Below we’ve got a discussion of the starting pitching situation as well as the best teams to use for stacks for Friday’s 14-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

As usual, let’s start with the expensive pitchers of the evening ($10,000+), of which there are seven. Clayton Kershaw is going tonight and will cost you a hefty $15,000. Purely in a vacuum, my model thinks he’s actually undervalued. With an above average matchup against Pittsburgh in a pitcher-friendly park, his projection for the day is almost three standard deviations above today’s mean projection. But his price is only about two and a half standard deviations above the mean. Now, whether there are enough value bats available to make it feasible to fit Kershaw in is another question, and we’ll address that in later sections of this post. But he’s at least in consideration even with his price tag. In fact, he has the best value grade of any expensive pitcher today.

If you can’t fit Kershaw in but still want to pay for an elite pitcher, the next best option according to my model is Jacob deGrom ($12,100). He has the second best projection of the day behind Kershaw, though his projection is a good bit lower than Kershaw’s. But then again so is his price. He’s got a great matchup with Tampa, who struggles against right-handed pitching, and the game is in pitcher-friendly Tampa. Again, we’ll see whether I think it makes more sense to pay up for Kershaw or deGrom later in the post.

One more note on the expensive pitchers, my model doesn’t like the value on Sonny Gray, but the Astros offense is ice cold right now and, as we all know, strikes out quite a bit against right-handed pitching. And the game is in pitcher-friendly Oakland, though Gray has actually been quite a bit better on the road in his career. I won’t be rostering Gray just because I don’t like to deviate from my model too much, but I wouldn’t argue too profusely if you wanted to roster Gray.

Moving on to the mid-price range ($7,000-$10,000), there are two solid value options in James Shields ($8,600) and Julio Teheran ($7,200). If you’ve read my posts regularly, you know that those two names pop up a lot when I’m writing the DFS post here. The projection systems like them, so I like them. There are times when their price is too high or where the matchup and/or ball park are unfavorable enough that my model doesn’t like them, but that’s definitely not the case tonight. They’re facing Philadelphia and Miami, respectively, and those two teams rank next to last and last in wRC+ against right-handed pitching. The games are also in each starter’s pitcher-friendly home park, so the factors are all in their favor tonight. Shields is priced roughly like he usually is, but Teheran’s price tag is a bit lower than it has been for a good chunk of the season. There’s value to be had.

If you’re looking for a bargain play, consider the guy facing Shields, Aaron Nola ($6,000). The rookie has been very solid in his first three big league starts with a 3.38 ERA backed up by a 3.18 xFIP. He has struck out 15 and walked just three, and he’s averaging a little more than six innings per start. As mentioned, this game is in Petco, so Nola is getting a nice positive park shift. Throw in the fact that the Padres are safely below average against right-handed pitching, and you’ve got some solid value potential at Nola’s price point.

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 is the Yankees at home facing R.A. Dickey. As of this writing they had by far the highest of today’s implied run totals, though two or three teams I have my eye on didn’t have an implied run total posted late last night. The reasoning for liking Yanks is fairly easy. They have one of the league’s best offenses, and Dickey allows home runs at rate that is higher than average. Dickey doesn’t have much of a split for his career, so the fact that the Yankees are lefty-heavy is less of a factor today. But the matchup is still good enough that it’s hard to argue against stacking them.

If you don’t want to go Yankees-heavy with a stack but want some exposure to them, I like Jacoby Ellsbury of their big bats the most, and Brian McCann has a nice price tag if he gets back in the lineup tonight. As for punts, Stephen Drew is a good salary relief option, and Garrett Jones is extremely cheap and definitely someone to consider if he makes it into the lineup.

The other teams I have my eye on are the Tigers, Cardinals and Indians. Those are the three other teams who have five or more players that rank in the top 50 of my hitter projections today. Of those three, Vegas likes the Tigers the most against Joe Kelly. Kelly owns a 6.11 ERA on the season, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little wary of him.

In 65 career starts, Kelly has an ERA and xFIP right around 4.00, and his ground ball rate is over 50 percent. He has had trouble keeping the few fly balls he allows in the yard since leaving St. Louis, but his HR/9 in Boston this year isn’t completely unseemly at 1.12. He’s unsurprisingly tougher on right-handed hitters, and he allows them to elevate less, so I’m not all that into J.D. Martinez and Ian Kinsler tonight. But I can get down with guys like Victor Martinez (who remains under-priced) and whoever leads off, which is likely Anthony Gose but could be Rajai Davis.

As for the Indians, they’re in a similar boat facing Mike Pelfrey. Pelfrey is a heavy-ground ball pitcher, and that can really kill a stack if a few ground balls don’t find holes. Pelfrey is also better against right-handers and keeps the ball on the ground against them a lot. The good news is that the Indians are very lefty-heavy lineup. Lonnie Chisenhall is a great value play, and Michael Bourn can provide some value as well. And paying up for Michael Brantley makes plenty of sense today.

And finally the Cardinals. Vegas likes them a little less that Detroit and Cleveland but likes them nonetheless. They’ll be facing off against Tyler Cravy making his fourth career appearance (third start). We obviously don’t have much of a book on Cravy, but we do know that he had an average ground ball rate in the minors. That makes the Cardinals interesting to me on the road in hitter-friendly Milwaukee. In particular, Jason Heyward and Brandon Moss have solid projections and nice price tags, and Kolten Wong is appropriately priced. Matt Carpenter is a little pricey, but I wound’t object to throwing him in for a little four-man stack.

Editor’s note: The projections below have an error with respect to Cincinnati hitters. The calculations were done expecting someone other than Chase Anderson to start, but Anderson is expected to get the nod tonight. Anderson has a pretty extreme reverse split thanks to an excellent changeup, so ignore the Cincinnati left-handers that rank fairly high in the projections. Todd Frazier is in play if you’d like to pay up for him.

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. Brian McCann – $3,800 – New York Yankees
2. Alex Avila – $2,400 – Detroit Tigers
3. Jarrod Saltalamacchia – $2,400 – Arizona Diamondbacks

First Base

1. Victor Martinez – $3,500 – Detroit Tigers
2. Lucas Duda – $4,400 – New York Mets
3. Adam Lind – $3,700 – Milwaukee Brewers

Second Base

1. Kolten Wong – $4,100 – St. Louis Cardinals
2. Jose Ramirez – $2,800 – Cleveland Indians (SS eligibility)
3. Ian Kinsler – $4,300 – Detroit Tigers

Third Base

1. Lonnie Chisenhall – $2,800 – Cleveland Indians
2. Carlos Santana – $4,000 – Cleveland Indians (1B eligibility)
3. Todd Frazier – $4,900 – Cincinnati Reds

Shortstop

1. Stephen Drew – $2,800 – New York Yankees
2. Hanley Ramirez – $4,100 – Boston Red Sox
3. Eugenio Suarez – $3,500 – Cincinnati Reds

Outfield

1. Jason Heyward – $4,300 – St. Louis Cardinals
2. Michael Brantley – $4,700 – Cleveland Indians
3. Brandon Moss – $3,400 – St. Louis Cardinals
4. Jacoby Ellsbury – $4,100 – New York Yankees
5. Garrett Jones – $2,300 – New York Yankees
6. Anthony Gose – $3,000 – Detroit Tigers
7. Michael Bourn – $3,000 – Cleveland Indians

Starting Pitcher

1. Clayton Kershaw – $15,000 – Los Angeles Dodgers
2. James Shields – $8,600 – San Diego Padres
3. Jacob deGrom – $12,100 – New York Mets
4. Julio Teheran – $7,200 – Atlanta Braves
5. Aaron Nola – $6,000 – Philadelphia Phillies

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.

As it turns out, there are definitely enough cheap bats to be able to fit Kershaw into a lineup (though Jones cracking the lineup may not be overly likely), and you don’t even have to throw in a cheap option like Nola to do it. Keep in mind, this lineup represents the most possible projected points you can fit in under the cap using my projections. I’ve done no manipulation here. The fact that this lineup also includes a little natural stacking makes me like it quite a bit. Alright, now let’s look at one where we pay up for some pricier bats.

You can see the difference in the projected total for those two lineups, so I’m pretty lukewarm on this lineup. The lineup you roster doesn’t have to be exactly like the first one posted, but some version of that lineup with Kershaw locked into it is my preferred play of the day.