Good morning folks! Welcome to another edition of Daily Fantasy Baseball Strategy. After a few days full of small, dull slates we get a nearly full 14 game slate on DraftKings! Below I’ll have a discussion on the pitching situation, which teams are best to stack from and a set of individual player rankings.

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Forecast

As of right now, it appears like there might be thunderstorms threatening a few games today. The games in St. Louis and Detroit appear to be the ones in the most jeopardy, but make sure to monitor the forecasts through the day.

Pitching Perspective

In the last few slates, there hasn’t been a single pitcher to write home about. Today, I get to write about four dynamite starting pitching options.

I’ll start at the top with Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw has widely been accepted as one of the best pitchers in baseball and gets a juicy matchup with the San Diego Padres in Petco Park. The Padres, despite their offseason additions, are in the bottom-five in the league in terms of team wOBA. Couple that with Kershaw’s outstanding strikeout potential, an excellent groundball rate, and a 2.18 xFIP and you’ve got a great cash game play. The only problem with Kershaw is his price, which is inflated to $12,800. At the price, he’s going to be tough to fit into your lineups, but if you can do so, certainly don’t hesitate.

Next in line is Felix Hernandez. King Felix has a matchup against a slightly better offense, but one that is very strikeout prone. The Astros are second in the league in strikeout percentage (24.9%) and should have a difficult time with King Felix. He’s still expensive ($11,300), but he’s a tad bit easier to fit in your lineups than Kershaw. With price not a consideration, Kershaw and King Felix are essentially 1a and 1b today. I’d try to fit at least one in your lineups.

A little bit further down the salary ladder are Madison Bumgarner and David Price. Bumgarner and Price are fairly similar and grade out for me as 2a and 2b. Bumgarner will have a nice matchup at home against an Arizona Diamondbacks team that will be experiencing a substantial negative park shift. The Diamondbacks are a better set against southpaws (Pollock and Goldschmidt mash lefties), but outside those two guys, their lineup is filled with holes.

Price has a more difficult matchup in terms of overall lineup strength as he’ll have to square off with the Cleveland Indians. The good thing for Price is that the Indians are essentially all left-handed and will have difficulty getting too many right-handers into their lineup against Price. My guess right now is that Aviles, Raburn, Yan Gomes and Carlos Santana will be the only four right-handers, and none of them frightens me too much. Like Bumgarner and the other two options, Price has great strikeout potential and possesses the ability to work very deep in games.

After the top four options, the slate really drops off in terms of pitching. The last few cheaper guys I’d think about filling in lineups with would be Michael Pineda and Alex Wood. If you have to use one of these guys in cash games, I’d probably lean towards Wood, but I see tomorrow being a day where you’ll want to try two of the top four options. Danny Salazar is a great tournament option thanks to his strikeout potential, but I don’t think I’ll be rostering him in cash games thanks to Detroit’s potent offense.

Stack Options

With the explosion of aces tomorrow, and a few other “bleh games,” the stacking options are laid out quite simply today.

The two worst pitchers on the slate are Kevin Correia and Tommy Milone, both yielding opposing team totals of close to five runs at opening in Vegas. Correia will be pitching to a Pittsburgh Pirates team that actually has quite a bit of depth from top to bottom. You can find great value in Gregory Polanco and Neil Walker at the top and can put together a solid full stack by rostering the 1-6, ending with Pedro Alvarez. The Pirates don’t play in a great offensive park, but it grades out quite nicely when a dumpster fire as large as Kevin Correia takes the mound.

The Minnesota Twins are actually playing really good baseball. I guess that is why it’s so disappointing to see someone like Tommy Milone starting games for them. Unfortunately for us, the Rangers aren’t really a top dog offense, but they will provide some intriguing options tomorrow. The right-handers will have the cash game appeal, but I’m not even coming off Shin-Soo Choo, Prince Fielder or Joey Gallo in tournaments. All three of the left-handers should possess a lower ownership percentage thanks to the lefty-lefty matchup, but Milone isn’t a buzzsaw. He’s going to give up contact, and a lot of it. Don’t be afraid to get exposure to everyone in this great matchup.

On the other side of this game, the Twins square off with ancient Wandy Rodriguez. Somehow, like Aaron Harang, Wandy has the ability to escape the clutches of full stacks and elude utter domination. At some point though, regression has to come, and Wandy needs to go. The Twins set up better against left-handed pitching, as Brian Dozier and Trevor Plouffe are notorious for their abilities against left-handers, but you can even stretch a little bit further to include Kurt Suzuki and Torii Hunter for full stacks. It’s not my favorite stack of the day, but it’s one that could reap great rewards.

Another underwhelming team will see a below average pitcher tomorrow when the Tampa Bay Rays face John Danks. Danks is DFS gold for hitters, and I try to pick on him as much as possible. The best play from this lineup will be Evan Longoria, who has historically crushed left-handed pitching in his career. However, Logan Forsythe, Joey Butler, Brandon Guyer and Steven Souza will also figure to match-up well with Danks. The Rays don’t have a great park, or a great team, but they are all affordable and should allow you to pay up for some top pitching even with a full stack. This might be one of my favorite tournament options today.

I can’t help but point out a potential slugfest at Fenway Park tomorrow between the Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays. Both teams will be squaring off with some average right-handed pitchers, and the team totals are juiced quite nicely at opening. The problem with stacking these two teams are the prices of the players themselves. The Blue Jays are a really difficult team to full stack, especially when trying to take advantage of the great pitching options tomorrow, however, I’d recommend having exposure to them in tournaments.

The Red Sox have been the disappointment of the DFS season so far, and I’m a little less onboard with using them tomorrow, especially since Drew Hutchison has much better skills than Joe Kelly. Their team total is approaching five runs, so Vegas likes their chances, but they’re not very far up on my list tomorrow.

Player Rankings

Catcher

1. Yasmani Grandal -$3,100 – Los Angeles Dodgers

2. Russell Martin -$4,600 – Toronto Blue Jays

3. Buster Posey -$4,600 – San Francisco Giants

First Basemen

1. Freddie Freeman -$4,200 – Atlanta Braves

2. Edwin Encarnacion -$5,000 – Toronto Blue Jays

3. Prince Fielder -$4,700 – Texas Rangers

4. Pedro Alvarez -$3,700 – Pittsburgh Pirates

Second Basemen

1. Brian Dozier -$5,300 – Minnesota Twins

2. Neil Walker -$3,700 – Pittsburgh Pirates

3. Logan Forsythe -$3,200 – Tampa Bay Rays

Third Basemen

1. Evan Longoria -$3,800 – Tampa Bay Rays

2. Trevor Plouffe -$4,200 – Minnesota Twins

3. Josh Harrison -$4,200 – Pittsburgh Pirates

Shortstops

1. Troy Tulowitzki -$5,300 – Colorado Rockies

2. Jose Reyes -$5,200 – Toronto Blue Jays

3. Jung-ho Kang -$3,700 -Pittsburgh Pirates

Outfield

1. Gregory Polanco -$3,800 – Pittsburgh Pirates

2. Nelson Cruz -$4,700 -Seattle Mariners

3. Andrew McCutchen -$5,200 – Pittsburgh Pirates

4. Delino Deshields -$3,800 – Texas Rangers

5. Joey Butler -$3,800 – Tampa Bay Rays

Starting Pitchers

1. Clayton Kershaw -$12,800 – Los Angeles Dodgers

2. Felix Hernandez– $11,300 – Seattle Mariners

3. Madison Bumgarner -$10,200 – San Francisco Giants

4. David Price -$10,700 – Detroit Tigers

5. Michael Pineda -$8,900 – New York Yankees