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

Forecast

Outside of the potential for rain in Atlanta, there doesn’t appear to be any rain in the forecast that could cause delays or postponements. Using pitchers in the Philly-Atlanta game is the only semi-risky weather-related move of the day. As for heat and wind, conditions appear to be favorable for hitters in Texas and Kansas City.

Given how often forecasts change between the time this post is written late the night before and when games actually start, make sure to follow @KevinRothWx for updates.

Pitching Perspective

Among today’s expensive options ($9,000+), I prefer Lance Lynn. He has the highest projection of the day according to my model, narrowly edging out Cole Hamels. Given that Lynn is $500 cheaper than Hamels, he obviously also has a better value grade. Lynn owns a 2.20 ERA at home this year and is facing a Padres team with the fifth highest strikeout rate against right-handed pitching.

As for Hamels, I mentioned the possibility of rain in Atlanta, so that’s part of why I’m fading him as well as why I’m off Shelby Miller. However, neither have a very good value grade according to my model, so the concerns about delays in that game make it even easier to pass on them today.

Gerrit Cole and Jordan Zimmermann are also part of today’s group of expensive pitchers, but neither have appealing value grades. That’s especially true for Zimmermann who I’m not considering at all. Cole has been fantastic this season, so I can’t argue too much with rostering him, but my model does not think he’s worth the five-figure price tag.

That leaves Danny Salazar among the expensive options. As I often mention with regard to Cleveland starters, Salazar has excellent stuff but allows hard contact when batters do manage to put the bat on the ball. His K-BB% is the best among all of today’s probable starters. But his career hard hit allowed rate of 30 percent is definitely worse than average. There’s also the issue of him pitching very deep into his last outing, coming one out shy of recording a no-hitter. I’m hesitant to let that affect my analysis of him today, but it does make me feel a bit wary. But as always, he’s more of a GPP option than for cash games.

If you’re looking for a mid-price option ($7,000-$8,900), Mat Latos has the best value grade of the day. He’s facing the Cubs who continue to have the second highest strikeout rate in the league against right-handed pitching. But I’d understand your hesitation at rostering a guy with a 5.27 ERA. The case for Latos is that his strikeout and walk rates for the season are both a bit above average, and over his last four starts they have been even better. He’s obviously risky, so he’s really more of a GPP option. But the skills are there for him to have some good starts, and this is a good matchup.

Outside of Latos, Mike Bolsinger is a nice value at a slightly cheaper price. Given that he’s pitching at home in a much more pitcher-friendly park than Latos in Wrigley and that he’s pitching against the Mets whose offense is a running joke at the moment, he may be a bit of a safer salary relief option for cash games if you don’t pay up for two pitchers.

If you want to go really cheap on some bargains in GPPs, Carlos Rodon and Chris Bassitt have excellent value grades. I don’t trust Rodon as far as I can throw him, but he does have strikeout ability and thus he has upside. As for Bassitt, he has an excellent matchup against the Mariners, and he did post decent strikeout rates at Double-A and Triple-A.

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

Vegas has Toronto with the highest projected team total of the day, and the Blue Jays are the only team with more than four players in the top 60 of my projections today. I know it’s not tough analysis to recommend stacking the team that leads the leagues in runs scored, but it just makes the most sense today. No Jay is priced over $4,700, and Devon Travis continues to be priced under $4,000, so you should be able to afford some version of that stack today. The normal 9-1-2-3-4 in that order are all in play today.

Earlier I mentioned that heat and wind may be favoring hitters in Texas and Kansas City today, and those two games will also feature the two pitchers going today who allow hitters to elevate most often. That’s Colby Lewis and Danny Duffy who have ground ball rates of  34.2 percent and 35. 8 percent, respectively (2014-15).

Lewis is particularly friendly to left-handed hitters, so guys like Kole Calhoun and Erick Aybar make plenty of sense today. They’re usually sandwiched around Mike Trout and Albert Pujols, and Lewis certainly isn’t unfriendly to right-handed hitters, so that stack of four Angels is a good option. As for Duffy, he’ll be facing the Twins. The problem with stacking Twins is that Duffy handles left-handers very well, so it’s hard to run too deep with a Twins stack. But guys like Brian Dozier and Trevor Plouffe are options.

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. Matt Wieters – $3,800 – Baltimore Orioles
2. Russell Martin – $4,200 – Toronto Blue Jays
3. Caleb Joseph – $3,100 – Baltimore Orioles

First Base

1. Paul Goldschmidt – $5,600 – Arizona Diamondbacks
2. Joey Votto – $4,500 – Cincinnati Reds
3. Adam Laroche – $3,500 – Chicago White Sox
4. Lucas Duda – $3,300 – New York Mets

Second Base

1. Brian Dozier – $4,500 – Minnesota Twins
2. Devon Travis – $3,600 – Toronto Blue Jays
3. Jason Kipnis – $4,700 – Cleveland Indians

Third Base

1. Manny Machado – $4,700 – Baltimore Orioles
2. Adrian Beltre – $3,800 – Texas Rangers
3. Kyle Seager – $3,400 – Seattle Mariners

Shortstop

1. Jose Reyes – $4,200 – Toronto Blue Jays
2. Elvis Andrus – $3,500 – Texas Rangers
3. Carlos Correa – $5,100 – Houston Astros

Outfield

1. Mike Trout – $5,300 – Los Angeles Angels
2. Carlos Gonzalez– $4,100 – Colorado Rockies
3. Jose Bautista -$4,600 – Toronto Blue Jays
4. Kole Calhoun – $4,100 – Los Angeles Angels
5. A.J. Pollock – $4,200 – Arizona Diamondbacks
6. Adam Eaton – $3,700 – Chicago White Sox

Starting Pitcher

1. Lance Lynn – $10,100 – St. Louis Cardinals
2. Mat Latos – $7,000 – Miami Marlins
3. Danny Salazar – $9,000 – Cleveland Indians
4. Mike Bolsinger – $6,800 – Los Angeles Dodgers
5. Cole Hamels – $10,600 – Philadelphia Phillies

*Rankings are price sensitive