Below we’ve got a discussion of the starting pitching situation as well as the best teams to use for stacks for Tuesday’s 10-game evening 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

After rain was a potential problem in may games yesterday, there’s just one game in tonight’s evening slate with a real rain concern. That’s Dodgers at Rangers, and as a guy who lives in Dallas, I can tell you the forecast around here isn’t good. There’s a chance things clear up by game time, but I’m dubious about that game getting played. I suppose Blue Jays at Mets could see some rain as well, but the early forecast just looks like there could be a delayed start if anything.

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

Let’s start with the two most expensive starting pitching options tonight, Matt Harvey ($10,800) and Garrett Richards ($9,400). Harvey has been great this year (no matter what his 3.62 ERA tells you), and Richards has been….not great. With enough alternatives today, the “not great” Richards is pretty much off my radar. But I’d understand if you wanted to roll with Harvey in a GPP. He has a bad matchup against the Blue Jays, but he always has a ton of upside no matter his matchup. Plus, the tough matchup may keep his ownership percentage reasonable. I don’t think his price is right for cash game use, but go ahead in a GPP if you like.

The top projected pitcher today according to my model is only the sixth most expensive pitcher. That would be Trevor Bauer ($7,100) against the Cubs. I’m sure you’re aware of this, but the Cubs strike out a lot. They’re in a virtual tie with the Astros for the highest strikeout rate in the league against right-handed pitchers, and all told they’ve been eight percent worse than league average against RHP. With Bauer striking out 24.3 percent of batters he has faced this year, there’s quite a bit of upside here. But perhaps the best thing about Bauer today is his price. To roster Bauer yesterday you had to pay $700 more than he costs today. That’s peculiar given his opponent is exactly the same today. But hey, thanks for the extra value, DK.

Another excellent value option today is Tanner Roark ($5,900). It seems like I happen to be doing the DFS write up here every time Roark pitches, and he always makes the write up because he’s so damn cheap. Roark’s biggest issue this year has been strikeouts as his K% is just 11.7 percent. But the ZiPS projections, which is what I use to generate my projections, only have his K/9 from here on out being 5.80, so my model doesn’t expect a huge bounce back in that regard. The reason he keeps grading out as a good play is simply above average run prevention skills and a cost that continues to be below average. He is also getting bumps to his projection today for opponent and ballpark (Tampa Bay). He’s not flashy, but he has value potential at that price point. He’s a good cash game play.

Given that Bauer and Roark have such good value grades today, it’s probably not necessary to give you a bargain option. But I will say that Jerome Williams ($4,000) at the absolute minimum price is too cheap. He’s in a dangerous ball park in Camden Yards, but the O’s are actually a decent matchup for RHP. Again, I don’t think the risk is necessary given the other value options today, but he could make sense with Harvey or something in a GPP.

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

Using the trusty old Vegas lines, the obvious stacks for tomorrow are the Tigers and the Orioles. Of the two, I prefer the Tigers. They’re facing Michael Lorenzen who simply isn’t good. He rode a fortunate BABIP and strand rate to some success in his first five starts of the year, but he has allowed eight earned runs in 10 1/3 innings over his last two starts. His strikeout rate so far is a paltry 15.9 percent. Worse, his walk rate is almost equal to strikeout rate (13.7 percent). As for the Tigers to use, the top six in their order from Sunday are all in play.

Moving on to the O’s, the fact that I think Jerome Williams shouldn’t be the minimum price doesn’t mean I don’t think that the O’s can light him up. Adam Jones, Chris Davis and Manny Machado all have excellent projections today, and Jimmy Paredes and Matt Wieters are also options for an O’s stack. That quintet hit 1-5 in the order last night.

Another stack I may not be able to avoid is the Brewers against Chris Young in Milwaukee. Young is an extreme fly ball pitcher, which is a good way to post a low BABIP given that fly balls go for hits less often than any other batted ball type. However, his current BABIP is .196. Given that the league’s batting average on fly balls last year was .206, Young shouldn’t be expected to allow a .196 BABIP if his fly ball rate was 100 percent. Regression is definitely coming.

Young has also been lucky keeping balls in the park this year. He plays in a good home park for a fly ball pitcher but has spent most of his career in pitcher-friendly parks like San Diego, New York (Mets) and Seattle. Even with ball park working in his favor all those years, his career HR/9 is 1.13, which means 0.69 HR/9 this year has to go up at some point. Given that he’s not in his pitcher-friendly home park tonight but rather Milwaukee, which was tied for the third highest home run park factor last year, this could be the night that his regression begins.

I’d understand if you didn’t want to gamble on that happening against the Brewers who have the second lowest wRC+ against right-handers, but it should make their ownership percentages quite low. Ryan Braun and Adam Lind are the guys most likely to do damage, and the same goes for Carlos Gomez if he plays (but I doubt he does). As for value options, Shane Peterson, Gerardo Parra and Scooter Gennett could all provide some value. All five Brewers mentioned would make the most sense for a stack.

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 – $4,200 – Baltimore Orioles
2. Francisco Cervelli – $3,100 – Pittsburgh Pirates
3. Miguel Montero – $3,500 – Chicago Cubs

First Base

1. Chris Davis – $4,500 – Baltimore Orioles
2. Miguel Cabrera – $5,700 – Baltimore Orioles
3. Shane Peterson – $2,700 – Milwaukee Brewers

Second Base

1. Dee Gordon – $4,600 – Miami Marlins
2. Jimmy Paredes – $4,000 – Baltimore Orioles
3. Scooter Gennett – $3,400 – Milwaukee Brewers

Third Base

1. Manny Machado – $4,800 – Baltimore Orioles
2. Alex Rodriguez – $4,500 – New York Yankees
3. Jung-Ho Kang – $3,400 – Pittsburgh Pirates

Shortstop

1. Ian Desmond – $3,700 – Washington Nationals
2. J.J. Hardy – $3,300 – Baltimore Orioles
3. Jose Reyes – $4,300 – Toronto Blue Jays

Outfield

1. Mike Trout – $5,600 – Los Angeles Angels
2. Adam Jones – $4,900 – Baltimore Orioles
3. Christian Yelich – $4,100 – Miami Marlins
4. Andrew McCutchen – $4,800 – Pittsburgh Pirates
5. Yoenis Cespedes – $4,700 – Detroit Tigers
6. Tyler Collins – $3,100 – Detroit Tigers

Starting Pitcher

1. Trevor Bauer – $7,100 – Cleveland Indians
2. Tanner Roark – $5,900 – Washington Nationals
3. Matt Harvey – $10,800 – New York Mets
4. Garrett Richards – $9,400 – Los Angeles Angels
5. Jerome Williams – $4,000 – Philadelphia Phillies

*Rankings are price sensitive