Below we’ve got a discussion of the starting pitching situation as well as the best teams to use for stacks for Saturday’s 12-game evening slate on DraftKings. We’ve also got projections derived from Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections and rankings of the top plays at each position.

Pitching Perspective

Starting as we often do with the expensive pitchers of the day ($9,000+), Zack Greinke ($11,700) is pretty obviously the star of the day. The matchup with Houston is certainly a good one given their well-documented tendency for striking out frequently against right-handed pitching. Ideally this game would be in LA instead of Houston, but that’s not nearly enough of a deterrent to keep Greinke from being the top option of the day. His price is also reasonable, and my model has him being under-priced by a decent margin. The only drawback to rostering him is that he’s likely to be very highly owned.

Two guys that don’t belong in this price range are Scott Kazmir ($10,300) and Taylor Jungmann ($9,600). Kazmir has a below average matchup against the Dodgers at home, and he’s in the midst of a little regression streak with a 4.86 ERA over his last three starts. Even with that little bad streak, his ERA is still about a run and a half lower than his SIERA, so I’m not so sure this stretch of regression doesn’t keep up a bit longer. As for Jungmann, he also has an ERA about a run and a half lower than his SIERA, and I don’t think his skills have shown he’s deserving of a price tag in this range.

The other expensive options are Sonny Gray ($11,600) and Carlos Martinez ($9,200). Both have good matchups against Tampa Bay and San Diego, respectively, and Gray’s is the better of the two against a Tampa team that struggles against right-handers and strikes out a lot against them. Despite that, I prefer Martinez to Gray. Good matchup or not, my model doesn’t think Gray should be priced right in line with Greinke. Meanwhile, my model thinks Martinez should cost about $1,000 more than he does. Gray may well have the better night, but the price is right on Martinez.

Moving on to the mid-price range ($7,000-$9,000), Carlos Rodon ($7,100) is the value play of the day according to my model. He has an above average matchup against the Mariners, and he’s getting a positive park shift on the road. I’m always going to be wary of Rodon while his strikeout rate is north of 12 percent, but he definitely has strikeout upside with a 23.9 percent strikeout rate. You might be able to make a respectable roster with both Greinke and Martinez, but if you can stomach any risk and want to free up money for hitters, Rodon is the first place I would look to do that. My model also thinks Ian Kennedy ($8,100) is a bit of a value in this price range, but I don’t think I’ll be rostering him over Rodon, and I can’t imagine I’ll forego expensive pitchers altogether and pair him with Rodon.

If you’re looking for a bargain, consider the man pitching opposite Rodon, Vidal Nuno ($4,200). The White Sox have the second worst wRC+ in the league against left-handers, and they also have the 10th highest strikeout rate versus lefties. Nuno is obviously a gamble at this price, and his 6.23 ERA in his three recent starts inspires little confidence. But one of those starts was in Colorado and another was in Boston against a Red Sox team that is above average against left-handers. In his other start, a middling matchup against Baltimore at home, he went five innings while allowing two runs with five strikeout and no walks. He posted 14.25 DK points in that start, which is a roughly average point total. But his price is obviously well below average, so there is some value potential.

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

Let’s start as we so often do with the game in Colorado this evening, though this may not turn out the way you think it’s going to. Chris Rusin and Jon Niese will square off in the hitter’s haven, but I’m not sure they’re going to get lit up. For one, both pitchers keep the ball on the ground at a good clip. Niese’s ground ball rate is 54.8 percent while Rusin’s is only a tad lower at 52.8 percent. But the other reason the offenses might not go ham in this game is that both Niese and Rusin are left-handed. The Rockies have the worst wRC+ in the league against left-handed pitching and by a fairly wide margin. As for the Mets, they’re not much better with the fifth worst wRC+ against lefties. So today might actually be a day to fade Coors.

If you do have the balls to fade Coors, the next best options according to Vegas’ implied run totals are Kansas City, Baltimore and Texas. My model is in agreement on Kansas City and Baltimore, and we’ll get back to them in a moment. But my model is not as in line with the Texas call.

The reasoning for liking Texas bats is fairly obvious as Randy Wolf is back from the dead to start for Detroit tonight. After not appearing in the majors in 2013, the now-39-year-old Wolf appeared in six games for Miami last year (four starts). But up until researching for this post, I had no clue Wolf was still playing baseball. He has actually been decent in 23 Triple-A starts this season, but that’s not much of a concern. The bigger problem is that Texas is about 10 percent worse than average against left-handed pitching and playing away from their hitter-friendly home park. Adrian Beltre and Mike Napoli make for decent options, but I can’t get down enough with Texas’ left-handed bats to recommend a stack.

Going back to the Royals, they’ll face Boston’s Matt Barnes who struggled in his first start of the season his last time out allowing six runs in five innings against Cleveland. Cleveland can field a pretty lefty-heavy lineup, as can the Royals. I like KC left-handers and switch-hitters today including the presumed 2-4-5-6 in the lineup of Ben Zobrist, Eric Hosmer, Kendrys Morales and Mike Moustakas. Lorenzo Cain could also be added in from the three hole if you want to complete the stack, and Jarrod Dyson is also a good value if he’s in the lineup, though he may be a bit disjointed from the rest of that stack.

As for the Orioles, I also like their left-handed hitters against Kyle Gibson. Gibson owns a 4.65 xFIP against left-handers in his short career, so Chris Davis, Gerardo Parra and Matt Wieters are good options tonight. Were Ryan Flaherty or Jimmy Paredes to make it into the lineup (which hasn’t happened much lately), they would be good options. Adding Machado and Jones to the mini-stack of Davis/Parra/Weiters is an option if you want to go Orioles-heavy.

Another team I’d consider today is Toronto. Hold on…

sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssshocking, I know.

Vegas is actually not on Toronto today as their opening implied run total was middle of the pack. But my model disagrees. The Blue Jays, a predominantly right-handed lineup, will be facing left-hander Andrew Heaney who has a 4.89 xFIP against right-handed hitters this year. Also, LA has been playing as a pretty favorable park for right-handed hitters. According to the RotoGrinders park factors, LA is one of the five most hitter-friendly parks in the league for right-handers. The other thing to like here is that all the Jays are fairly reasonably priced today as Josh Donaldson is the most expensive Jay at $4,600. I’m hoping that low Vegas total will have Jays a little less-owned than normal.

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. Russell Martin – $3,400 – Toronto Blue Jays
2. Dioner Navarro – $2,600 – Toronto Blue Jays
3. Jarrod Saltalamacchia – $2,800 – Arizona Diamondbacks
4. Matt Wieters – $3,200 – Baltimore Orioles

First Base

1. Edwin Encarnacion – $4,400 – Toronto Blue Jays
2. Chris Davis – $5,100 – Baltimore Orioles
3. Albert Pujols – $4,000 – Los Angeles Angels

Second Base

1. D.J. Lemahieu – $4,300 – Colorado Rockies
2. Ben Zobrist – $4,600 – Kansas City Royals
3. Jimmy Paredes – $3,600 – Baltimore Orioles

Third Base

1. Josh Donaldson – $4,600 – Toronto Blue Jays
2. Adrian Beltre – $4,100 – Texas Rangers
3. Jake Lamb – $3,300 – Arizona Diamondbacks

Shortstop

1. Troy Tulowitzki – $3,600 – Toronto Blue Jays
2. Wilmer Flores – $3,500 – New York Mets
3. Ryan Flaherty – $2,600 – Baltimore Orioles

Outfield

1. Jose Bautista – $4,300 – Toronto Blue Jays
2. Mike Trout – $4,600 – Los Angeles Angels
3. David Peralta – $3,900 – Arizona Diamondbacks
4. Gerardo Parra – $4,300 – Baltimore Orioles
5. Jarrod Dyson – $3,400 – Kansas City Royals
6. Kevin Pillar – $2,900 – Toronto Blue Jays

Starting Pitcher

1. Zack Greinke – $11,700 – Los Angeles Dodgers
2. Carlos Rodon – $7,100 – Chicago White Sox
3. Carlos Martinez – $9,200 – St. Louis Cardinals
4. Ian Kennedy – $8,100 – San Diego Padres
5. Vidal Nuno – $4,200 – Seattle Mariners