Below we’ve got a discussion of the starting pitching situation as well as the best teams to use for stacks for Tuesday’s 15-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.

Four pitchers are priced at or above $9,000 today, but our model only has one of them being worth their price tag, Stephen Strasburg ($10,200). Strasburg’s misfortune so far is well recognized, and his BABIP of .402 that is 99 points above his career BABIP must surely come down. And his 64.4. percent strand rate is impossibly low. To be fair, the things Strasburg can control haven’t been as good this year either. In particular, his strikeout rate and swinging strike rate are down significantly from where they’ve sat in the past. His velocity continues to slowly erode as velocity tends to do, but it hasn’t dipped so much that we should expect his swinging strike rate to crater like it has. The better luck is coming, and a few more strikeouts should be as well. He’s got a good matchup with Miami at home, and he’s who you want to spend money on if you’re spending big on a pitcher.

However, spending big on a pitcher may not be necessary as there are several decent mid-price options. Of the guys priced under $9,000, Danny Salazar ($8,600) has the best projection. In his first three starts of the season, Salazar has been as good as so many hoped he would be in the preseason. His strikeout rate is a lofty 35 percent, and his walk rate is above average at 6.3 percent. Admittedly his matchup against Kansas City isn’t great. I’m not so worried about their good production against right-handed pitching to date, but they have the second lowest strikeout percentage against right-handers and were best in the league in that regard last year. That somewhat limits Salazar’s upside, and I’m fine avoiding him in tournaments for that reason. But he’s a good bet in cash games.

Our model also likes Shelby Miller ($8,200) and Drew Smyly ($7,800) in the mid-price range. The model likes Miller more than Smyly, but I’m leaning the other direction. Miller’s strikeout and walk rate are below average, as they were last year, and so far he’s been leaning on some luck on balls in play and with men on base. I recognize that he has a good matchup with Philadelphia and in a favorable environment in his home park, but I don’t trust him. I’d be OK using him in tournaments, but I want better skills in cash games.

Smyly has those skills. In just over 250 career innings as a starter, Smyly has above average strikeout and walk rates. He doesn’t have great contact management skills, but he’s just about average in that respect. That makes him a much safer play than Miller in my book. His matchup against the Red Sox in Boston means his matchup and pitching environment are not as favorable as they are for Miller, but Smyly is the better pitcher. I’ll lean on that in my cash games.

If you want to go cheap with pitching, I like Jesse Chavez ($6,300) for cash games and Marco Estrada ($5,700) for tournaments. I wrote both guys up in my sister post today discussing a few bargain plays, which you can read here.

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.

There’s a game in Coors between the Rockies and Diamondbacks, so  both teams are obviously options for stacks. Of course, that’s assuming they play in Colorado tonight. They were rained out last night, and there’s a 40-50 percent chance of thunderstorms in the area tonight as of this writing. If they do play, Arizona right-handers are the play assuming Tyler Matzek makes the start he was scheduled to make last night. If you happen to look at the hitter sheet embedded above, don’t give too much weight to the projections for players in this game because the sheet is based off the teams facing the starters that were originally scheduled to start tonight, not the pitchers whose starts got pushed back to tonight. And if you’re playing tournaments, it’s not a bad idea to avoid this game altogether and hope the heavily owned players don’t do too much while you’re on lesser owned players.

As for who those lesser owned players should be, the Pirates and Cubs stand out as decent stack options tonight. The Astros do as well, but people were on them heavily last night, and that may be the case again as they face Wandy Rodriguez tonight. If you do want to go with Astros, they have plenty of good right-handed bats that I can’t argue with in that matchup.

The problem with the Pirates is that there are also weather concerns in Pittsburgh. There’s also some potential weather in Washington, but it seems as if any weather there could simply cause a delay and not a postponement. If the weather allows the use of Pirates, their entire top six could be used as a tournament stack. That’s likely Gregory Polanco ($4,000, OF), Josh Harrison ($4,200, 3B/OF), Andrew McCutchen ($4,900, OF), Neil Walker ($3,800, 2B), Starling Marte ($4,900, OF) and Pedro Alvarez ($3,700, 1B/3B). Polanco, Walker and Alvarez have the platoon advantage and price tags suited for cash games.

As for the Cubs, assuming Miguel Montero is out of the lineup against a left-handed starter, I like the four guys who will hit from the right side that I presume will be in the top five of the order. That should be Dexter Fowler ($4,000, OF), Jorge Soler ($4,100, OF), Kris Bryant ($4,300, 3B) and Starlin Castro ($3,800, SS). Joe Maddon throws stackers a little bone by having his pitcher hit eighth in the order, so Addison Russell ($3,600, 2B/SS) can be added to that stack as well out of the nine hole. To make it a maximum six-man stack with likely six consecutive batters in the order, you can also include Anthony Rizzo ($5,200, 1B). I don’t like him against the left-hander, and I especially dislike his salary, but I understand not wanting to leave a hole in the stack. Bryant, Soler, Russell and Castro all make for good cash game plays.

Player Rankings

Catcher

1. Michael McKenry – $3,500 – Colorado Rockies
2. Carlos Santana – $4,300 – Cleveland Indians
3. Salvador Perez – $3,500 – Kansas City Royals
4. Stephen Vogt – $3,900 – Oakland Athletics
5. Josh Phegley – $3,000 – Oakland Athletics

First Base

1. Paul Goldschmidt – $5,700 – Arizona Diamondbacks
2. Freddie Freeman – $4,600 – Atlanta Braves
3. Adam Laroche – $4,200 – Chicago White Sox
4. Lucas Duda – $4,000 – New York Mets

Second Base

1. Jose Altuve – $5,300 – Houston Astros
2. Neil Walker – $3,800 – Pittsburgh Penguins
3. Addison Russell – $3,600 – Chicago Cubs

Third Base

1. Nolan Arenado – $4,800 – Colorado Rockies
2. Kris Bryant – $4,300 – Chicago Cubs
3. Marcus Semien – $4,100 – Oakland Athletics

Shortstop

1. Troy Tulowitzki – $5,100 – Colorado Rockies
2. Starlin Castro – $3,800 – Chicago Cubs
3. Hanley Ramirez – $4,900 – Boston Red Sox

Outfield

1. George Springer – $5,100 – Houston Astros
2. Mike Trout – $5,600 – Los Angeles Angels
3. David Peralta – $3,400 – Arizona Diamondbacks
4. Mookie Betts – $4,200 – Boston Red Sox
5. Curtis Granderson – $3,700 – New York Mets
6. Jacoby Ellsbury – $5,400 – New York Yankees
7. Melky Cabrera – $4,300 – Chicago White Sox
8. Jorge Soler – $4,100 – Chicago Cubs

Starting Pitcher

1. Stephen Strasburg – $10,200 – Washington Nationals
2. Danny Salazar – $8,600 – Cleveland Indians
3. Drew Smyly – $7,800 – Tampa Bay Rays
4. Jesse Chavez – $6,300 – Oakland Athletics
5. Marco Estrada – $5,700 – Milwaukee Brewers

*Rankings are price sensitive