Below we’ve got a discussion of the starting pitching situation as well as the best teams to use for stacks for Thursday’s six-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.

We’re only covering the evening slate because the afternoon slate of four games is too short, and there are no big contests being offered for the all day slate. A word of advice for short slates like this is to not invest too heavily. I usually play about half of what I would normally play.

Pitching Perspective

Weird things happen on short slates, and it’s weird that the cheapest pitcher today is $6,500. You’re simply going to have to spend on pitching a) because no one is really that cheap and b) because there are so few good options.

Gerrit Cole ($12,900) is the obvious choice for the top pitching play of the day with few other good options available and a good matcup for Cole against the Marlins. That said, his price is too high; something closer to $12,000 would be more appropriate.  But of the four pitchers priced above $10,000, Cole has the most appropriate price tag as the other three expensive guys are even more over-priced according to my model. If you’re paying up for a pitcher, you’re doing it with Cole.

Once you get under 10K you quickly get to my favorite play of the day, Carlos Rodon ($9,800). Rodon is on a roll with 24 strikeouts, eight walks and three earned runs allowed over 22 innings in his last three starts. That’s been good for a 1.23 ERA and 2.96 xFIP. He faced the Angels in the first two games of that three-game stretch, and he faced the Mariners in his last outing, a seven-inning, one earned, eight strikeout performance. He’ll get those same Mariners again today and look to repeat his success. His matchup with the M’s is the third-best matchup of the day according to my model.

Getting a little cheaper, Andrew Cashner ($8,000) is a nice value. He has the third best projection of the day but only the ninth highest salary.  He has been hit-or-miss lately with quality starts in six of his last nine games with a stinker or two thrown in. But for the season his run prevention skills and strikeout and walk skills are all basically average or slightly better. He’s not my favorite play of the day, but, again, the options are limited, and you may need someone in this price range.

Finally, the cheapest pitcher of the day may well be an option. Roenis Elias ($6,500) will start opposite Rodon, and Elias will have the best matchup of the day  against the White Sox according to my model. His numbers this year are actually quite similar to Cashner’s with his run prevention numbers being only slightly worse than Cash’s. But Elias’ price is quite a bit lower than Cashner, and this is as much money as you can save on a starter.

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

The most obvious stack candidate of the day is the New York Metropolitans. First of all, they’re hotter than hell right now. They’re tied with Boston for the best wRC+ over the last 30 days, and, as a team, they’ve been almost twice as good as league average over the last seven days with a 199 wRC+ in that time frame. On top of all that, they have a great matchup against Aaron Harang and are getting a positive park shift on the road in Philadelphia. New York lefties in particular have a great matchup as Harang has walked more left-handed batters than he has struck out, leading to a a 5.96 xFIP for Harang against lefties. Curtis Granderson and Daniel Murphy are great plays while Kelly Johnson is an excellent value. They’ll likely hit 1-3-5 in the order, and Yoenis Cespedes can be paired with them to streamline the stack a bit.

Speaking of pitchers that struggle against left-handed hitters, Rubby de la Rosa will start tonight, and the Cardinals will draw the favorable matchup. Left-handers have a .399 wOBA against de la Rosa this year, and his xFIP is 4.89 against lefties. The problem with stacking Cardinals lefties is that they really don’t hit near each other in the order. Matt Carpenter leads off, Jason Heyward hits fourth, Kolten Wong has been hitting seventh recently, and Brandon Moss hasn’t been playing much lately. There’s a chance they could move Wong up to the two-hole for this game, and then Carp/Wong/JHey would work as a mini-stack. But if they remain disconnected in the lineup, you may just have to plug and play one or two of them.

If you want to avoid Mets for whatever reason and the Cardinals don’t provide us with a stack opportunity, I’d turn to the Pirates for a stack.  They’ll be facing Justin Nicolino in his sixth major league start. The first five would appear to have gone well enough at first glance with his ERA sitting at 3.77. But his strikeout rate is in single digits and his SIERA is over 5.00, so things really aren’t going all that well. He has a 5.15 xFIP against right-handed hitters, making all Pittsburgh righites options. Starling Marte, Andrew McCutchen, Aramis Ramirez and Jung-Ho Kang should hit 2-3-4-5 and provide a stack option. If you want to go Pirates-heavy with a stack, my guess is that at least two of Michael Morse, Francisco Cervelli and Josh Harrison will be in the lineup and will provide you the option to roll with five or six Pirates.

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. Francisco Cervelli – $3,600 – Pittsburgh Pirates
2. Geovany Soto – $2,700 – Chicago White Sox
3. Anthony Recker – $2,000 – New York Mets

First Base

1. Jose Abreu – $5,100 – Chicago White Sox
2. Logan Forsythe – $4,000 – Tampa Bay Rays
3. Sean Rodriguez – $2,000 – Pittsburgh Pirates

Second Base

1. Daniel Murphy – $3,800 – New York Mets
2. Kolten Wong – $3,700 – St. Louis Cardinals
3. Tim Beckham – $2,700 – Tampa Bay Rays

Third Base

1. Kelly Johnson – $3,000 – New York Mets
2. Evan Longoria – $3,800 – Tampa Bay Rays
3. Matt Carpenter – $4,300 – St. Louis Cardinals

Shortstop

1. Jung-Ho Kang – $3,900 – Pittsburgh Pirates
2. Tyler Saladino – $3,400 – Chicago White Sox
3. Alexei Ramirez – $3,300 – Chicago White Sox

Outfield

1. Curtis Granderson – $4,600 – New York Mets
2. Jason Heyward – $4,400 – St. Louis Cardinals
3. Bryce Harper – $5,300 – Washington Nationals
4. Andrew McCutchen – $5,000 – Pittsburgh Pirates
5. Brandon Moss – $3,600 – St. Louis Cardinals
6. Brandon Guyer – $2,900 – Tampa Bay Rays

Starting Pitcher

1. Carlos Rodon – $9,800 – Chicago White Sox
2. Gerrit Cole – $12,900 – Pittsburgh Pirates
3. Andrew Cashner – $8,000 – San Diego Padres
4. Roenis Elias – $6,500 – Seattle Mariners