Below we’ve got a discussion of the starting pitching situation as well as the best teams to use for stacks for Monday’s 11 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.

Pitching Perspective

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.

 

Despite it being an abbreviated slate, we have plenty of worth starting pitching options today. The top tier of aces, Felix Hernandez, Clayton Kershaw, and Madison Bumgarner are all in play. Rarely will we see a day when Kershaw isn’t the highest priced player, but today is one of those occasions. Not only does Kershaw cost you $200 less than King Felix today, but he also has the best matchup of the group, as he takes on the Brewers in Milwaukee. Madison Bumgarner has the best park factor bump, pitching at home in San Francisco, but San Diego’s .340 wOBA against left-handed pitching is the fourth best mark so far this season so precede with caution.

 

The best option in the second tier appears to be Bumgarner’s counterpart, Tyson Ross. I love taking quality arms in San Francisco (Petco’s biggest rival in terms of pitcher friendly environments), and while the Giants offense doesn’t strike fear in you, they don’t strikeout very often either (just 17.8%). This mitigates the strikeout upside that we typically get from Ross.

If you’re a Cardinals fan, you have to be encouraged with Carlos Martinez‘s start of the 2015 season. Well, I’m going to throw a bit of a wet blanket on top of that excitement right now. He’s been extremely lucky with balls in play, with a BABIP against of just .203, paired with an 100% strand rate. With a BB/9 north of 3.5, this is a dangerous mix. His 4.43 FIP paints a different picture than his 1.73 ERA would indicate.

I’m going to be the barer of bad news again, this time with Braves starter, Alex Wood. When you see Philadelphia as the opponent it’s hard not to add him to your list of options for the day, but I’m not liking what we’ve seen from Wood so far. Where have all the strikeout’s gone? He down more than two and a half punch-outs per nine so far, and his 4.2% SwStk% is the LOWEST in the league for pitchers with more than 20 innings thrown. It’s early, but strikeout rates stabilize fairly quickly so this is a problem for Wood’s fantasy value.

Dallas Keuchel is another starter who’s seeing a bit of a dip in his strikeout totals, but it’s hard not to fall in love with that 65.7% ground-ball rate. He’s an option for me today against the Rangers, though I will say that our projections aren’t crazy about him. Brett also highlight the value that David Phelps offers today, and I agree.

Stack 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.  

The Diamondbacks and Rockies are going to be popular, albeit expensive, stack options today. They face off in Colorado against slightly below average starters. In this game I’d lean towards the Diamondbacks right-handed bats against Tyler Matzek. Wait as long as you can to see how they construct their lineup today, but my initial guess is A.J. Pollock, Aaron Hill and Paul Goldschmidt are all in play. Josh Collmenter takes the ball for the Diamondbacks in the same game, but he’s pitched fairly well this season, sporting a 2.82 FIP entering play today. If you choose to roster the Rockies’ bats, going with the lefties at the top of their order. The other most popular stack today will be the Astros. They’re on fire right now, and face one of the league’s worst starters, left-hander Ross Detwiler. Jose Altuve and Evan Gattis are both swinging a hot stick right now, plus Jake Marisnick and George Springer make a lot of sense here too. If you’re looking for a couple of stack options with lower ownership totals, look at the A’s and the Dodgers. Both clubs can go left-handed heavy at the top of their order, and those are the plays I’ll be looking at. For the A’s, I like Stephen Vogt, Ike Davis and Josh Reddick as the core to a stack, or any of them individually. For the Dodgers you can start their 1-2-3 of Joc Pederson, Jimmy Rollins, and Adrian Gonzalez who’ll take on Matt Garza in Milwaukee.    

       

 

Player Rankings

Catcher 1. Stephen Vogt– Oakland Athletics ($3,400)

2. Evan Gattis– Houston Astros ($4,800)

3. Yasmani Grandal– Los Angeles Dodgers ($3,300)

4. Jordan Pacheco/Tuffy Gosewisch– Arizona Diamondbacks

First Base

1. Paul Goldschmidt– Arizona Diamondbacks (A BAZILLION DOLLARS!) ($5,700)

2. Adrian Gonzalez– Los Angeles Dodgers ($4,200)

3. Ike Davis– Oakland Athletics ($3,500)

4. Mark Trumbo– Arizona Diamondbacks ($4,800)

5. Justin Morneau– Colorado Rockies ($4,100)

6. Freddie Freeman– Atlanta Braves ($4,200)

Second Base

1. Jose Altuve– Houston Astros ($5,400)

2. Aaron Hill– Arizona Diamondbacks ($4,200)

3. Alberto Callaspo– Atlanta Braves ($2,700)

4. Alex Guerrero– Los Angeles Dodgers ($3,000)

Third Base (a few options here have 2nd Base elig. as well)

1. Marcus Semien– Oakland Athletics ($3,900)

2. Nolan Arenado– Colorado Rockies ($4,800)

3. Kris Bryant– Chicago Cubs ($4,200)

Shortstop (look at 2nd and 3rd Base options as well)

1. Jimmy Rollins -Los Angeles Dodgers ($3,500)

2. Nick Ahmed– Arizona Diamondbacks ($3,000)

3. Hanley Ramirez– Boston Red Sox ($5,200)

Outfield

1. A.J. Pollock– Arizona Diamondbacks ($4,400)

2. Joc Pederson– Los Angeles Dodgers ($4,300)

3. Jake Marisnick– Houston Astros ($4,400)

4. Billy Burns– Oakland Athletics ($2,600)

5. George Springer– Houston Astros ($5,200)

6. Josh Reddick– Oakland Athletics ($4,700) 

7. Corey Dickerson– Colorado Rockies ($5,000)

8. Andre Ethier– Los Angeles Dodgers ($3,300)

9. Robbie Grossman- Houston Astros ($2,800)

10. Kevin K

Starting Pitcher

1. Clayton Kershaw– Los Angeles Dodgers ($12,000) 2. Felix Hernandez– Seattle Mariners ($12,400) 3. Tyson Ross– San Diego Padres ($9,100) 4. Madison Bumgarner– San Francisco Giants ($10,400) 5. Dallas Keuchel– Houston Astros ($8,000) 6. David Phelps– Miami Marlins ($4,900) *Rankings are price sensitive