Welcome to the dog days of summer: it’s hot and muggy, the NFL and NBA are a long way from starting their seasons, and every day seems to blend into the next.
Thankfully, this Tuesday also offers one of the more compelling MLB slates yet. Tonight’s 13-game featured MLB DFS contest includes established legends, like newly-minted 11-time All-Star Clayton Kershaw ($7,700) and rising stars like Jacob Misiorowski ($9,300), who will oppose him on the mound. Here are two pitchers, three outfielders, and three infielders for today’s action.
Set your DraftKings fantasy baseball lineups here: MLB $222K Bat Flip [$50K to 1st]
PITCHER
Stud
Hunter Brown, Houston Astros vs. Cleveland Guardians, $11,000 – The Astros are arguably the hottest team in baseball after sweeping the Los Angeles Dodgers over the weekend, and through the first seven games in July, they’ve posted the league’s highest OPS. That brilliance is largely driven by Brown, who has helped his team to wins in each of his last seven starts by pitching to a 1.49 ERA across 42.1 innings, walking 13 and striking out 55 (25.5 FPTS per game). He’s also been even better at home, averaging 29.1 FPTS per game at Daikin Park, making him well worth his exorbitant salary, especially against a Guardians team that, since the start of June, has gone just 10-22 with a putrid .604 OPS.
Value
Eury Pérez, Miami Marlins at Cincinnati Reds, $6,000 – Pérez is one of the highest-ceiling options for his DFS salary, having finished seventh in NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2023 before missing all of last season recovering from Tommy John surgery. After a shaky start to the season, he demonstrated his utter dominance on July 3, blanking the Minnesota Twins for six innings, allowing just one hit and walking one while striking out seven (30.3 FPTS). Baseball Savant figures that he’s been incredibly unlucky this season, with a 3.01 expected ERA that ranks in the league’s top quintile and is far better than his actual 4.50 mark. It’s a talented offense at a hitter-friendly park, but Cincinnati has had the second-worst OPS so far this month.
INFIELDER
Stud
Bobby Witt Jr., Kansas City Royals vs. Pittsburgh Pirates, $5,400 – Witt has been red-hot in recent weeks for a Royals team that, despite sitting second in its division, is five games back of the final American League Wild Card spot. Over his last 10 games, the 25-year-old has posted a .439/.455/.659 slash line, with 10 RBI’s and 13 runs scored (13.9 FPTS per game), including double-digit outputs in six of his last seven games. Pirates starter Mitch Keller ($7,400) isn’t terrible, pitching to a 2.40 ERA (17.4 FPTS per game) over his last five starts, but I would trust Witt against any Pittsburgh hurler not named Paul Skenes. Keller has held righties to a microscopic .541 OPS this season, but Witt negates some of that platoon edge with his reverse splits.
Stud
Romy Gonzalez, Boston Red Sox vs. Colorado Rockies, $4,400 – Gonzalez, like Witt, has been incredibly hot as of late, with a .382/.378/.765 slash line over his last 10 games (10.5 FPTS per game), and the Red Sox are on a four-game winning streak while former Boston star Rafael Devers ($4,600) slumps in San Francisco. With the Red Sox facing a fourth straight southpaw tonight, I’d expect the 28-year-old to be in the lineup. Kyle Freeland ($5,000) is a very, very bad lefty, with a 1-9 record and more negative fantasy output games (four) than 20-plus-point performances (two) this season. Gonzalez is a boom-or-bust hitter, with a world-class hard-hit percentage and average exit velocity and a terrible chase and whiff percentage, while Freeland — he of the 22nd-percentile whiff percentage and 30th-percentile hard hit percentage — is more bust than boom.
Value
Sean Murphy, Atlanta Braves at Athletics, $3,500 – Murphy has been on the short end of a platoon with slumping Rookie of the Year candidate Drake Baldwin ($4,000), but with southpaw Jeffrey Springs ($6,300) on the mound for the Athletics, I’d expect the right-handed Murphy to man the dish. He, too, has been on fire, with a 1.086 OPS and 8.6 FPTS per game over his last 10 contests, and he’s averaged 1.5 more FPTS per game on the road than he has at home. Meanwhile, while Springs is a decent pitcher who rarely loses the game for his team outright, he has pitched to just a 4.72 ERA at hitter-friendly Sutter Health Park. Springs also struggles to induce ground balls, which won’t help against a hitter who finds the launch-angle sweet spot 37.4% of the time.
OUTFIELDER
Stud
Pete Crow-Armstrong, Chicago Cubs at Minnesota Twins, $5,500 – In his last five games, Crow-Armstrong has alternated excellent performances with invisible ones, posting 22, then zero, then 38, then two, then 13 FPTS. I’m banking on him to break that trend and put up another double-digit performance tonight against a pitching staff that has been among the league’s worst over the last month and a half. Minnesota’s starter tonight is Simeon Woods Richardson ($6,800), who’s actually been one of the team’s steadier options, but he has extreme platoon splits, allowing a .628 OPS to right-handers and an .848 OPS to southpaws. Woods Richardson also likes to rely on his four-seam fastball, throwing it on 46% of his pitches, and Crow-Armstrong has posted an impressive .373 expected wOBA against four-seamers this season.
Stud
Randy Arozarena, Seattle Mariners at New York Yankees, $4,700 – Arozarena has quietly become one of my favorite options to include in targets, thanks to his continued hot form over the last month. He’s stepped it up another notch in his last 10 games, slashing .333/.349/.795 with six homers and 11 RBI’s (13.2 FPTS per game) and forming a devastating power duo with Cal Raleigh ($6,200) in the middle of the Mariners’ lineup. Meanwhile, although it’s early, the Bronx Bombers have allowed 53 runs in 49 innings so far this month, winning just one of six games. I don’t think Will Warren ($8,000), who’s coming off of a four-inning, 10-hit, eight-run (negative-7.4-FPT) disaster north of the border, will help much in that regard.
Value
Nathan Lukes, Toronto Blue Jays at Chicago White Sox, $3,100 – There’s a plethora of reasons that the Blue Jays are the hottest team in baseball, winning each of their last nine games to take a 3.5-game lead atop the AL East, but Lukes is one of them. The 30-year-old, who’s been a relatively soft-hitting platoon player for most of the season, has slashed .333/.455/.519 over his last 10 games (7.8 FPTS per game) with three double-digit fantasy efforts over his last three games. He should get the start today against right-hander Aaron Civale ($5,500), who’s given up five or more runs twice in his last three starts and has issued two or more walks in four of his last five. Lukes also has a 92nd-percentile whiff percentage, which should work in his favor against a below-average White Sox defense.
