Some of the stars of baseball are back. Shohei Ohtani ($6,500) made his return to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ pitching staff and Giancarlo Stanton ($4,000) made his season debut for the New York Yankees. Baseball has gotten exciting, and it’s going to stay that way as long as both of these stellar players remain healthy.
With a 12-game slate for tonight’s featured DFS contest on DraftKings and a $222,000 prize pool, fantasy baseball players will have no shortage of options. Here are my favorites for all the action.
Set your DraftKings fantasy baseball lineups here: MLB $222K Bat Flip [$50K to 1st]
PITCHER
Stud
Robbie Ray, San Francisco Giants vs. Cleveland Guardians, $10,300 – The Giants are just two and a half games behind the Dodgers for first in the NL West, and Ray — who’s 8-1 with a 2.55 ERA this season — is a major part of that reason. He’s given up two or fewer earned runs in each of his last five starts, averaging 24.6 FPTS per game across that span. His most recent start was his worst of the season from a fantasy perspective, since he only lasted four innings in the high altitude of Colorado, but he’s due for a bounce-back at home against a Cleveland team that’s posted the league’s third-worst OPS to this point in June. Ray’s biggest issue is that he’s prone to the occasional hard hit, and the Guardians record hard hits at the league’s second-lowest rate.
Value
Jack Leiter, Texas Rangers vs. Kansas City Royals, $6,900 – Leiter broke a streak of five straight good starts when he conceded four runs in four innings (1.6 FPTS) in a loss to the Minnesota Twins last Wednesday, but that shouldn’t take away from what has been a solid season for the 25-year-old flamethrower. He’s gotten rather lucky this season — his expected ERA is nearly a full run worse than his actual mark, and he’s allowed a slugging percentage 140 points better than expected against his four-seamer — but that’s what happened when you’re backed up by the league’s best fielding unit. His biggest issue is that he walks a lot of batters, and Kansas City has had by far the league’s lowest walk rate this season. The Royals also have the league’s fifth-lowest OPS.
INFIELDER
Stud
Elly De La Cruz, Cincinnati Reds vs. Minnesota Twins, $6,200 – De La Cruz is one of the most expensive players on the slate, but the 23-year-old is 100 percent worth it. Over his last 10 games, he’s slashing an incredible .361/.452/.778 with four homers, 10 runs scored, and three stolen bases (13.4 FPTS per game), and though his home-road splits are negligible, the fact that he plays in the league’s fourth-most hitter friendly park doesn’t hurt. He’s also been significantly better this season against right-handed pitchers than against southpaws, as he’s had a .983 OPS against righties. David Festa ($7,200), whose average exit velocity sits in just the seventh percentile, stands little chance.
Stud
Jonathan Aranda, Tampa Bay Rays vs. Baltimore Orioles, $4,200 – Since I chose the most expensive pitcher on the slate as well as one of the most expensive infielders, I have to go a little bit cheaper for the second stud option, and I honestly don’t know how Aranda’s DFS salary is this low. He’s slashing .343/.442/.486 over his last 10 games (8.5 FPTS per game), has recorded double-digit fantasy points in three of his past four games, and the Rays as a whole are on fire. Dean Kremer ($6,600), meanwhile, is not, having conceded four or more earned runs in each of his last two starts, and the Orioles’ bullpen behind him is hardly stellar.
Value
Sean Murphy, Atlanta Braves vs. New York Mets, $3,500 – Murphy has had the short end of a time-share with rookie Drake Baldwin ($4,000), who has just one hit in his last 15 at-bats. Though the two have generally been alternating starts, Brian Snitker seems to be wary of Baldwin’s ceiling against lefties, even though he’s posted a .912 OPS in 27 plate appearances. That means that Murphy — who, to be fair, has a .913 OPS against lefties — should get the start tonight with the Mets starting southpaw David Peterson ($9,000). Last Wednesday, Peterson pitched his first-ever complete game shutout (37.7 FPTS), but he still allows a lot of hard hits, a statistic in which Murphy is above average.
OUTFIELDER
Stud
Teoscar Hernández, Los Angeles Dodgers vs. San Diego Padres, $5,100 – After a poor stretch towards the end of May and the start of June in which he slashed just .057/.128/.086 (2.9 FPTS per game) across a nine-game run, he’s found his form and has now scored a run in four of his last five games. That includes a three-game homer streak, his second such run of the season. One of Hernández’s biggest issues is his eighth-percentile whiff rate, but that should be nullified somewhat by Randy Vásquez ($6,300), who has induced whiffs at just a second-percentile clip. Vásquez’s 3.57 ERA is fine, but his 5.91 expected ERA is not. He also throws cutters a plurality of the time, and Hernández has gotten incredibly unlucky when he’s made contact with a cutter, so chance could normalize tonight.
Stud
Randy Arozarena, Seattle Mariners vs. Boston Red Sox, $4,000 – I remember the Arozarena mania when he made his debut in the 2020 Covid-affected season, went on to win ALCS MVP and Rookie of the Year the following season, and admittedly, I haven’t thought about him much since. However, he’s been stellar as of late, posting a .314/.467/.486 slash line with five extra-base hits, eight walks, and three stolen bases (10.7 FPTS per game) over his last 10 games. Walker Buehler ($7,000) has not been, conceding five, five, and three earned runs in his last three starts, ballooning his ERA from 3.95 to 5.01. The former Cy Young contender hasn’t been the same since undergoing his second Tommy John surgery in the summer of 2022.
Value
Giancarlo Stanton, New York Yankees vs. Los Angeles Angels, $4,000 – Stanton had a fairly strong debut, going two-for-four with a double (eight FPTS). All three times he made contact, the ball rocketed at more than 100 miles per hour, and though his launch angles weren’t ideal and he whiffed a few too many times, the fact that he made such hard contact is promising. He might be able to fix the whiffing issue somewhat against Kyle Hendricks ($6,200), who has induced misses at just a first-percentile rate, and while Hendricks is adept at avoiding hard hits, thanks to his reliance on off-speed pitches, Stanton has the raw power to take even a slow pitch deep. I like this matchup for Stanton even before considering Los Angeles’ atrocious bullpen.
