Josh Barzal 
Hello everyone, welcome back to another edition of Stealing home. I am once again filling in for Brian today and I am excited to deliver my thoughts on our 6 game early and main slates. I am going to give two pitchers and stacks I am keying in on for both slates. Let’s dig into today and get my best picks to you.
Early Only Breakdown:
Diving into the pitchers on the slate right away, Marcus Stroman is the first to catch my eye today. He is at a lowly $8100 and I am looking to take advantage of that to fit in my stacks as a mid-tier pitching option. We do not have the most upside here with Pittsburgh’s lineup with them sitting at around a 23% K rate overall but I am more so looking for a safe 20 points from Stroman. The second pitcher I am targeting is going to be James Kaprielian. He gets to match up with a lowly Rangers lineup at Globe life park today, which is also a pitchers park.
Kaprielian has also been very consistent as of late, even coming off a 10k performance against the Redsox only letting up one Earned run. The Rangers are another team with middling K rates throughout the lineup sitting around 24.2% as a team. Looking at the pitchers overall I believe the cheapest we can go is going to be Stroman, there is just no need to take any risk with the guys below him. Now let’s take a dive into the stacks.
Of all the stacks on this slate, there is one that is not only going to catch my eye but also the eye of one 2Locksports. Happy Lester day everyone, he gets to match up with the Giants who are employing one of the hardest-hitting righty lineups I have seen with six batters over the .200 ISO mark today. Combine this with a pitcher who has a 13% K rate against righty batters, an average hard-hit rate of 40%, and allowing a .230 ISO to right-handed batters. We have an obvious top stack today on the early slate in the Giants.
Your main target today is going to have to be Darin Ruf, followed by Slater and Wilmer Flores. All three batters have ISO’s against lefties over .220 and make for great options on today’s slate.
My second favorite stack for today is going to be a game, not just one side. We have the Phillies vs Redsox which is currently listed as having an over-under set at 11. The Phillies have a matchup here with Martain Perez while the Redsox. Looking for pieces to help finish up our Giants stack we have some value coming through in Hunter Renfroe and Andrew McCutchen. Both of them are cheap and make for great value options today in their respective matchups.
Main Slate Breakdown:
For pitching, first things first. Do not play Gerrit Cole. He does not have his spider tack and since MLB has cracked down on foreign substances he has dropped off big time. Instead, though, there are some great pitching options on the main slate highlighted mainly by Walker Buehler and German Marquez.
We get an ace pitcher in a plus matchup in Walker Buehler, he is on the more pricey end but he pays it off with a 27% K rate. Buehler is the top overall pitcher on the slate and I cannot see myself taking anyone else as my SP1 here today.
Diving into our SP2 we have one of the hottest arms in baseball in German Marquez, coming off three straight performances over 27 DK points I am looking for him to continue here today. Outside of Coors, I believe Marquez can be considered one of the premier pitchers in baseball, and his stats back that up outside Coors. At only $7,400 he allows us to reach our stacks on the day and regardless of matchup I am looking to lock in Marquez on the day.
My top stack on the day is going to have to be the Dodgers. They get to go up against Caleb Smith of the Diamondbacks. A pitcher who not only walks 12.3% of batter but also gets mashed by both sides of the plate. Smith allows for a 52% fly-ball rate to righties making the Dodgers my top stack on the slate with batters such as Justin Turner, Chris Taylor, and Will Smith. This lineup has the ability to mash against lefties and I am all for sending out as many as possible in my lineups.
Earlier I touched on not playing Gerrit Cole today, and why not back that up with telling you to play some Astros lefties? Cole has been a completely different pitcher without the sticky stuff going down to a 5.24 ERA since the ban on the sticky stuff. For some value, I am targeting Kyle Tucker and Michael Brantley for our small stacks. Cole is going to be touched up today and I want a part of it to get some of these Astros bats at lower ownership.
Summary
On the early slate, I am targeting Stroman and Kaprielian along with Giants stacks for Lester day and a game stack of the Redsox and Phillies. While for our main slate we have Buehler and Marquez to play with our Dodgers/Astros stacks. Good Luck today everyone, to get started here at WinDaily click here, and to join our discord click here.
