $8,700 – Milwaukee Brewers
3. Taijuan Walker – $8,400 – Seattle Mariners
4. Zack Greinke – $12,000 – Los Angeles Dodgers
5. Williams Perez – $4,300 – Los Angeles Angels
6. Carlos Rodon – $5,400 – Chicago White Sox

Sample Lineups

Every day I play DFS, I take the projections you see above and run them through Fantasycruncher.com, a lineup optimization tool. Basically, it just tells me what the maximum number of projected points is that I can get into a lineup under the cap. Below is the optimal lineup it spit out for tonight using my projections.

If you’re a cash game player, that’s would be my suggested cash game lineup for the night. I’m more on the team-heavy stacks tonight, but this is the “optimized” lineup per my projections. Let’s take a look at what those Angels and A’s stacks might look like.