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, and we have rankings of the top plays at each position.

Forecast

As of this writing, the only game with rain in the forecast during game time is Washington at Cincinnati. The forecast indicates a delayed start might be possible, but they should be good to play the game uninterrupted once the game starts. 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

As mentioned at the top of the post, the projections contained herein are based off the ZiPS rest-of-season projections. Each week I update those and break them down to a per-game basis as a starting point for each day’s projections. I then adjust each player’s projection based on matchup and ball park for the day.

I tell you that to explain Stephen Strasburg‘s ($8,900) position atop the pitcher projections for the day. ZiPS continues to believe in Strasburg, but I’m personally not as on board. Jeff Zimmerman, injury expert at Fangraphs, has theorized that Strasburg may be hurt, and I simply can’t stomach the risk of starting Strasburg right now.

Past Strasburg, Matt Harvey ($10,600), Cole Hamels ($10,200) and James Shields ($9,800) round of the top flight of pitchers today. Given that Harvey is getting solid positive adjustments to his projection from both opponent (Miami) and ball park, he’s the top play of the day. His price tag for his last start was $900 higher than it is today, so it’s much more possible to fit him in today. If you need a few extra sheckles to roster the hitters you want, I have no issue with you using Shields over Harvey as your SP1 given that their projections are relatively similar.

If you need to save a few more scheckles, you could go with Francisco Liriano ($9,200) as your SP1. I prefer one of the top tier guys mentioned above be on my rosters today, but Liriano’s 29 percent strikeout rate this year is certainly alluring. His run prevention skills haven’t quite matched his strikeout skills this year, but he’s getting a positive park shift today in San Diego that could help with run prevention.

A more reasonably priced option in that price range is Anibal Sanchez ($8,400). Sanchez’s 6.00-plus ERA is going to scare some people off, but his skills are there as his strikeout and walk rates are both better than league average. The problem is that he’s been letting balls fly out of the park at an extremely high rate, which has led to the second worst strand rate in the league. Today he’ll pitch in Los Angeles against the Angels in a park that had the fourth lowest home run par factor last year, so the positive park shift should help today.

As for value options, the lowest I’ll probably be willing to go is with Nate Karns ($5,900) or Carlos Rodon ($5,200). The two youngsters have been similar this year in that they have struck batters out at an above average rate, but they both have issues with walks. Rodon in particular has struggled in that area as evidenced by his 18.1 percent walk rate. For that reason, I’ll probably go with Karns as my cheap option because I think he has less downside. But against the free-swinging Astros, there’s no doubt Rodon has upside that could play in GPPs. My model also likes the value of Chad Bettis ($4,400) if you really need to go cheap 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 and Dong Candidates

In addition to using the ZiPS projections to calculate a base daily projection for each player, I also use them to calculate how many DK fantasy points pitchers allow to batters per at-bat. By that method, the most hitter-friendly pitchers in action today are Lance McCullers facing the Chicago White Sox and Steven Wright facing the Texas Rangers.

With the White Sox, I’m a bit hesitant to stack them for two reasons. First, McCullers has been pretty damn decent in his first two major league starts. Because he has such limited big league work on record, I’m still using preseason projections for McCullers. It’s quite possible he’s far better than the preseason projections gave him credit for. Second, two of the players I really like for Chicago are only eligible at first base, Jose Abreu and Adam Laroche. For that reason, I would not be able to stack more than four White Sox in the same lineup. Generally teams mentioned in this section of the post are meant to be teams you can stack heavily with five or six hitters from a team in your lineup.

As for the Rangers, they’ll face the knuckleballer, Wright. The Rangers faced R.A. Dickey twice last year, and did a decent, if not spectacular, job of hitting him. In the two games combined, the Rangers scored nine runs in the 13 1/3 innings that Dickey pitched and hit three home runs. I’d focus on Texas’ 1-5 in the order, though I’d prefer if Leonys Martin got the start in center and in the lead off spot over Delino DeShields Jr. today. Elvis Andrus is also an option down the order a bit.

Sticking with the Texas teams, the Houston Astros also make some sense as a stack today. And I promise I’m not being biased; Vegas agrees with me. The Astros order changes a fair amount, so it’s possible the guys I like there are too disjointed to stack together. But the Astros I like are George Springer, Jose Altuve, Chris Carter, Evan Gattis and Jake Marisnick. I think those guys could go 1-2-4-5-9 in the order, which would make for an acceptable stack.

And it seems the Toronto Blue Jays should always be mentioned as a stack given that they lead the league in runs scored by a wide margin. They’ve got a matchup against Trevor May that isn’t too far off being as hitter-friendly as Texas’ matchup with Wright, so the usual suspects in Toronto are in play today.

As for dong candidates, I’ve been toying around with a little formula to try and identify the player’s with the best chance of going yard each day. It’s basically a mix of hitter and pitcher ISO splits with park factors mixed in. Today’s most likely dong candidates are Abreu, Bryce Harper, Edwin Encarnacion, and Carter. Some potentially under-the-radar dong candidates are Adam Laroche and Kevin Kiermaier.

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. Russell Martin – $3,800 – Toronto Blue Jays
2. Wilson Ramos – $3,600 – Washington Nationals
3. Evan Gattis – $4,400 – Houston Astros

First Base

1. Jose Abreu – $5,200 – Chicago White Sox
2. Adam Laroche – $3,700 – Chicago White Sox
3. Edwin Encarnacion – $4,700 – Toronto Blue Jays

Second Base

1. Jose Altuve – $4,400 – Houston Astros
2. Ian Kinsler – $4,000 – Detroit Tigers
3. Luis Sardinas – $2,700 – Milwaukee Brewers

Third Base

1. Chris Davis – $4,400 – Baltimore Orioles
2. Miguel Cabrera – $4,900 – Detroit Tigers
3. Maikel Franco – $3,700 – Philadelphia Phillies

Shortstop

1. Jose Reyes – $4,200 – Toronto Blue Jays
2. Marcus Semien – $3,800 – Oakland Athletics
3. Troy Tulowitzki – $4,000 – Colorado Rockies

Outfield

1. Mike Trout – $4,800 – Los Angeles Angels
2. George Springer – $4,900 – Houston Astros
3. Adam Eaton – $3,800 – Chicago White Sox
4. Melky Cabrera – $3,800 – Chicago White Sox
5. Bryce Harper – $5,200 – Washington Nationals
6. Shin-soo Choo – $4,700 – Texas Rangers

Starting Pitcher

1. Matt Harvey – $10,600 – New York Mets
2. James Shields – $9,800 – San Diego Padres
3. Anibal Sanchez – $8,400 – Detroit Tigers
4. Francisco Liriano – $9,200 – Pittsburgh Pirates
5. Nate Karns – $5,900 – Tampa Bay Rays
6. Carlos Rodon – $5,200 – Chicago White Sox
7. Chad Bettis – $4,400 – Philadelphia Phillies

*Rankings are price sensitive